Lots of people, who have lost a dog like to think they go to heaven, and are waiting there for their owners. Its a lovely idea when the loss is very raw. When my little Mari died I arrived in work wearing dark glasses to hide my red eyes, because I had cried all evening and had hardly slept. I started to play the piano for Assembly and started to sob uncontrollably, I carried on to the end of the hymn, but then the Head came to me and said 'go home!' She was the dog I got after a miscarriage and she was almost like the baby I never had. And then we had to say good bye to out lovely Nell, I was heart broken when we had to say good bye to her, she was such a love.
Recently I've read an article where a little girl in a Sunday School class asked the teacher to pray for her dog, who had recently died. Her distress was obvious from her teary face and the Sunday School teacher said a short prayer with her for her doggy friend. But of course the Christian beliefs don't encompass animals in heaven, as they don't have souls.
What is your idea of heaven? A place of gold, somewhere where you'll see Jesus face to face, or where you'll meet loved ones, who have died, or the verse in Revelations, 21.4 'There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.' No matter what the picture we see, our minds are limited to imagine something of God's. Even our best guess of the joys that heaven holds can't come near to what it will be really like.
Because of the Christian belief that only those who believe and have a soul can enter heaven, so proves to the Christian that our animals don't have a place in the heavenly abode.
However if you look further into the Bible, in Isiah it says animals will be in the new heaven and new earth.. 'the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard lie down with the young goat and the calf and the lion and the fatten calf together and a little child shall lead them.' There are several more verses about animals, but not dogs and cats. So do they go to heaven? We can't imagine what it would be like.
I like this quote from Billy Graham speaking about his dog in heaven, ' I think God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness. If it takes my dog being there in heaven I believe he'll be there.'
We don't really know till we get there what it will be like. or whether our beloved dog will be there, but one thing we can be assured of is that, there'll be no lack or longing, because God's presence will be enough.
Chrisxx
2 comments:
. . . and we won't know if Heaven exists until we get there, or don't, or have no further consciousness. I err on the comforting thought of life after death, but not just for Christians. There are many paths to God.
I'd like to think all our pets are waiting for us. We lost our 14mth old lab puppy in April '23, suddenly & unexpectedly. I've never got over it, even though we have another lab to keep us busy.
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