August 17, 2025, Testimony by Aiko Kagawa
Transcribed by Beluga AI.
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5, ESV)
Last week, Stevin reminded us of Proverbs 3:5-6, you know, to trust the Lord with all your heart.
And this week, our family walked through something that brought that truth close to us. So I’ll have Aiko share. But basically, our pet rabbit passed away. And, you know, initially we thought, well, kind of a trivial thing, you know. But I think through this week, God really spoke to us through this incident and really spoke to Aiko. She wanted, she had to write down her reflection. So…
And it really fit well together with, you know, what Stevin shared last week and what God’s been placing on my heart to share. So I just decided to have her come up and share what she wrote. So I’ll have her come up here and share her reflection, and then I’ll come up afterwards and add a few more remarks after that.
So I wrote this a couple, a few days ago, earlier in the week…or last week. I’ll just read.
Panda died two days ago. Mark came home and ran down to the basement to check on him and found him already stiff, lying on his side, legs outstretched, as though in mid-leap, in the way rabbits always are in death.
It happened quickly. I had just been down to see him and give him clean water an hour, an hour and a half before. He seemed then to be in some more discomfort, which pained me greatly, but he had still been sitting upright and he allowed me to pet his little head. He always loved to be petted.
When I got back upstairs, I opened my computer and looked up the nearby veterinarian’s office. As it was past 7 p.m., it was already closed for the day. But clicking around on the website, I found information for an animal emergency center that was open 24/7. Texting back and forth with Ats, who was out taking Mark and Emi to a scout meeting, I decided with him to take Panda to the emergency room as soon as they returned home from the meeting. But by the time Ats returned home with the kids, it was too late.
That night I stayed up for hours after the house was silent, watching videos and shorts on YouTube, trying to distract myself from thoughts and memories, hoping to eventually become so tired I’d just drift off to sleep. Grief lurked ever in the corners of my screen, itching to take center stage, whispering for my attention. When I paused the videos to go to the kitchen, it rushed in. I thought of how much Panda had suffered in the past few days. I’m sorry, Panda. I didn’t take care of you properly enough. Will you forgive me? And Lord, will you forgive me? You made me a steward over Panda’s life, and I failed to do my utmost for him. My sobs were weights pressed down on my chest. My face grew heavy.
Panda came to us In February of 2023, during our first winter in our new home in Kingston. Without telling me, Ats had purchased him from a family in Sequim that could no longer take care of him. He was two years old. Only a week prior, Ats had acquired a doe from a livestock auction in Enumclaw, and Ats and Emi’s plan was to breed Panda and the doe, whom we named Truffles. Panda was a satin angora rabbit, and Truffles was advertised as an English angora rabbit. Aspiring to build a small business, their plan was to harvest desirable angora wool from Panda and Truffles, and also possibly to breed and sell baby angora bunnies.
When Ats brought Panda into the house and opened the top of the animal carrier so we could see him, I thought he was the ugliest rabbit I’d ever seen. There he sat on a copious bed of hay, backed into one corner of the carrier, ears cocked and eyes wide. Those eyes were the oddest gray blue. Aside from albino rabbits, I had never known rabbits to have eyes other than brown in color. Those strange gray blue eyes gave Panda an alien, freakish look. In addition to his eyes, his body was weirdly colored. He was mostly white, but with an amorphous band of gray black around his middle, looking almost like a saddle. His ears were marled gray, white, and pink, and one side of his face and the opposite front paw were black, resembling a clown’s costume.
I wrote a lot.
Not only was Panda odd looking, but he was badly in need of grooming. His long angora coat was matted in many places, all over his body, so that he was bumpy to the touch. His rump was also a little matted and dirty.
Admittedly, I didn’t feel much affinity for him, and since I had never agreed to the angora enterprise, I let Ats and Emi know that I would have nothing to do with the care of the rabbits. Truffles and Panda were put in separate hutches out on our back deck, suspended two stories above the ground on that side of the house, and they were brought into the house by turns every few days to be brushed. The collected fur was plucked in tufts from the broad brush head and kept in Ziplocs. The deck was supposed to be a transitional space until we figured out the best permanent place to locate them. However, within a month of their arrival, Truffles had a litter of four kits, and after “accidentally” led her and Panda out together. Being busy with the care of Truffles and the babies, we left the rabbits where they were, and soon all six bunnies were de facto permanent denizens of the deck.
