Pets & Death

Creation. It is so beautiful, Such a gift. So many diverse aspects. How wonderful this world that Christ has created for us, and yet so far less than when first prepared, so much degredation, so much destruction.

This week was a sad day in our house. Our precious and dear THEO, a shetland sheep dog, was struck and killed by a truck. In one brief moment our lives were disrupted and violently jolted out of order into a moment of pain, fear, destruction, confusion and death.

Images of what I saw, still repeat in my heart and head. Our dog fighting and kicking though dying, my daughter screaming and crying in the house, my oldest son carrying a broken and bloodied body, my other son crying standing there not sure what to do, neighbors faces sadddened, a truck driver confused and feeling horrible as he sat on the bumper of his truck crying as well...

Part of my business person kicked into control mode, yet shaken by the trama of the moment. What do I do, how do I remedy, what's first, what's next, calls to my husband, the vet, the police. What to do, what to do.

I found myself going back and forth between each person at the scene trying to help comfort them , touching, hugging & holding, as I knew they needed it more than I did. These were my kids. My comfort comes later...That driver, how guilty and horrible he must feel...My comfort comes later...my neighbors daughter crying because her dog was killed the same way, and she revisited the event in her heart...My comfort comes later...

Death has such a sting.... and this was only an animal, with no spirit, no eternity. Death always stinks, and is horrible, regardless of how expected it is... What a difference in that moment when there was still life in Theo to the moment when it was gone...I've seen death, or should I say the absence of life. I've been to enough funerals to know that, but to see something go from living to dead. That is horrible. That is so unexpected. So absolutely different.

Today I sit here thinking back and thanking the Lord for the time we had Theo, How precious a gift, as frustrating as some moments were. Yet my heart is saddened for my kids, this is more their loss than mine...I purposed not to get to attached to Theo and yet here the tears roll....

Strange not to have to watch where I'm walking, strange how familiar I got to hear his nails hitting the wood floors as he walked and paced the house, how empty the quietness, the lack of greeting as we reentered the house, the lack of barking at certain sounds and movements around the house... how strange those unfulfilled expectant noises are...

Today I can't help but wonder what Adam and Eve must have felt like to actually see the animal sacrificed for their sin (Gen 3:21) How they didn't know what death was, how they had no concept of that moment, that possiblity, that reality. How did they live the rest of their life out.

Though I wrote the novel about Adam and that very situation was played out in the opening chapters, it had not been personally experienced by me, and yet now I can more fully understand it...The pain, the trama, the horror.

This world of ours, as wonderful as it may be, has the reality of violence, death and destruction and that is all because of mankinds sinful nature and the continued pursuit of sin. There is only ONE remedy for all of it - Jesus....

I continue to look up and look to the Lord for the comfort of knowing that one day all of the compounded death, destruction and trama that this world, brings will one day be swallowed up in the victory of Jesus Christ as He returns.

To be able to one day embrace the hope of Glory, the promise of eternal life and the restoration of all things, requires my choice today and now....to surrender to a different Kingdom and Authority...while still living in this one....

Therein lies my Hope -

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