Love Lost
Linda Soller | Feb 11, 2013
Have you ever owned and loved a pet? People who haven’t don’t really get the attachment we pet owners have for the creatures who share our lives. They see the demands and inconveniences of pet ownership: walks in the snow and rain, tufts of pet hair floating around the house, litter boxes, squawking from the cage as you try to watch TV, to name a few. But for those of us who love or have loved a pet it’s so much more. When you think of unconditional love you are more often thinking of the love your pet shows you than love from another person.
As an adult I’ve had three dogs as pets. They were all Labrador Retrievers who were devoted to our family. One was pretty hard headed and the other two were not the brightest bulbs, but boy they loved us and we loved them. Each time we lost one it brought tremendous heartache. They were like children we had played with, and cared for, and fussed at, but always loved. The house is quieter and cleaner without them, but the void they left in our lives is huge.
We don’t really read about pets as such in the Bible but we do read about shepherds and the sheep they care for. Jesus related how the shepherds knew their flocks and went looking for any one sheep that was lost. He described the care and protection the shepherds gave their sheep. He compared the sheep to us. God is our shepherd watching over us, protecting us, looking for us when we’re lost. Each one of us, however unimportant we may feel, is a critical part of his flock.
I have to tell you that I was never the favorite “human pet” for our dogs. My husband was clearly the favorite, and the children were next, but when the dogs were feeling bad or my husband was traveling they came to me. I think it’s a mom thing. With our last dog, Sam, I may have moved to second place on the list of favorites. The children were grown and had moved out which helped my standing! When we lost Sam it was so very sad, but a friend said something that made me feel better about the difficult decision we had made. She said we had shown him unconditional love, because as much as it hurt us to let him go, we knew it was better for him.
God loves us unconditionally. He leaves us to make decisions he knows are not the best and waits patiently for us to come back to him. He teaches us to love others unconditionally, forgiving them for their errors and helping them in their time of need. I think God gave us pets to remind us of unconditional love. When our pets are gone it’s not love lost, but love we received without conditions to carry us forward. Have you hugged your pet today?
Have a great week :o) Linda