Although I had sworn against getting involved with the rabbits, I found it difficult not to get attached to them. Spending most of my day in the kitchen across from the living room window overlooking the deck, I enjoyed seeing them bound across its span. Sometimes I paused in the middle of housework to sit with my chin resting on my arms crossed on top of the windowsill, watching Truffles and her babies running to and fro and munching on the grass Ats gathered by handfuls from our property. When I went outside to visit them, Panda always rattled the bars of his hutch with his teeth, and I comprehended that he wanted attention. If I stroked his head in response, he settled down.
This was not my first experience with rabbits. From fifth grade to ninth grade, I had a rabbit named Nicodemus, who coincidentally was also white and gray black, albeit with different markings. Nicky was my comforter and support during my emotionally tumultuous, bewildering, and lonely middle school years. I spent hours outside with him in our backyard, where he delighted me by leaping and twisting in the air, a rabbit behavior known as binkying. He nudged my hand to ask to be petted and showed his affection by licking, like a dog.
Our current rabbits were not quite like Nicky. They were not really pets. They were also more skittish, and they disliked being handled, only tolerating one or two strokes on the head before they crouched and slid out of reach of your hand and hopped away. All the rabbits except Panda. Panda definitely seemed to appreciate the human touch and hardly ever shrank away.
Eventually, after Truffles had another litter, it was decided that most of the rabbits would be moved off the deck to an enclosure Ats was building below. Although only one of the second litter survived after weaning, seven rabbits was an overwhelming presence on our small deck, which was constantly littered with droppings and stained with urine. Hutches lined every edge of the deck along the railing. It was an issue of overcrowding. In the end, only Panda remained on the deck. It turned out that Truffles was not an angora, after all, but a lionhead, and so also her offspring were half lionhead, and none of them had the same kind of lustrous, fine, soft, wispy fur that Panda had. They didn’t get nearly as matted as he did, so it seemed to us that they would be fine in an enclosure that was half dirt floor. In this part of Washington state, where most of the year is wet, in order to protect him from becoming irreparably bedraggled, I felt that we had no choice but to keep Panda out of the main bunny enclosure, which, although mostly covered, still had areas of wet soil. After all his companions moved away, I wondered if Panda felt lonely. He now had the whole deck to himself, but he preferred to lie down along the railing on the side where the bunny enclosure was set up below or to sit looking through the bars at it.
Knowing that rabbits are social creatures and feeling sorry that he couldn’t be with everyone else, I determined to spend time out on the deck with him multiple times daily. I loved sitting for a minute or two and stroking his luxuriously soft fur or scratching around the base of his ears, and he seemed to relish it too, closing his eyes and settling into a relaxed resting position. At times he chattered with his teeth in what appeared to be enjoyment. When I lifted my hand and made ready to go, he would remain in position for several seconds, head flat to the deck floor, as though asking for more.
Soon, in spite of my avowal not to involve myself with the care of the rabbits, on realizing that Ats and Emi weren’t keeping up with Panda’s grooming, I took that job upon myself. Under our care, Panda had become a little less lumpy, but he required ongoing maintenance. For the most part, he seemed not to mind being brushed, but he didn’t like getting his matted clumps clipped off, and understandably, he was especially hesitant to allow anyone to touch his rear, genital area, and hind legs. By this time, his rump, which initially was only a little matted and slightly dirty, was now a solid mass into which his tail had fused, as though swallowed up and assimilated into the rest of his behind.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to get to cleaning up his underside, but I set to work gingerly and carefully, clipping off the exposed upper parts of his rear mass, bit by bit. Bribed with food, he allowed me to work for a time, but progress was slow and I could only get a little done each session. I admit that I wasn’t consistent with this work, and now I see that I was too gentle in my approach to his grooming. He always flinched and hopped away anytime anyone touched his hind feet or that general area. He struggled against being picked up. I only clipped and combed where he allowed me to.
After embarking on a project to “free Panda’s tail” and successfully doing so for a while, I neglected continuing on to the rest of his hind parts, which I sometimes jokingly refer to as his “dirty butt.” Indeed, it was soiled brown on the bottom, but he was pooping prolifically and peeing just fine, by which I mean to say that none of it seemed to be getting caught in his fur. So I chalked the dirty butt up to be being mostly stained from contact with the moist deck floor. Looking back now, I guess I was naive, and in this naivete I was tragically negligent.
Meanwhile, Panda and I established other little routines. Every morning, a handful of alfalfa pellets in hand, I’d open the door to the deck to go “release the Panda.” “Good morning, Panda,” I’d say cheerily. On seeing me, he was visibly excited, hopping back and forth in his hutch, eager to jump out. After depositing the pellets in the usual spot under one side of his hutch, I would unlatch his hutch door and open it wide. Then I’d give his head a little scratch and he’d jump out. After hopping over to the side of the house to take care of his toileting needs, he would stop for another petting session. In time, I took to praying for him each day that God would bless him and keep him safe and healthy in Jesus’ Name, so that he might live out the full extent of his years.
