4.29.2026
I’ve written about how we had so many people in and out of our home when I was growing up that we joked that ours was the “Jackson Home for Lost Boys and Wayward Women.”
Well, now I can add to that: “The Jackson Home for Lost Boys, Wayward Women, and Sick Pups.”
One of my former choir kids has a Doberman named Atticus that he loves more than anything else in the world (short of his mother). Even his girlfriend knows where she stands in the pecking order! The dog has come down with some mysterious illness that has left him nearly paralyzed. He is seven years old, and just a few weeks ago I saw him running through a field like a flash of lightning.
My student lives in Tennessee and would often meet me at a restaurant in Athens, where we’d sit outside so he could bring Atticus. He’s a good boy, and was always friendly and gentle with strangers, stirring only when his master went inside – then he would stare at the door until he returned. Oh, and he got excited sometimes when he saw small children . . . you know, the bite-size kind. But he never acted on his instincts.
He’s a good boy.
But for a few days now, Atticus has been seriously ill. On Monday, after a night in the animal ER, he brought Atticus to my house so he could get some rest away from other pets. I thought of the irony of this experience following my prayer over the Mission’s offering on Sunday: “Thank you for our little (and not so little) companions. We pray these gifts will comfort their little anxious hearts.” And now here I was . . .
As you know, I am not a pet person, so this is a very new experience for me. We never had a pet in the house. Most of the animals we had were for protection. We had cats for mice that we didn’t even name. We had a horse named Horse, a dog named Dog, a rabbit named Aristotle and a chicken named Dumplings (it’s good I didn’t have kids – there’s no telling what I would have named them).
The only ones I felt any real attachment to were the rabbit and the chicken.
So having a pet in the house is a new experience for me. Atticus was only at my house for about 24 hours, but my buddy stayed at his side constantly, scratching his head while Atticus whimpered all night long. We won't have any real answers until later today, after the newsletter goes out, so we’d appreciate your prayers. I’m concerned about my student should the vet say the situation was hopeless.
If the vet should say the situation is hopeless, the natural next question would be: “Will we see our pets in Heaven?”
The Bible never really addresses it. The book of Ecclesiastes asks the question, “Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” (3:21). And I’m fine with that uncertainty . . . but, then, I’m not a pet person.
But I also know that our hope is in a new Heaven and a new Earth. Our hope is in resurrection. And if this world is full of beautiful, astonishing, delightful creatures (like the bird I hear singing outside my window right now), then I would expect the new Earth will be filled with critters beyond anything we can imagine. And that may very well include those animals that we treasure in this life.
Paul, in Romans 8:23, wrote: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”
The whole creation. All of it. That would include my chicken, Dumplings. My favorite New Testament theologian Bishop N.T. Wright, explained it like this:
“When a human being loves and cares for an animal, and when that animal responds to that love and care, there is a bond between them, which is part of who that human being is. Just as when somebody loves God, there is a bond between them and God, which we call the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit looks after that person until the resurrection. I don’t see any reason at all why looking after that person shouldn’t include, by a kind of overflow of grace, looking after all of the animals, birds and whatever that person has loved and brought joy to in this life.”
I love that phrase, “a kind of overflow of grace.” That really sounds like the sort of God we worship, doesn’t it? Jesus said that God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” That’s an overflow of grace if ever there was one! And I could see God’s “overflow of grace” extending to our pets.
After the fox or whatever got Dumplings, have I ever thought I’d see her again? No, but in light of God’s “overflow of grace,” anything is possible.
So do I believe that we’ll see our pets in the resurrection? Maybe. Possibly. Let me close with one more scripture. Paul writes in I Corinthians 1:9, “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.”
So, maybe I’ll see Dumplings and Aristotle again after all. And Horse. And Dog.
Blessings,
Pastor Terry
PS - Things might even end up being something like this: Chpt83 The Twilight Zone “The Hunt” #thetwilightzone #different #kbrjsadeb #dog #god