Sunday, February 9, 2014

The Most Difficult Goodbye

Sadie had fourteen fabulous years with her owner.  Years of playing Frisbee, car rides, boat trips and other adventures, not to mention being and giving love.


But still, we want more time from our pets, don't we?  It's never a long enough time.  It is hard to sit back and think it was plenty.  It's not a bad thing to be greedy for a sound love in our lives. 

Yet when we lose our pets, we seem to lose a part of our lives and we say good bye to all of that.  Our pets document our time and define many events we experience during those years. 

Pets are a gift to us.  Their unconditional love reminds us that it is possible to experience love that doesn't become angry and doesn't put conditions and expectations we can never meet.  It is the kind of love that only God maintains perfectly and eternally.  It isn't something we see in our lives often.  It is why when we experience it tangibly, we grieve its passing.

But striving for the love of God, striving toward God, allows us to experience the flow of God's love in a way that never ends.  And that is a solid comfort.

1 comment:

  1. Aww, sympathy to Sadie's family. I have had many pets over the years. Having to make that ultimate decision of letting my selfish needs go and allowing the pet to spend it's final day on earth. Seldom have I had a pet pass on it's own. My hardest decision was with a timber wolf/shepard mix. At 14, Crockett was horribly unhealthy, but his mind was still sharp. Which, I believe, was why it became so hard to let him go. He was the perfect dog (I say this now LOL, but he was as close to perfect as it gets). I still cry over him sometimes and this was over 10 years ago that we made the somber trip to the vet. His ashes stay on a shelf, he will always be remembered. The many stories, both good and bad, have come up in conversations over the years.
    Grieving stinks to say the least. But in life we will grieve. The only way I have been able to handle any kind of losses, human or animal, is through God's comfort.

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