If it was spring or summer, I would make sure to go out sometime during the day to gather “Panda’s salad.” Being a picky eater, Panda turned his nose up at the hay or grass that all our other bunnies gladly received, so I daily picked a salad especially for him from among the nutritious weeds growing on our property. Panda loved dock, plantain, clover (both flowers and leaves), and dandelion. At times, I gave him a leaf of kale, cabbage, or lettuce from our garden. Then, every night, I’d grab a Crunchy Bear treat or two, plus half a small jar full of pellets, and go out to the deck. Anticipating the treat, Panda would crisscross the deck out of sheer delight, it seemed, before hopping back into his hutch for the night and receiving his beloved Crunchy Bears. “Good night, Panda buddy,” I would say. “See you in the morning.”
This morning the emptiness of Panda’s hutch is palpable, and my heart aches. Is it silly to sorrow so much for a pet? For indeed, Panda had become my pet. Is it reasonable to mourn not even for a dog or a cat, but for a rabbit? When Nicky died, I was 14 or 15 years old, and I felt the loss acutely. My last time with him, I was standing in the rain outside of his hutch door, stroking his head, crying. His muzzle was covered in mucus, and I knew he was sick. He still came to me, lowered his head with what felt like affection, and looked out at me with clear sentience. Shortly after that, I believe even later that day, my mom took him to the vet and he never returned. I was distraught.
I did not have another pet for 30 years after Nicky, and the immediacy of the pain of his loss eventually wore away. Although I never forgot about Nicky and how much he had meant to me during a vulnerable time in my life, somehow in the many years that passed, I lost a sense of how deeply I had mourned his sudden absence. So once, when a friend told me she was going to a pet loss grief support group to help her cope with her dog’s passing, I could sympathize, but I also couldn’t help feeling that it was a little bit frivolous.
Today I can empathize more. In one sense, going to therapy sessions because you’ve been bereaved of a pet is frivolous when we compare that loss to the loss of a human life or any human suffering. But that does not mean that it is not valid to grieve the loss. Nor does it mean that our beloved animal companions have no intrinsic value at all. Randy Alcorn writes, “Scripture says a great deal about animals, portraying them as Earth’s second most important inhabitants. God entrusted animals to us, and our relationships with animals are a significant part of our lives.” The relationships we build with our pets are real and important, and while they may not have the same depth as the relationships we have with people, they fill a place in our hearts that our human bonds do not. Instead, our delight in them is simple and pure, uncomplicated by the complex emotions that often accompany our interactions and with the people close to us. Thus, we ought not feel ashamed at the depth of our anguish when our pets pass.
Panda became part of the fabric of my day, interwoven between cooking and baking, tidying the house and vacuuming the floor, eating and washing dishes, homeschooling, drinking my coffee, playing the piano. Over the course of time, he grew dear to me. The kids joked that I loved Panda more than I loved Iroh, our dog. If I’m honest, in many ways I did. Panda was quiet, unassuming, calm. He didn’t demand anything from me and was not needy for attention. Yet he received my affection every time I offered it. I made up impromptu ditties about him, which I sang around the house. I gave him various nicknames: Panda Man, Panda Cakes, Bunny Buddy, Pandarel (to match Iroh’s Doggerel), Friend. I made sure he had food and water. I swept up his poop from the deck and cleared away the stems he left after eating his salad.
Once, on a gloriously sunny spring day, I brought a book and a cup of tea to the deck and sat there reading. (We rarely used the deck after the bunnies took it over.) After a while, I noticed that Panda had come near and sprawled out next to me, and so we were just hanging out and relaxing together, savoring the sunshine. In the heat of summer, I made sure he had adequate shade to rest in, and on the hottest days, I brought him an ice pack he could lie next to if he wanted. In winter, whenever we experienced freezing temperatures, I made sure his hutch was covered with a blanket and a tarp overnight. The next morning, I would lift the covers, stiff and crackling, and Panda would be there, peering out at me with those oddly beautiful gray-blue eyes.
Sometimes Panda liked to jump up to the roof of his hutch, at least 2 ft high. There he would rest, a fluffy black and white loaf, and I worried that a passing eagle, hawk, or owl would spot and grab him. But he seemed unconcerned. Those ears always remained cocked and alert, and I knew he could see over his head and around with his almost 360-degree peripheral vision. Often I would go out to him as he rested there on his hutch roof and crouch down so our faces were level. I called it “seeing eye to eye.” “Ah, Panda,” I would say. “Finally, we see eye to eye.” At that height, I could nuzzle the top of his head. He always smelled fresh, pleasant, clean, not musky and oily, like a dog.
