Will my pet go to heaven?

© 2019 Christy K Robinson

Baby me, on Easter, with my tabby kitten.

When I was two or three years old, my tabby cat didn’t come home one day.  As a four-year-old, I’d stand in the driveway and call for him to come home. Of course, he never did.

Over the years, our family had several pets that we treated well, fed well, and protected with a fenced yard or taking them out on a leash. They lived long lives with annual checkups and vaccinations. If they sickened with age, we gave them their thyroid medication or kidney-health special diet until we were sure it was time to let them go in euthanasia.

When I was a child, I asked if my guinea pig or rabbit would go to heaven so I could have them again when it was my turn to go to heaven. Lacking a Bible proof text, thinking that animals have no souls, and that pets can’t accept salvation in Christ, my church and my parents told me that sadly, we only have their short lives on earth to enjoy our pets. This made me cry all the harder as we buried the beloved cat under the apple tree or the jasmine vine.

Glazed clay sculpture of our dog,
made by my mother.

I remember my mother saying that in heaven, she wanted to have tigers and otters and elephants for house pets.

God gave animals to us for so many reasons besides food or clothing: love, joy, delight, companionship, life lessons in caretaking or our proper place in master-servant relations, to be God’s “spokesman” to our lives, to make us laugh, to let us cry, to guide or assist in our disabilities, to rehabilitate prisoners or wounded warriors, to rescue us in danger, to comfort in our sorrow or fear, to teach us or remind us to play, and to be family members.

Remember how Balaam beat his poor donkey when she saw an angel blocking their way? The donkey spoke to Balaam. And 3,300 years later, we can still learn from the donkey. (Click this link.)

I believe our domestic pets will be in heaven. God loves us so much that he gave us these "angels in dog or cat suits" to enhance and bless our lives.

God said in Isaiah 49:25 that he would save our children. For those who have traditional families, but particularly those of us who did not give birth, our animals are our children.

"Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your judgments are like the great deep;
you save humans and animals alike, O Lord."
Psalm 36:6

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Christy K Robinson is author of these books:

We Shall Be Changed (2010)

Mary Dyer Illuminated Vol. 1 (2013)  

Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This Vol. 2 (2014)

The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport Vol. 3 (2014)  

Effigy Hunter (2015)  

Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother (2018)

And of these sites:  

Discovering Love  (inspiration and service)

Rooting for Ancestors  (history and genealogy)

William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)

Editornado [ed•i•tohr•NAY•doh] (Words. Communications. Book reviews. Cartoons.)