On Terri and Cats (Guest Post II)
I had to put our pet cat down yesterday. It had never gotten along with our dogs but had always been faster. Age catches up with us all and a week and a half ago the cat was a little too slow. The kids separated them but the damage was done. We tried giving it a chance to heal but it would not. Rather than allowing a slow painful death we put it down.
For some there is little difference between what I did and what is happening to Terri Schiavo, except that the cat’s life ended mercifully quickly. In fact some would argue that the cat should have had more heroic measures and could have been saved. They do not understand, no they deny a basic fact of life: people and animals are fundamentally different in their natures.
Our society wants to believe that people are matter plus time plus chance; however the Bible tells us that we are created in God’s image and that we have an eternal soul. That mark of God upon us, that eternal soul that will one day stand before God and give an account, makes all the difference. If we are no more than hyper-developed animals, then if there is a problem, some defect or suffering, put her down. But if we bear the image of God and have eternal souls, we do not have the choice over our life. To live or to die is in the hands of the One whose image we bear. If He wants us to suffer for a little while, and in light of eternity our entire lives are “a little while”, we are the clay in His hands and we dare not try to crawl off His wheel.
- Tim
For some there is little difference between what I did and what is happening to Terri Schiavo, except that the cat’s life ended mercifully quickly. In fact some would argue that the cat should have had more heroic measures and could have been saved. They do not understand, no they deny a basic fact of life: people and animals are fundamentally different in their natures.
Our society wants to believe that people are matter plus time plus chance; however the Bible tells us that we are created in God’s image and that we have an eternal soul. That mark of God upon us, that eternal soul that will one day stand before God and give an account, makes all the difference. If we are no more than hyper-developed animals, then if there is a problem, some defect or suffering, put her down. But if we bear the image of God and have eternal souls, we do not have the choice over our life. To live or to die is in the hands of the One whose image we bear. If He wants us to suffer for a little while, and in light of eternity our entire lives are “a little while”, we are the clay in His hands and we dare not try to crawl off His wheel.
- Tim
Comments
Amen, brother.
David