There were times when I would go to the window and call to Panda and he would come bouncing over from another part of the deck. Then, erect and curious on his hind legs, he’d observe me observing him. At other times he would binky, jumping straight up into the air and twisting his body acrobatically in what looked to me like pure exuberance. It thrilled me.
I first noticed that something was wrong with Panda. Toward the end of last week, there was a morning when he didn’t immediately jump out of his hutch when I opened it. Instead, he hung back in a way very unlike his usual self. Later in the day, I saw that he was out on the deck, but all day there were no piles of bunny berries to sweep up and no puddles of urine. That evening, he didn’t want to go back into his hutch, so I left him out overnight. The next day, he ate and drank normally, but only very little poop. “Are you okay, buddy?” I asked him, and of course, he was silent. The gray blue eyes stared at me serenely.
The next day, Panda kept nibbling at his hindquarters on both sides, something he usually did periodically as a self-grooming behavior. But this day, it was almost constant, like he couldn’t quite scratch an itch. “I think Panda’s butt is bothering him,” I said to Ats, and I took the grooming shears outside and went to work on the sides of his bottom behind his hind feet. I actually was able to cut off a large portion of the matted mass, but decided after half an hour to resume again another time. Meanwhile, Panda’s strange break from routine continued on for maybe another day.
On Sunday, we arrived home from church, and I stepped out onto the deck to check on Panda. He was resting in his usual spot under the shade of his hutch, but something seemed off that I couldn’t yet fathom. I scanned the deck and still no new poop. When my gaze returned to Panda, it dawned on me that his rear end had become soiled black. Then I saw it. There was a little squirming gray varmint struggling on the deck next to him. A maggot.
It turned out to be a condition called fly strike. As near as I can speculate, at some point, probably very recently (Ats had read that the fly life cycle is very quick), Panda’s matted rump finally began to obstruct his waste elimination, causing excessive wetness and soiling inside the mass of his rear end. It being midsummer, this attracted flies, which consequently laid their eggs on him. The eggs had hatched and the maggots began their ruthless campaign of consumption, destructively progressing toward pupation and adulthood.
Ats spent the next two hours or more in the glaring sun, lying down on the heated surface of the deck so that he could be level with Panda, working with the grooming shears to cut off the matted and soiled fur from Panda’s rump, until finally he exposed bare flesh. Everywhere there were maggots, eating tunnels into the solid mass of his fur, burrowing into Panda’s flesh, which was wounded and raw. Panda seemed to know that the situation was desperate and that Ats was trying to help him. He hardly pulled away or scrambled off, even when Otz tugged on his hind legs to better access Panda’s groin area. Even after Ats accidentally nicked his tail, drawing blood, Panda was willing to return to the operating theater. Uncharacteristically, he merely lay there, splooted, with his rear end uncovered and vulnerable, enduring who knows what kind of pain.
I worried that more flies would lay their eggs on Panda, so we moved him into Iroh’s old dog crate down in the basement. Regretting that it was dark there and unfamiliar to him, we felt that it was nonetheless a better place for him than the deck. There in the basement it was quieter than in the house, and he could stay relatively cool and protected from flies.
Over the next couple of days, we settled into a new rhythm. Ats checked on Panda first thing in the morning as part of his usual rounds of feeding the chickens and other rabbits, while I visited every couple hours after that to refresh his food and water and to change out the soiled mats we used to line the floor of the crate. Then each evening, Ats labored more on Panda’s torn and inflamed bottom, cutting away clumps of fur and plucking off maggots by hand, while I served as nurse, comforting Panda and stroking his head, retrieving the tools Ats needed to accomplish his gruesome task, adjusting the light. Single maggots occasionally fell off Panda as he shifted position, and I pincered those with the shears. The other maggots Ats collected in a plastic container, which I periodically emptied by feeding them to the chickens.
Through all this, Panda remained relatively still and calm, quiet as always and enduring without complaint. One might think, how could he complain? He was a rabbit. And that is true. But there was something I can’t quite describe that he seemed to communicate inexplicably through his demeanor, through his eyes. Panda entrusted himself completely to us and our desperate attempts to save him.
