Grief
Grief is no respecter of person or of time. It is not convenient but slaps you across the face at a moment’s notice. It is not unlike the thief in the night. All of life is but a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow (James 4:14). Undoubtedly, each situation is, in its own way, distinct, but the constant is grief. It comes in all shapes and sizes and levels of intensity, whether from the death of a loved one or the death of a pet or the loss of a relationship or the loss of an opportunity.
The grass is growing, the sun is shining, and the world is full of warm hues of green and blue, but the soul cannot see past the gray bleariness of the moment. Grief, of whatever sort, may suck the joy right out of life: the eyes burn, the head hurts, the heart aches. Hobbies do not bring joy; food does not taste good. The grieving meander through a sea of people at our workplaces or our churches, and we have not the foggiest idea a torrent is raging within them. Grief reminds us that the world, for all its sunshine, is a dark place.
Through the years I have occasionally met people grieving the loss an animal or, in some cases, even a plant (think of that beloved tree your great-grandfather planted on the family farm that has just died). However, I have also heard other people respond to that grief as if it is silly. The degree of peoples’ thoughtlessness in the face even of human death can be staggeringly insensitive. Animal death is no different: “What’s the big deal? It’s just an animal,” I’ve heard people say, or “Well, animals aren’t as important as humans,” or, “Well, we’re not going to see them in heaven.” Meanwhile, the dear sister in Christ finds herself in the gut-wrenching throes of sadness because her animal has died. Besides, she never suggested animals were equal to humans in the first place.
Perhaps such critics are thinking of non-Christians who sometimes evaluate the relative significance of humans to animals to plants differently than Christians do. However, such critiques are usually not applicable, much less helpful, when interacting with Christians who know the difference. Mature Christians recognize the grief resulting from human death versus animal death is not one and the same; still, grief is grief.
Love
C. S. Lewis argues in The Four Loves that we grieve because we love: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.”[1] Lewis recognizes that grief can follow the loss of anything in which we invest ourselves; obviously, the nature of the grief will differ depending on the object in question, but the grief is nonetheless real. Because we invest in things and care for them, we love them in different ways: God, spouses, friends, animals, and more.
God has called human beings to steward the created order and rule over its creatures with godly care (Genesis 1:28; 2:5, 15). The way we care for different aspects of the created order will vary according to God’s call on our lives. Yet God has called some people to care for animals in different ways. Noah cared for those animals God called him to look after (6:19–20; 7:2–3, 8–9, 13–16; 8:1, 17–20). Solomon explains that the righteous cares for or knows the animal God has given him (Proverbs 12:10). The prophet Nathan refers to a poor man who cared for a “little ewe lamb which he bought and nurtured; and it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat scraps from him and drink from his cup and lie in his lap, and was like a daughter to him” (2 Samuel 12:3). Still other examples of animal care, in this world and in the next, appear throughout the Bible. So, we grieve because we care, because we love.
One “solution” to the problem of grief, including that resulting from animal death, would be not to care for things in the first place. “If you want to make sure of keeping it [your heart] intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal,” Lewis continues. “Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.”[2] Of course, the problem with this prospect is that it goes against God’s call that man would rule over His creation with a godly stewardship of holiness and love.
Also, that prospect perverts the person into something demonic, not something lovely: “But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it [your heart] will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”[3] People grieve because they love, and all true love comes from the One who is love (1 John 4:8).
God’s people learn His love in all kinds of ways: in how they love Him, one another, themselves, and the created order. Hence, the grief of animal pain and death is not improper in a Christian ethic. That someone does not feel the same degree of affection toward a creature as someone else does not mean the affection is improper. It may mean he or she has not had the experience of investing themselves in that creature; or it may mean that God has simply wired him or her differently. Regardless, whatever our dispositions or personalities, we should work to exercise an empathetic imagination toward others.
Undoubtedly, some people, believing the ultimate worth of animals is equal to or even greater than humans, have grieved animal death in overwrought ways; but, then again, people have grieved human death in overwrought ways. The perversion of a thing does not make the thing itself wrong. Consequently, the Christian may rightly grieve animal death. Likewise, the Christian may rightly feel sadness at the sight of animal suffering, which Lewis discusses in The Problem of Pain.[4] For this reason, people with moral imagination have eased the misery of suffering animals and universally condemned people like Sid from Toy Story. The sting of pity in the heart often demonstrates God’s love in them.
Hope
God teaches us love, but with love comes pain. Love is not the cause of pain but rather the answer to it. The cause of pain is the sin of man. Thankfully, God does not leave us in pain and sin but gives hope amid these difficulties. Paul explains in Romans 8 that God subjected the creation, including its animal life, to futility. But, significantly, “in hope the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (v. 20, NASB). Further, Paul remarks that “through perseverance we wait eagerly for it [hope]” (v. 25). So, yes, we Christians grieve but not like the rest of mankind who have no hope; we grieve as people with hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).” “Love . . . hopes all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Sometimes people say that “time heals.” Of course, I understand what people mean by this statement, but it is incomplete. Time is not an actor; it is a quality of a moment or a series of moments. God heals.
A question that sometimes arises with animal death concerns whether people we will see these creatures again someday. Some people say that animals do not have souls, but that is not quite right—at least according to a Hebrew-Christian view of soul compared to a Greco-Roman view. The Scriptures identify God’s animal creatures as having souls; the word (nephesh, life breath) translated as creature or life for animals (Genesis 1:20–21, 24, 30) is the same word that translates as being or soul for humans (2:7). Even so, the Scriptures do not present animals as divine image bearers (1:26–27; it does not present them as moral creatures that have discernment or understanding (Psalm 32:9) or commit sin and face judgment.
At the same time, the Scriptures indicate that animals will be in the new heavens and the new earth (Isaiah 11:6–9; 65:25). However, it does not say that these animals are the same as those we may have known on earth. Does that mean the animals we have known on earth will not be in heaven? This prospect is not very hopeful and can be hard for someone in the throes of grief. Jon and James Forlines describe how their father, Leroy, pastorally answered that difficult question to them: “On more than one occasion, Dad showed his wisdom when we asked difficult questions. After one of our pets died, one of us asked, ‘Will Tiger be in heaven?’ He thoughtfully replied, ‘If it will make heaven a better place, he will be there. God loves us.’”[5]
We can hope in these truths: God is sanctifying us after His likeness so that we will think like He thinks, and the world God is preparing is perfect and complete. Whatever this future world looks like, it will lack in nothing. We can surely say that the memory of the animals we have known and loved on earth will be in the new heavens and earth. If God uses our circumstances to form us after His likeness, and if our experiences include caring for and loving animals, and if the memory of these experiences persist in our glorified state, then, yes, the memory of these animals will certainly be there.
Conclusion
How do we interact with people grieving the loss of an animal? We praise God that He has shaped that person’s spirit to love His creatures. Others’ grief is an opportunity for ministry not mockery. We do all we can to love them in their pain; we exercise an empathetic imagination. How do we deal with the grief of animal death in our own lives? We rely on God to use suffering, in whatever variety we happen to experience it, to mold us into His likeness. We give thanks to Him that He would teach us love through the means He chooses.
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).
[1] C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt, Brace, World, 1960), 169.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (1940; repr., New York: Harper Collins, 2001), 132–47.
[5] James and Jon Forlines, “F. Leroy and Fay Forlines: A Tribute to Our Parents,” in The Promise of Arminian Theology: Essays in Honor of F. Leroy Forlines, ed. Matthew Steven Bracey and W. Jackson Watts (Nashville: Randall House Academic, 2016),273.
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