A Prayer for the Loss of a Beloved Pet
N.B.: Moose Tracks is healthy at this writing. Multiple friends have recently lost dear pets. This post is for y’all.
A Prayer
Father of life, Creator of all creatures great and small:
Thank You for the good gift of our heart animals, the creature companions who help us better understand Your love. You know the tally of each sparrow’s days and the quota of tail wags, walks, belly rubs, and purrs for each dog and cat we love. You know how many skins each reptile sheds, how many canters around each horse’s paddock, how many gambols of each goat, how many bubbles from each fish.
You also know how big is the hole left when our beloved pet’s days come to an end. It hurts, and the memories of those final moments can feel stronger than all the good that came before.
Pour in comfort that overflows the cavern of grief. Help us to look to You in our sadness, for every good thing in our precious animals is an arrow pointing to You. Keep our hearts open to love, despite this intense reminder that love means pain too.
Lord, we wait earnestly for the restoration of all things, when You will wipe away every tear and death will be no more. There all mourning will be comforted; there all sorrow and sighing will flee. Nothing will be lacking for our joy, and everything will be provided for our joy.
God of lilies and sparrows, look with tender mercy on our grief, and send plentiful reminders that You are with us in the middle of it and treasure us infinitely more than we love our creature companions.
In Jesus’ name, we lift our grief and gratitude. Amen.
The Electing Love of God and the Ebony Dog
Dogs pick their people, or so they say.
Once upon a time,
A black super-dachshund named Rex,
Left at a shelter so long the volunteers feared it was permanent,
Chose me to be his Person.
Before I had done anything for him, good or bad,
Before I changed his name to Ebony,
With the inscrutability of grace,
He picked me.
To the Ebony Dog [https://www.crumbsfromhistable.com/2018/06/12-things-you-may-not-know-about-ebony.html],
I was never too much,
Even when I was.
He drew all the closer to my tears,
Kissing them away from my face.
He wagged his tail with my laughter.
He nestled against my leg or belly
In my hours upon hours of physical therapy exercises.
He never bored of my company,
Not even with months on the sofa
And years mostly in the house.
He made the love and companionship of God
Tangible to me in the funerals,
The heartbreak,
The five surgeries in five years,
The anxieties,
The upheavals
Of his decade as the canine of the couch.
He loved the people I loved,
But only because I loved them.
His favorite place to be was at my side.
No matter what.
To the Ebony Dog,
I was never too little,
Even when I was.
He consented to Amore walking him without me,
But he sulked all the way to the turn toward home
And strained at the leash the rest of the way.
Even in those final days
When he collapsed in the living room
Before my shocked and stricken eyes,
And I couldn’t lift him off the floor where he'd fallen,
Into the car, to drive him to the vet,
As I rocked myself and wept,
Waiting for help to come to help us both,
He tried to wag his tail when I reached down to stroke his ears
Or tried without success to find the place of pain.
I couldn’t help my most constant companion,
My de facto emotional support dog,
In his time of greatest need,
But there he was, telling me
It would be all right.
That last morning in the vet’s office,
My weakened, struggling dog,
Who would normally be trembling with anxiety
And hiding under a chair,
Resisted us, tried to jump off the table
And get away from the hands trying to help him,
To ease his suffering.
I told my mother afterward,
And her response was instant:
“He didn’t want to leave you.”
“You think he knew that was what was happening?”
“Yes. He was a very perceptive dog.
He never did like being separated from you.”
His constant, lavish, undeserved, undeterred affection,
With the inscrutability of grace,
Chose me
To be his Person.
It was one of the greatest earthly gifts
I’ve known in seven weeks of years of life.
In his love I read a parable of
The unconditional, electing love of God.
To Him I am never too much
(Because He is always bigger),
Never too little
(Because He is always enough),
Always accepted and acceptable in the Beloved,
Chosen and blameless in His eyes.
His affection is constant, unfailing,
Not bound by dog years or pages on a calendar,
Not excluded by quarantine or locked doors.
Though the Ebony Dog has left me,
The God he pointed to never will.
He stopped at nothing to be with me—
Becoming human flesh,
Giving His only Son,
Showing me my sin and His salvation,
Birthing faith in my heart—
To unite me to Himself forever.
Who, indeed, shall separate me from Him?
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