I took our new kittens to the vet yesterday for their first vaccinations. It was actually the first time I’d taken any of our pets to the vet. And when I arrived, checked-in and sat down in the waiting area along with a dozen other pets and pet-owners, I was unprepared for what I was about to experience.
I was unprepared because I didn’t know that if you are a pet-owner you are part of a family of pet-owners. While sitting in the waiting room with Snowball and Snowflake (names given to our kittens by my daughter), people began talking to me like they’d known me for years.
“I bet your children love those kittens.”
“Our kids love our dog, Otto.”
“I remember when I first purchased our dog. Our kids were still toddlers.”
“We were just married and two weeks after our honeymoon my wife saw our dog and her heart melted.”
I learned about Lacey the cat, whose sister died of diabetes a few years ago, and I learned what danger signs I should watch for in our own kittens as they grow up. I met Kitty (an original name), the 19-year old cat whose owner found her clutched between the teeth of their dog one winter morning when he went outside to get the newspaper (interestingly the cat was fine, but the dog’s face was bloodied with multiple cat scratches). I met Otto the rescued Boxer and Chloe the Pomeranian, who gets a good shave every summer to help her stay cool.
And with every conversation I also learned a little about each owner. One owner’s husband was a youth pastor in the area. One retired couple indicated that since their children had moved out of the house, their animals were like their new children. One man had taken the day off work to bring his dog in, and had been waiting 2½ hours in the waiting room because he didn’t have an appointment that day. But he wasn’t in a hurry and didn’t mind the wait.
When customers left they said “good-bye” to other owners as if they had known them for a lot longer than thirty minutes or an hour.
And as I was driving back home, reflecting on the experience, I realized that I had learned more than just a few names and stories. I had witnessed this truth of human nature: People long to share their story and hear yours, when done so in the safety of a loving, accepting environment. We like to share our stories with people we believe are interested and can identify with them. We like to know and be known in the context of family. And in this case we were a family of pet owners.
I tell you all that, because this truth obviously applies outside the realm of pet ownership, too. We all, in life, want to know and be known, love and be loved, celebrate and be celebrated. And, in fact, this is one of the most important jobs of any Christian church, to increasingly become a place of safety and joy and acceptance and love, to truly become a family united, not by out pets, but, by our membership in the family of God.
So will you listen to another’s story this week? Give someone a call. Take someone out for coffee or lunch. Really listen.
Share your story, too. And as you do, remember that we have a heavenly father who already knows our story and who longs to be a daily part of it, bringing us love, peace, purpose and joy. The Psalmist reminds us of this in Psalm 139:
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.”