No matter how many maggots Ats removed, there were more, always more of them. Maggots grown plump from gorging themselves, undiscovered over the past couple of days, wriggled among new ones, just hatched and tiny. They burrowed deeper into the tunnels they had hollowed so that they could remain unseen and escape Ats’ pinching grasp. Dread and despair came over me. But fighting to cling to hope, I said, “As long as we keep the flies away, we’ll eventually get rid of the last maggot.” We were determined to do that for Panda.
Despite his condition, Panda still seemed vigorous, and we marveled that he had made it through the past few days. He could no longer rest on his haunches. I think the rawness of his naked rump was too painful. But when we allowed him to roam around the basement, he hopped away at a normal pace. He ended up at the door, which is all glass. There he sat, gazing out at the grass, and my heart ached. A rabbit is made to hop about a field or in the brush, maneuvering through brambles, nibbling on grass and clover out in the fresh open air. But Panda, with his fine long fur, pearl white with a sheen, would never be able to live that way. He was bred to be an indoor bunny. In the crate, in the foreign gloominess of the basement, he seemed a little depressed. I wished I could take him back to his familiar deck home. Yet we would never allow him to take up residence out on the deck again to be prey for heartless flies. Determined to give him the best life I could, I decided that if he survived this bout of fly strike, I’d give him a large enclosure in the corner of the basement nearest the windows, with plenty of toys to keep him occupied and structures for him to jump up onto. I researched and put metal pet playpen panel sets into my Amazon cart, ready to order. My plans were in place.
On Tuesday afternoon when I was down to check on Panda, he had diarrhea. Quickly, I changed the lining pads and vanquished a couple maggots. Remembering how much he loved Crunchy Bears, I placed a few crumbs into a set of nesting cups for him. It was a game we used to play. I would put treats into the cups and nest them, and Panda would use his teeth to pull each cup out so he could gobble up the treats. That day I brought the cups, and while he was still eager to eat the Crunchy Bears, he didn’t seem interested or able to pull out the cups. I gave him the little cookies, and then I settled down to pet him. I spent a long time there, longer than usual, slowly stroking his head, massaging the base of his ears, and scratching the sides of his chin. He chattered his teeth, a sign of a rabbit’s deep contentment and pleasure, but also a sign of intense pain. This time he was obviously in much pain, but was it too much to hope that he also felt comfort and happiness from receiving my attention? He seemed otherwise soothed and placid, and I prayed that God would heal him, as I had been since we realized that he was unwell.
In the past, I might have scoffed a little at the idea of praying for a pet. However, recently I have come to believe that while human beings made in the image of God are the pinnacle of creation, God also treasures the animals he’s created, and we are explicitly given the responsibility of serving as their stewards, to have dominion over them, not as subjugating tyrants, but as benevolent masters. They have been entrusted by God to our care, a job we are to take seriously and perform to the best of our ability.
This is why we ultimately resolved to take him to the animal emergency center. In our current season we have been financially tight, so facing the cost of veterinary care, we debated about taking Panda and opted to try for a time to help him ourselves. The question is a difficult one. At what point is the cost of care too exorbitant for a pet when we are pinching pennies for our children and ourselves? However, after I refreshed his water bowl later in the afternoon, I felt strongly that we had been wrong not to provide him with veterinary attention earlier. He was hunched and looked small, having lost much of his fur. He stumbled slightly, unstable on his feet. He breathed quickly and shallowly, and he appeared drained of his vigor. And his eyes, the color of stormy skies, were more dull. Worried, I scratched the top of his head and he received it like always. And yet this time felt different.
I went upstairs, urgent to search veterinarians, and found the emergency center. God had given Panda to our care, and I was convicted that we needed to do everything we reasonably could for his well-being. Perhaps after medical evaluation we would decide that the price to save him was too much for us. Perhaps we would need to consider euthanizing him, and I didn’t know what I thought of that. But at the very least, once we’d taken him to the veterinary emergency room, we would have investigated every avenue of getting him help. In the end, there were questions we didn’t have to contend with.
I had experienced the death of many baby bunnies. Apparently, they become vulnerable to gastrointestinal distress at weaning when they lose the antimicrobial protection of their mother’s milk, and the process of their dying is excruciatingly drawn out. We once found a baby lying on its side, twitching and gasping. Out of pity and helpless to do anything except provide comfort—a soft place to lie in the shade away from the bustle of the bunny enclosure—I used a finger to gently rub its side and stayed with it, whispering to it and praying over it. I had to leave it after an hour or so, and it was still gasping even after that. In all, it may have been a few hours before it finally expired.
