True Love

I have said "I love you" to my good beasts every day of their lives with me.

I've said it to them as I fall asleep with their dear heads nestled in my palm or their soft paws wrapped around my wrist or their little warm bodies curled up in my hair [it's long, there's lots of it. Plenty of room.]

I've said it to them on the way across a continent, reaching behind my seat as I drive, to stroke their little noses through the front of their carriers. I've said it out loud in turbulence-tossed aircraft knowing they were in the cargo hold and couldn't hear it but hoping by the grace of God they could somehow feel it. And shouted it as they emerged in their carriers at the baggage claim, looking around frantically for me, homing in on my voice with relief in every line of their bodies.
 
I've said it to them on the way to the vet, during the shots, on the way home.

And I have said it to them over and over and over and over and over at the end of their lives as the first injection takes effect and they drift off into a painless sleep and then the second shot is given and they drift off into the deepest Sleep of all. The last words they will hear in the land of the living is my voice, their mother's voice, telling them I love them.

And they have said it to me with every breath, every look, with their backs arched under my hands, their soft sides vibrating, with their dear warm bodies nestled into my hair, with their soft paws wrapped around my wrists for dear life when I awaken, home for the first time in two weeks, and find them holding fast to me in their very sleep.

Love.

Is it God's will that we love our creatures? More than a decade ago, I asked this question, as I prepared for an international move and frantically juggled hotel and airline bookings to make a nonstop flight, so that my animals would be on my plane, and not risk being lost in transit. As I explained the situation to one bored clerk after another, I wondered if I might not be practicing a mild form of idolatry, or a severe form of codependence.

Frustrated and exhausted, I took the question to Him. For the first time in my entire spiritual life, I was immediately pointed to a Bible verse, which I read... and after reading, literally fell to my knees and then lay prostrate in awe and praise.

The verse was Proverbs 12:10. In the King James translation, it reads thus:

A righteous [man] regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked [are] cruel.

Indeed the creatures matter. We were meant for the Peaceable Kingdom, and we will be reunited with all our loved ones there.

Isaiah 11: 1 - 9:

And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:

And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;

And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:

But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.

And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.