All my life I have been a do it myself, control all things, if no one will do it for me I will do it myself kind of girl.
For my job I have always always been the one to control situations that have to do with the volunteers I work with. Once a year, we have one big Sunday where we celebrate existing volunteers and ask for new people to partner with us to "Lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ". Every year for the past 5 years I have managed {controlled} the process by which these new people are contacted. I have been responsible for their first impression of what we {I} do.
This year Strategic Service happens on Sunday, March 21st. Not only will I not be here for that Sunday, to help manage {control} the process itself, but I will also not be here the following week when we reach out to and call all of the new volunteers.
I am leaving a list of Q&A for the people that will be calling volunteers and trusting that all will go well. I totally believe that each of the other people who are involved in this process are going to be totally fine, who will probably do a better job than I have ever done, but there is something in me that is still fearful that something will go wrong.
For my bug {my daughter} I have been the main caretaker for her for her 3 years of life. Sure she goes to my moms and sure I have left her alone over night with my mom. Sure I have even gone "out of town" and left her with my mom. But each of those times I have only been MAX about 1 1/2 hours away. Still in the same state.
On Thursday, March 18th, I am leaving my daughter with my mom and I am going half way across the world. I will be 1 1/2 days away from her! This is by far the hardest thing I have ever done. Of course, I keep having all of those "what if" conversations with myself. I know my mom will take care of her, I know she will have fun, I know I will be back soon and the reunion will be amazing! But I also know that my bug is my life and I am fearful that something will go wrong.
And then there is my cat. Yeah, yeah, she is a cat. What is that compared to my daughter and my job? But if you are a cat person, or even a pet person you understand. My cat, Maggie, has just been diagnosed with chronic renal failure. I have had her for 18 years. I got her when she was a tiny, tiny baby. She is such a sweet kitty.
All of her life she has only loved me. When I first got her, I had some friends over and was trying to find her so I could show her off to my friends and looked and looked all over my apartment and finally found her in the litter box! She was so scared and that was the best place she could find where she would be safe and away from everyone. She has been that way her entire life. I have been the only person she likes. She is still a hider and still a scared-y cat.
But she is beautiful and soft and fat and fluffy. She has 2 different colored eyes and fur as soft as a rabbit. She always smells like baby powder and is always, always spotless clean. She has a little tiny pink nose and always hides her sweet face in my arms when she is around other people. She curls up on me at night to sleep and loves to do back flips! If I am sitting down, I can pick her up and put her on her back and she will flip her legs over and do a perfect back flip! I wish I would have gotten it on video sometime :(
She is very consistent in her behavior. Always the same. So when I didnt see her around for a few days I was a little concerned. I looked around for her and found her in her usual spot under the bed. She seemed fine so I didnt worry then. But yesterday, yesterday was a different story. I went into the bathroom and she was there. She ALWAYS comes over to me when I am in the bathroom and rubs on my legs. ALWAYS! When she didnt, I called her over to me. She didnt come. So I went over to her and picked her up and hugged her. I set her back down on the floor and she fell over, stumbled a bit and then laid down again. I knew immediately something was wrong. I took her down stairs to the kitchen to show my husband and while she didnt fall again, she did stumble and then laid down under the table. We immediately took her to the emergency room. The doctors first initial observation was that she probably had kidney failure. I left her with them so they could hydrate her and monitor her and they would call me back with a diagnosis.
Well they did call. She does have CRF. The Dr described her levels like this: a "normal" cat has neoplasia (?) levels of 1030. His moms cat had renal failure with levels of 1018 and my cat has a level of 1015. While this doesn't mean much to me, the fact that his moms cat had 1018 and he ~ a veterinarian~ treated her, she lived only 6 more months. My cat has a lower level and I am going to be treating her.
This is where the trust factor comes into place. I am leaving the country. My cat will need treatments several times a week. This will need to start while I am gone. I am having to rely on a dear friend to care for her. I know Kelly will love Maggie the cat like her own, I am still fearful that something will go wrong.
So while I know that all of the above situations will be ok, I also know that in order to have peace and be able to concentrate on our mission, I am going to have to go and trust that God is ultimately in control and He will handle all of this for me.
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