Panda’s death, by contrast, was quick. Within an hour and a half of my last visit with him, he was already cold, and rigor mortis had set in. We all gathered around his little body, Ats and I and Mark, Emi and Micah. I prayed, “Thank you Lord, for Panda, for giving him to us. He was a good bunny who brought us a lot of joy, and thank you Panda.”
I caressed his face inside one more time and felt its silkiness, the softest and fluffiest fur I have ever touched, no longer radiating warmth from his body. I looked one last time into his eyes, which were open, glassy, and devoid of any light. Now they were more alien even than when I first beheld them. Then Ats and I buried him in a corner of the front lawn where we have our vegetable garden boxes and where it stays shady most of the day. A wild rabbit shot across our path as we walked there with Panda’s body. I can see his burial spot when I sit at my desk looking out from my bedroom window. This weekend, or maybe next week, I will buy a hydrangea plant too, to plant above it to mark it.
I knew I would be sad when Panda passed away, but I didn’t expect this level of grief. Walking Iroh this morning, I saw large dock plants along the road with broad green leaves and briefly thought, “Panda would love that.” But I don’t need to gather leaves for his salad anymore. Every time I walk by the big living room windows that overlook the deck, I inadvertently glance that way to try to spot where Panda is. I didn’t realize that had become my habit, and for a split second, I almost feel like my eyes will alight on him lounging in the shade of the hutch or sitting on his haunches grooming himself. And then I remember. Panda is gone.
The most profound pain thus far has been the realization that God entrusted me with Panda’s care, and I didn’t do my very best to look after him. Last night I confessed to Ats through tears, “Panda depended on me to take care of him, and I failed him. I could have done more. I should have done more to make sure he was adequately groomed and clean. He suffered so much when he didn’t have to.” Not only was it a sin against Panda, but it was also a sin against God, who made me a steward of his life for two and a half years. I prayed silently again, “Lord, forgive me. Panda, I’m sorry.” 1 John 1:9 says,
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9, ESV)
As I prayed, the feeling of being forgiven flowed into my heart. Then the thought of Panda well again, his fur pristine in the presence of Jesus, occurred to me. It felt like God was showing me that Panda is happy now and that his mute suffering at the end of his life on this earth is a mere wisp of a memory in comparison to what he’s now experiencing. Maybe he is frolicking in the fields of heaven, nibbling on the sweetest clover, infinitely more tasty than Crunchy Bears, the breeze gently rippling his radiant fur where there is no end of glorious days. Maybe he is held and cuddled by Jesus, his Maker. And perhaps he plays with other animals that are there, including other bunnies. The thought of it lightened my heart.
Of course, I will not know for sure until I meet Jesus, but I strongly believe I will see Panda again in heaven, and Nicodemus also. Many Christians have speculated on whether or not our pets will be with us in eternity. Among others, Alcorn quotes C.S. Lewis, who wrote in Problem of Pain “In immortality…” Sorry, the quote is wrong. I think I deleted it. But basically, he says, C.S. Lewis says in the immortality of their masters, the pets or animals may also, it’s possible that they may also find immortality.
And Alcorn also cites Johnny Ericson Tada, who declares, “If God brings our pets back to life, it wouldn’t surprise me. It would be just like Him. It would be totally in keeping with His generous character—exorbitant, excessive, extravagant in grace after grace—of all the dazzling discoveries and ecstatic pleasures heaven will hold for us, the potential of seeing Scrappy would be pure whimsy, utterly, joyfully, surprisingly superfluous. Heaven is going to be a place that will refract and reflect in as many ways as possible the goodness and joy of our great God who delights in lavishing love on his children.” Many accounts of NDEs, or near-death experiences, include a mention of pets as part of the heavenly welcoming committee. If such accounts are true, and if Alcorn, Lewis, Tada, and many others are correct, to see our pets in heaven will definitely be a special bonus. Like God saying, “But wait, there’s more!” Doesn’t it make sense that if we are saved into eternity via our relationship with Christ, so too animals are saved into eternity via their relationship with us? I look forward with great anticipation and excitement to one day being in my true and forever home with my loving God. And indeed, it will be “pure whimsy” to see Panda there too.
While I will always regret not doing more to prevent Panda’s untimely death, God has removed the heaviness of guilt. Now what’s left of the ache is how much I miss his peaceful and quiet presence in my life. And I know even that will subside with the swift passing of these last days of summer and when the busyness of fall begins again. However, I hope my gratitude will always remain. I cannot say that Panda gave me love in return for my love for him. I don’t know that he had the capacity for that, at least he didn’t love as I know love. But one thing he did give me was his trust. And that is a wondrous gift. He accepted my love and care without reservation and depended on me completely. I am grateful to God and to Panda for that gift.
