Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

With every new little baby that comes along in our family it seems like someone in our family makes that final journey of their lives and passes on to make room for the newest coming life. This newest one of ours was made space in this world by two loved ones: Grandpa Ed and Little Lucy.

Lucy was a loyal little dog to one person, and one person only... and even then, her loyalty could be questioned during key times of the year, like when there was a turkey baking in the oven. But even though she preferred only one, she was loved by all.

I remember her when she was a little puppy, dragging around a pink and white rope as long as her or a stuffed animal that was nearly as big as her own little body. She was a happy dog, a spoiled dog. And she certainly was a fat little dog.

One of her favorite games for quite a while was squeezing her little body lickity-split under this pale green footstool we had in my parents' home for a while. Like a cat, you never knew when Lucy would ferociously pop out to get you, and then high-tail it back under that footstool. She was still bald on her chest more than a decade after she had stopped playing that game from all the hair she yanked off her chest during her fun.

But Little Lucy got old and decrepit like so many of the good men, women, and animals in our world. It was and is inevitable. Why, when God cursed man, did the animals have to endure the curse as well? What did the animals do to deserve the aging, pain, and ultimate death that belonged to man?

Matthew 10:29-31 says,

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." 

Lucy did not fall to the ground outside our Father's care. When she was seizing for hours and did not even know that her mom was there with her crying, mourning for the little creature whom she could not help, our God was there keeping her comfort. She was not alone. And how much more comfort can the great Comforter himself offer than we can?

And when God looked down and saw her little body so frail and unable to see or hear or even walk, he had mercy and said, "Let's go home." And she left the pain and death and decay of this world and was reunited with her old, loved friends who had passed long before her. She is not in pain anymore. She awaits a reuniting with all the ones she loved who are still left on this earth, but she is happy, and she is finally able to rest.

Romans 8:18-21

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God."

And so I say farewell to our Little Lucy. Perhaps her diamond collar has turned into her diamond crown: her reward for all the nights she stood guard and kept my mother company. How many diamonds must she have earned for that? Loyal, Little Lucy in the sky with diamonds.