09/01/2024
DOES GOD LOVE PETS?
A few years ago, I went through a very difficult time grieving the loss of my first dog, Cookie. She passed due to kidney failure just short of her 15th birthday. This dog had been with me through thick and thin, watched me enter adulthood through university, and was there for pretty much half my life to lend a furry ear or a supportive paw. She was my world and literally my only family at the time. When she passed, it felt like my whole world was shattered in one instant, and nothing would ever be the same again. If you don’t know what it feels like to lose a furry loved one, consider yourself one of the lucky ones.
Little did I know that moment would set me on a whirlwind journey in my relationship with the Almighty. In the beginning, I blamed everything on this "God" who allowed my Cookie to suffer. How could He take her away, the only thing in my world that mattered, and call this love—just so maybe I would turn to Him instead? I was raised a “Christian” of sorts, but I never opened the Bible and would just call on Him whenever needed, like a genie. Nor did I enter a church every Sunday. So, I didn’t really know God, but it was convenient to lash out my anger at Him since He was always around. Even if God didn’t cause her demise, He allowed it, right? After all, He is sovereign, isn’t He? For the next couple of months, I cursed Him and spent my working days arguing with my believer friend, Taayla, who was at that moment on her own catapult into a deep relationship with God.
Actually, even though I didn’t know it at the time, God was blanketing me with His love and kindness through people from the Bible study I barely attended. They would randomly drop off gifts, cook dinner for me, sit with me, and grieve with me, even though these people didn’t really know me. This was during the tail end of COVID, and we only saw each other in sporadic Zoom meetings. Every single day for two whole months, someone would reach out—whether to drop off food, call, send gifts, or offer counsel. I didn’t see it as an act of God at the time; I just thought, “Oh, that’s nice,” too blinded by my grief to see anything beyond anger and pain.
However, when I think about it now, these were very busy people, yet God put it in their minds and hearts to buy extra dinner and drop it off, spend an hour calling me on the phone, or buy me things on Amazon and send them over. All the while, I was cursing God every chance I got. God was actually worried that I was not eating and tried to cheer me up with gifts, even as I cursed Him. It still makes me misty-eyed just thinking about His grace and mercy in my life despite my best efforts to push Him away.
So, where does that leave me? My beloved dog suffered from kidney failure and died, yet there is an almighty God who IS love. How does one make sense of that? I won’t go into my whole journey to the answer on suffering now, as that’s a whole other future post. But through the years since then, I’ve often wondered if God cares about animals. Almost everyone—Christian and Catholic alike—has told me dogs don’t go to heaven, that they don’t have souls. By the end of my grieving period, I had accepted this as fact, but I still hoped for the unknown—that maybe Cookie is up there in heaven right now, enjoying a snack and waiting for me.
I tried to put the question aside as I worked on building a relationship with this strange God and move on. But one day, while dog-sitting my friend’s dog, Max, who had helped me through my grief more than anyone else, something extraordinary happened. I was about to take Max on a fun day out together, and he had his harness and leash ready to go, awaiting adventure in the backseat.
I had stopped at a red light, and some random guy crossing the street stopped and just stared directly in our direction. I was a little creeped out, and he kept staring at me! Finally, as the light was about to turn green, he continued crossing but suddenly doubled back and ran right at me! I made sure my door was locked, but he knocked on the window and yelled, “His leash is hanging out the door!”
“Oh!” I thanked him and looked back at Max’s leash, and I had indeed slammed the door shut on the edge of his leash. So strange, I thought! The light turned green, so I couldn’t get out to release the leash. Instead, I unhooked it from his harness. Literally five seconds later, I heard the loudest bang—so loud I thought something had exploded or my car had broken down! I came to a screeching halt amidst a bunch of angry cars, unaware of why I had stopped for no apparent reason. I put the emergency lights on and checked all around the car and found Max’s leash had caught on the wheel, shot through the door somehow, and was now outside! The strength and speed of the force was so intense that it busted through my car door! Had it been attached to Max, I am sure there would have been an injury of immense proportions. I shudder to think about how the harness would have ripped through his furry little body and the horror of his shrieks.
I pulled over, and Max and I just looked at each other and hugged in relief as if he knew what had just happened and how close of a call that was.
That night, I thought about how strange the whole event was. It couldn’t have been a coincidence; it was truly a miracle. Why did the man notice us, especially since I was in the middle of a six-lane street? How did he see Max, a small, white, fluffy dog lying down in the backseat, or the barely visible handle of the leash sticking out of the door? I don’t even know how it got caught in the back wheel. I concluded that the whole thing was an act of God, but I thought He didn’t care about animals. “By His stripes, we are healed” was just meant for humans, right? Or were we all wrong? Maybe He cares because we care? But what about Cookie?
I can’t believe I didn’t think about it before, but why not look into the Bible for the answers? I had just been asking for people’s opinions, but what did they really know? The verses revealed to me that night that God truly does care, and the misery I went through with Cookie was the work of an enemy who wants to steal our joy, our faith, and then kill us. And if that wasn’t enough, to destroy what’s leftover! (John 10:10: “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”) Funnily enough, all the animal verses came up as I was perusing the Bible that night, like Luke 12:24: “Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap; they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!” Or Matthew 6:26, which pretty much says the same thing: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”
Sure, we are more valuable than animals, but God feeds them! In my world, if you feed me, you care! Not to mention everything in Genesis about creation! So the nagging question still remains, what about Cookie? Why did she have to suffer so? The answer is long, but the short version is no, she did not have to suffer. Sadly, I didn’t know then what I know now and didn’t believe in miracles. At the time, how would I know that we have dominion over all animals, as it says in Genesis?
I will list all the verses below that I came across during that night and you can form your own conclusions.
Psalm 50:10
Isaiah 11:6
Genesis 1:30-31
Genesis 1:26-31
Poverbs 12:10
Psalms 145:9
Psalms 148:7, 10
Noah’s Ark and how God saves the animals.
Yours in faith,
Jan
