Mack-In-A-Box

My husband Monty and I have three cats.  One of them is Mackin.  Our Mackin is sweet and loving and has an innocence about him that tugs on my heartstrings.  He’s also afraid of everything.  If he hears an unfamiliar noise, he freezes, closes his eyes, and stays that way for several minutes.  If we bring something new into the house, he circles it for days before he even comes close to it.  When he sneezes, his tail gets bushy, and he runs and hides.  Last week, he suddenly got frightened by the bird designs on our comforter, even though we’ve had it for months.

Mackin’s favorite thing in the world is boxes—I think he feels safe when he’s hiding in a box.  About a year ago, there were some videos on Facebook of people putting tape on their carpet in the shape of a box and then seeing what their cats would do.  Monty and I tried it—we put some tape down and waited.  Two of our cats walked over to the tape, investigated it, and left.  Mackin went to the tape and jumped over it as if it were the side of a box.  He curled up and went to sleep, careful to remain inside the tape.  Mackin fully believed he was in a box every time he went to that section of taped carpet—he jumped in and settled, certain that he was safe in his box.

I am so much like Mackin.  I struggle with fear as much as he does.  If there were a human-sized box for me to hide in, I’d probably be writing this in there right now.  I was talking to my mom a few nights ago about a personal situation that has filled me with fear.  I told Mom that I was going to go home and Google some of the details of the situation, and Mom said, “If you need to Google something, Google verses about fear and the sovereignty of God.”

Later that night, my stomach started churning as my mind began to run away with all of the awful possibilities of the situation that was making me so afraid.  So I took Mom’s advice and Googled some verses.  One of the first I found was from Job, where God points Job out to Satan as an example of a “blameless and upright man.”  Satan responds by scoffing, “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has?  You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.”  (Job 1:10)

In the time of Job, in ancient Near Eastern cultures, building a fence around your property would have been impossible, as trees were few and far between.  So people grew hedges to protect their property—not the neatly trimmed ones we have now, but the kind made up of thick, thorn-filled bushes that were nearly impossible to penetrate.  The hedges kept predators out while keeping livestock like sheep and goats in.

That second use for hedges is the one that I usually need the most.  I need to be surrounded by a hedge so filled with thorns and tangled branches that getting through it causes me too much pain to want to try.  Because I’ve done that before.  Years ago, when my fears turned into a full-blown panic disorder, I was so desperate not to feel that I hacked my way through the hedge and began self-medicating, which led to a ten-year battle with drugs and alcohol.  I still bear the scars of the thorns that cut me along the way.   And though I’ve been clean and sober for seven years, the fear didn’t go away.  I still struggle to keep my thoughts from going into a tailspin of “what ifs.”  Which is what would have happened the other night if I hadn’t taken my mom’s advice and deliberately shifted my thoughts to God’s truth, not my own dark, alternate reality.

The other verse that I came across in my Google search is one of my favorites that I had somehow forgotten:  “You hem me in behind and before, and You lay Your hand upon me.”  (Psalm 139:5)  That image of being hemmed in—surrounded by protective hedges—reminded me of Mackin in his “box” made from tape.  He had complete faith that he was protected and safe there.  I need that same kind of faith—faith that God knows where I should be far better than I do.  Faith that I’m strong enough to face my fears and not run from them because God’s hand is on me.

We eventually had to take the tape that formed Mackin’s box off the floor—it was coming apart, and Mackin’s brothers were eating it.  But Mackin found other boxes to hide in.  And he remembered the first place he’d felt completely safe and starting spending time there again.  In his father’s arms.