Every life has value

We lost one of our foster kittens today. She'd only been with us 9 days and we didn't even have a name for her yet. She and her littermates came to us with URIs and runny eyes; the other three responded well to antibiotics, she did not. She died at the vet's office this afternoon while coming out of anesthesia following a minor procedure. I am heartsick that her little life was so short and so full of struggle & discomfort.

When my six year old daughter asked me through her tears why our kitten had to die, I told her I didn't know. I said that we trust God at times like this, because only He knows the "why" that we cannot understand. Why would an innocent little kitten spend most of her life sick and then die for no real reason? Because we live in a broken, fallen world, full of sin and death brought about by our own human arrogance and selfishness. That thought isn't much of a comfort really, but it reminds us that we must look to God for our comfort, not to explanations for why our world isn't perfect.

I am also reminded that each and every life in this creation has value because that life was created by God. We lose sight of this fact for a myriad of reasons. Our selfish, sinful nature drives us to focus on "ours" and "our own kind" at the expense of "others." These "others" might be humans of a different gender, skin color, sexual orientation, culture, religion, etc. than our own. In many (most?) cases, these others are the animals with whom we share our planet. We have become mostly immune to their deaths because so often it is we who bring about that very death. Whether it is death to provide food, sport, fur, sacrifice or what have you, we focus only on our gain and rarely--if ever--on the moral implications of our actions. Highways are littered with the carcasses of wildlife and domestic animals killed by motor vehicles and we don't so much as bat an eye when we drive past. Killing for convenience is labeled as "pest and rodent control." Production animals on factory farms exist for one purpose--for us to kill and eat them. We create life so that we can use it for our own purposes. When our purposes are fulfilled, we think nothing of killing, abandoning or neglecting those lives as best suits our convenience.

The death of our foster kitten matters because it matters to God. The earth may not tremble, the oceans may not roar and the sky may not fall down upon us, but God knows all the same. And for that, I am grateful.

"Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God." Luke 12:6.