The Redemption Project - Corin

This past week, we celebrated the birthday of two of our cats. Shasta and his brother Corin turned sixteen this past Friday. And other than the first six weeks of their life, they've lived with us all those years.

Birthdays for these boys are special since both are miracle boys, meaning at a point we thought we'd lose them and, yet, another January comes and they still share out bed and keep our lives interesting. Of the two, though, I find myself every so often saying a little prayer of thanks for our Prince, Corin.

Corin has both inflammatory bowel disease and lymphoma. The former we struggled to treat for years when we first moved into this house, trying food after food to discover the right one to manage his symptoms. The latter came in the summer of '15.

Over two nights, our little boy was in horrible pain. He woke us on a Sunday night with cries that broke our hearts. It took hours of us attempting to provide some relief and debating the all-night pet hospital before he fell asleep. The next day, we took him to the vet, got more medicine, and then endured another night of our fuzzy little friend in misery.

The day following, Leanne took him to the vet again. She called me at work, asking me to come. There were two options, exploratory surgery, which may or may not provide a solution, or saying goodbye. We didn't want to do the latter, nor did we want to prolong his suffering.

God was gracious to us. We were introduced to an amazing vet, Dr. Madison, who diagnosed our boy and, at long last, provided a medication regimen that kept his illness in check. Four-and-a-half years later, even Dr. Madison looks at him with amazement.

Part of what I believe about the ultimate redemption of all things is that beautiful line from the twenty first chapter of the Book of Revelations where amidst the vision of this new Heaven and new Earth we are told that death is no more as are mourning and sorrow and pain. All those former things have passed away.

That world is not yet realized, of course. Death has already visited friends of ours this year. And I, like you, live with the knowledge that all those I hold dear are mortal and, one day, I will find myself waking to a world without them.

But there are small signs of that world to come. And we do our small things each day with the promise that there will come a time when the broken pieces will be mended.

And, for us, there's this long-tailed boy who lies on our laps, purring and giving us just the slightest glimpse of what lies ahead.