Religion is always a great topic. I personally enjoy talking about it because i get to see all the different perceptions, etc, and what people feel God wants them to do, and how they feel about Him, etc.
let me start this off by saying that I am a VERY non-judgemental person when it comes to religion. I think everyone has a right to believe whatever they want to believe.
I dont really know how id quantify my "religion" as i do not attend any sort of church at all. I don't get much out of going to a formal church service of any kind, and I've tried plenty of different ones. I guess i feel like a formal church service is an attempt to put a "one size fits all" spin on organized religion. the clergyperson cannot possiblt write a sermon that everyone can relate to, nor sholg they be expected to. That being said, i feel like it's a waste of my time.
However, I see God at work in the world every day, and I don't really have to look too hard to find it. I can relate a great personal experience to you that illustrates it. it's a little long, but it makes my point.
A few years back, my wife and I were sitting at home having breakfast. This grey cat shows up at our back door meowing. We don't like to see any animal go without, especially one as skinny as this one, so we got a bowl out, put some food in it, and opened the door to put it outside so shed have something to eat. She didn't go for the food - instead she immediately ran into the house. now, at the time, we felt that we had all the cats we wanted in the house, so we put her back out. She kept coming back and trying to get in the house. Finally we let her come in, but kept her separate from the other cats because we didnt know what kind of diseases she might have. we put an ad in the paper in hopes that someone would call and want to adopt her. The next day, we got a call from a family who was interested. they came over to meet her, and they liked her. they didnt have a cat carrier, so we handed her over and they took her to the car. as they were getting in, she jumped out and ran away. they said that it was okay, because they needed to go to the store to get food and litter, etc. And that theyd come back once they did that. Well, they never came back. However, about 20 minutes later, she was at the back door waiting to be let in. I decided to give her a bath, which she let me do with NO resistance, and we discovered that she wasnt grey, but white. The next day, we took her in for her vet appointment that wed made for her, because we wanted to NOT keep her cooped up in one room if we could avoid it, and we wanted to set up an appointment to get her spayed. we were prepared to have her put down if she had some sort of illness like FeLV, FIP, etc. Well, she was perfectly healthy - no illnesses or anything, just extremely skinny for a pregnant cat. The vet told us that she was lucky we found her when we did, because the pregnancy combined with her malnutrition (she weighed 6 lbs) would have certainly killed the kittens within a few days, and probably would have killed her too. When i heard that news, i was like "oh boy"...
the vet told me that he could spay her even with the kittens in there, but ive always been against abortion and have always considered myself an animal lover, so i discussed it with my wife, and we agreed that we were gonna be stuck with kittens. about a month later, she gave birth to 8 kittens. Let me tell you, raising 8 kittens was NOT a good time. We found homes for all but 2 of them. we kept the 2 kittens plus mommy.
Now, how does God figure into this, you ask? well, we asked around to all our neighbors, if they had lost a white cat. not only had none of them lost her, none of them had even SEEN her. What told her to go to OUR house? How did she know that she'd be taken care of if she came to us? I believe that God guided her here. Also, I think God places chioces in our path to test us. We certainly could have aborted those kittens, and nobody would have thought anything less of us for doing it. it was as if God said to me "okay, you claim to love animals, and you claim to not believe in abortion - show me." it was a VERY stressful time, having all those kittens in our house, and I wouldnt want to do it again, but i never regretted it for a second. As a result, we have 3 beautiful and loving additions to our home. They give us SO much more than I feel like we give them, they're a true blessing and a joy to be around. I think that everyone on earth is here for a purpose, or multiple purposes. if the most important thing I ever do in my life winds up being rescuing Lily( which is what we named her) I'll be perfectly fine with that.
if you think about it, Jesus, when he was on the earth, did not spend his time with the wealthy or the noble. he spent his time with the common man, and with those who needed Him most. granted, a lot of people would say "it's just a cat" but arent they God's creatures as well? I'm sure that he loves them too, and helps them. She was definitely a cat who needed help, and I'm thankful she came to us to get it - we've definitely been repaid.
Again, I apologize that this was so long, and I could go on with another cat-related story, but I wont bore you guys. I just wanted to say that religion can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
