Gut Feelings

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Back in the summer of 2007, I’ll admit my life was, how do they say, “in transition.”  My job sucked, my sister was moving to Chicago, I was going to be homeless in thirty days and my boyfriend of nine months had just broken up with me. I did what any rational person would do: I got a cat.

On a warm June day, I marched into the Apple Valley PetSmart determined to walk out with a new furry friend. I wandered around the adoption section looking at all the cats that needed a home. All of them purred and playfully pawed at the children poking their stubby fingers into the cages, begging to be cuddled and played with. Everyone but this cat. Ginger.

 

She was white with ginger colored patches, a pretty pink nose and weighed all of nine pounds when wet. She also hissed, snarled and growled the second anybody approached her area, including her current foster owner. I crouched down and said hello in a soft sing-songy voice. She barred her teeth and hissed loudly back at me.  Then she curled up at the back of the cage and glared at me with her thinly slit eyes. 

I told the foster owner I’d take her. 

Upon seeing the white devil, Brooke and Jake implored me to reconsider. They begged me to keep looking. I smiled and said, “I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve just got this feeling about her.” And I decided to rename her “Gigi.”

She hissed the entire way to the car. We had to pull over several times to put her back in the cardboard box she so desperately tried to escape. That cat growled and made noises only a creature truly possessed by Satan himself could make.  I pretended not to hear Brooke and Jake discussing the return policy in the back seat.

Within ten minutes of being inside the apartment, she relaxed. The next day she sat next to me on the couch. By the end of the week, she was curled up on the bed with me while I read before sleeping.  

So, what does Gigi have to do with a house?

I tell people this story because I am a firm believer that God talks to me through my “gut feelings.” God understands I’m not easy to reason with and I have a tendency to steamroll our conversations. But, God has learned what DOES get my attention: my gut. It’s a knot in my stomach when I’m on the brink of making a bad decision like that belly button piercing with the dangling charms (still have the scar from when that ripped) or signing a lease on that one apartment and actually believing that air conditioning wasn’t a necessity.

It’s that happy flutter when I stumble upon something truly and supremely wonderful like the moment I met my husband or when I discovered Oreos dipped in peanut butter.  Truth is, I’ve never been led down the wrong path when I listened to my gut.

And I have a gut feeling about this house. I know that its laundry list of repairs and city code violations should have us walking away and looking for that nice house that everyone immediately loves. With yards that aren’t overgrown, a garage that isn’t buckling and a basement that doesn’t need to be gutted.

But the feeling I get when I look at this place is just like when I spotted Ms. Gigi. That she wasn’t a bad cat; she just needed the right person to see her potential.  

And who knows. Maybe the house feels the same way.