And maybe that is a metaphor for how our Heavenly Father wants us to relate to him with full trust and dependence, withholding no part of ourselves and receiving his love for us without inhibition. And while we are imperfect stewards, the Lord is our Good Shepherd and does not lack in anything, neither in wisdom nor knowledge, neither in love nor goodness, neither in ability nor resources. John 10:11-18 says,
11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” (John 10:11-18, ESV)
I am overwhelmed when I consider the love of our Good Shepherd, how He provides for us, making sure we have everything we need; always aware of us, our activities, and the state of our hearts; delighting in us; sheltering us. He laid down His life for us. He loves us in a way we can neither comprehend nor reciprocate. The distance between God and our level of awareness and capacity of mind is even more vast than the distance between us and our pets. But knowing even dimly that He cares for us and that we are utterly dependent on Him, why should we not trust in him with all our heart, as it says in Proverbs 3:5?
This morning as I gradually woke up, Panda was there in the liminal space between sleep and my waking consciousness, like a faint and fading image. Had I been dreaming of him? I picked up my phone, and the Google photo app was open. Scrolling through it, I randomly started a video that caught my breath. The video was of Panda, and in it, I’m petting, stroking, scratching his little head like I always did. He looks content, eyes closed, with his chin flat and resting on the deck floor. And when I stop, he doesn’t move. So I resume petting him some more. That’s it. The whole video. I looked at the date. August 14, 2024, exactly a year ago to the day. I don’t even remember taking that video, but I took it as confirmation that my dear little friend is well, happy, and whole.
Soon I will put away or give away Panda’s things: his water bottle, the bag of alfalfa pellets we kept upstairs for him, his treats, his grooming supplies. The hutch will be taken off the deck and repurposed as a dwelling for new rabbits in the bunny enclosure. The deck will be swept and scrubbed. All the physical vestiges of Panda’s existence will be removed. But I plan to keep one thing there as a memorial to our precious deck bunny: a small metal rabbit figurine. I’ve already purchased it, and it’s being delivered tomorrow. I’d like to place it in the corner of the deck Panda preferred most because, while we are already looking forward to using the deck as it was originally intended, for me it will always be “Panda’s Place.”
Well, thank you, Aiko, for sharing, and I wanted to share a little bit more from my perspective as well. And let’s see.
So yeah, like Aiko said, the last few days we were frantically trying to help him. And when we went, finally face death of the rabbit or like anybody else, whenever we face death of our loved ones, including our pets, I guess, you know, one thing is that, like Aiko shared, we deeply miss him. And that I thought is such an indication, strong points to the fact that death was never meant to be. And the separation that we experienced through death was never supposed to be there. And that’s why when we experience it, although we know that it’s going to happen, especially pets all pass away before us, there’s this terrible sadness that we don’t get to see them anymore.
And yet, this hope for heaven. Aiko and I, especially recently, we’ve been really, you know, we’ve been studying, reading the book Imagine Heaven, and somehow the Lord has been bringing to us these ideas that heaven is much more than what I used to think. It’s much more fuller, extravagant, that God… as she shared, and our pets will be there.
So what an amazing hope that we hold on to because of what Christ was able to has accomplished. We can look forward to this reunion with all our loved ones and our pets, including our pets.
And especially when we go through this, although we were not supposed to experience this death, separation by death, once we lose something, when we regain it, we gain that something that we lost, the appreciation of what we’ve lost is going to be much greater.
So in amazing God’s wisdom and ability to even work for the sin of the world, sin of man, and the fallen state that we got into where death entered into our existence, God uses that to one day, when we are fully redeemed, our joy for regaining that life together with even our loved ones—of course, centered around Christ—our joy is going to be even more because we experienced this grieving grief of loss.
So that’s such a powerful reminder and hope to hold on to as we live our journey here, keeping our eyes fixed on heaven and the hope that we have there. And so, you know, the more death we experience, the yearning for heaven grows so much deeper, stronger, and we experience this trust.
And I got to this privilege… it was such a privilege to be able to have this bonding time with Panda. And like Aiko shared, he would never let us touch him or hold him too much. But you know, it came so desperate to him that he completely let him roll him over, and he’s on his back with his legs upwards. I’m holding his leg apart and cleaning him and snipping his fur, and to be able to experience that trust… I experienced that complete trust to me, into my hands, and into Aiko’s hands.
Isaiah 1:3 says animals are more obedient. I think I have it here. One, two, three.
