I am having a difficult day today not only am I in pain, but I suspect my dog is in pain as well. I have an infection and migraine pain that is causing me considerable pain. The only problem is that there’s not much I can do about it. The migraine pain is caused by the barometric pressure and it isn’t going to go away until the pressure changes in a few days. The infection isn’t a viral one and there’s nothing to be done until the virus runs its course. I’m not resigned to the pain, I just don’t want to fight something that is out of my control.
However, it made me start thinking about my dog. She has a big tumor on her chest. It must be uncomfortable. Sometimes it bleeds, but my husband and I are doing our best to take care of the wounds as they open up. She still acts like she is okay, but I can’t help wondering.
I’m in pain, but I don’t act like it is painful all the time. The pain builds up and then I have a meltdown. I cry and try to get comfortable. I find it difficult to relax for a little while. Then, I find a way to move on, usually after a lot of crying and praying. Today, I’ve noticed that my dog does the same thing. She is okay for a while, but then she melts down. She can’t get comfortable, she pants, and we give her something to calm down. She eventually does calm down, falls asleep, and finds a way to move on. I don’t mind handling pain in my case, I accept migraine as a part of my life and these infections have been a part of my life for quite some time, too. It’s my choice though. She doesn’t have a choice. Not really.
The idea of killing is difficult. I absolutely hate the idea and yet I know I have killed bugs. I eat plants and animals that have been killed. I think it is more about respecting life. And even with humans, I don’t think there are any absolutes. I can’t think of any situations where I could ever take a human being’s life, but since I have an great imagination I can come up with an absurd situation that would never happen. If I was living in a post-apocalyptic world, and my husband accidentally shot himself in the stomach to where he was dying and there was absolutely no medical care at all. If I knew his last hours would be in painful agony and he begged me to put him out of his misery, then I would probably end his suffering. I wouldn’t kill lightly, it would probably be the most difficult thing I would ever do in my life, but I would find the strength to do it if it meant my husband wouldn’t have to suffer from hours of agonizing pain right before he died. The problem is that it wouldn’t happen.
My problem is my dog might be in pain and she can’t tell me. There’s a point with dogs when the absurd situation fits. If you respect the life of the animal, do you keep it alive and in pain to die naturally or do you kill the animal giving it peace so that it doesn’t have to suffer? It’s a difficult choice and there’s no way to know what the right answer is; maybe there’s no correct answer. Maybe that’s how God sees the world. Morals, ethics, right and wrong, all those things from the tree of knowledge didn’t make us like God because we can’t see the big picture that He does. We can’t see how everything is connected. We are stuck in a primordial forest trying to make decisions and we only see the trees.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