2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. 3 The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” (Isaiah 1:2-3, ESV)
Donkeys even know who feeds them. You know, the ox knows the owner. So you know they, even our dog, they, they have this, what is it? Complete trust over them or us as owners. And through that, I feel that’s how we ought to place our trust and faith, like Stevin shared last week in Our Lord. He is our Lord, He is our Master, He is our provider. And that was such a powerful lesson that we were able to experience through this time and through which that when we went, as a receiving end of that trust from even such a tiny creature, it brought me such a somehow strong delight, a sense of delight or joy, this ability to bond with a rabbit. Aiko shared how she was able to get face level, eye level, and see face to face. And the delight that I experienced was real.
And Psalm 147:1-11 says this:
1 Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting. 2 The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. 3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. 4 He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. 5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. 6 The Lord lifts up the humble; he casts the wicked to the ground. 7 Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; make melody to our God on the lyre! 8 He covers the heavens with clouds; he prepares rain for the earth; he makes grass grow on the hills. 9He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry. 10 His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, 11 but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love. (Psalms 147:1-11, ESV)
So the delight, pleasure is… God directs those, receives those, have those feelings, pleasure and delight to those who fear Him and put his full trust in Him. And I think I, as an image bearer of God, experiencing these little creatures, trust to me… the delight or the pleasure that I feel perhaps reflects, probably reflects God’s feeling, what He experiences when we place our trust in Him, our full faith in Him.
And how, what is, that’s what we want. We want to please our Father. And how do we do that? It is through putting our utmost trust and dependence on our Lord.
And so that’s the glimpse of God, God’s delight through the intimate bond that I experienced with our bunny, Panda. And then thinking about how the level, I guess, the order of creation that we are in compared to God versus me, us, man, human versus me and these creatures like rabbits. And I was thinking about the difference. And if you think about it, the gap between the Holy God, creator of the universe, is infinitely… the gap between Him and us is infinitely greater compared to my order or level as a human being to a rabbit. I think I’ve heard one preacher once say, you know, if you, God’s relation to us is even greater than my relationship to a microbe on a toilet seat, even infinitely greater.
So this, this is the God that we have. And yet, how does our Lord treat us? He treated us with utmost care. And all the details of our lives, our needs, He is aware of. And He cares so deeply for us to the point that He sent His only Son Jesus to take our place on the cross.
So go to the last. Should have had this ordered a little bit better. Jesus came down.
Philippians 2:3-11: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationship with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
“Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Amen.
So Jesus is the bridge. He closed this infinitely large gap between God and man, his Creator, by coming down to our level and beyond. You know, Scripture says He even takes care of the sparrows; they don’t go hungry. You know, the flowers in the field, you know, God clothes them with beautiful patterns, and He’s even concerned about little creatures, all the entire creation order. And so, if Jesus has come down such a big gap to our level to relate to us, how are we to respond to that? You know, if my, if I consider maybe even microbe, but even at the level of Panda, my level and the Panda’s level… that gap, you know, if God cares about Panda to that degree, you know that the range between Panda—everything else fits in that spectrum, right? All our friends, all our people who are, we know, people who are in a more unfortunate life situation than we are. So the spectrum that we have, we have no excuse to come down to the level to interact with each existence, each being, let alone, you know, we were talking about still animals, but of course, you know, more higher order than a rabbit is, you know, our children, our friends, our family. How much more are we to have the, reflect God’s position of humbling Himself to interact and coming and share His love, pouring out His love to those who are in need.
So Jesus, through Panda’s, our interaction with Panda, our life with him, these are the things that we were able to experience and through which we, I think, understand God’s heart in a very practical way in that sense. So we praise God. We still are working through the loss of our beloved rabbit, but we’re so grateful that we were able to experience this this week. So thank you again, Aiko.
And may this be a, let us take courage to keep our eyes on our Good Shepherd, who is a perfect shepherd who’s able to take care of us way more than how we can take care of our animals or others. We place our utmost trust in Him and keep our eyes on the coming heaven, fulfillment, complete establishment of heaven, which is starting even today, even at this moment.
And may we all live to reflect who God is, who Jesus is in our own ways to the world that needs to experience this amazing love and His presence.
So that’s our, that’s the message that we wanted to share today. So yeah, let us go on to again, once again come to the table.
Jesus was able to accomplish the ultimate sacrifice to redeem each and every one of us who admit our fallen nature, our sinful nature, that we need His help on the cross. By the work of His work on the cross, we are called fully restored to the relationship with Him so as, to take that, to behold that truth, and to proclaim that truth, let us come and take the communion together and continue to give thanks to Him and to worship Him.
Okay, so come and eat.
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