Our family dog, Brody, has been sick for a while now and he took a turn for the worse these past few weeks. He stopped eating a few days ago, has lost control of his bodily functions (yes, lots of fun messes to clean up) and seemed to be in pain. His breathing was very forced and you could hear the fluid in his lungs. We knew his time was coming and even began praying for God to take him home if that would relieve his pain. Cris dropped him off at the vet this morning, and when they took him from the cage to the exam room, he collapsed from what the vet said what they believe was heart failure and he died right there. It kills me that neither Cris or I was there at that moment to comfort him in that time, I just hope he wasn’t thinking we left him and that cause a broken heart causing it to fail. Cris thinks that he waited till none of us were around cause he didn’t want us to see him go. Whatever was going on his head, we’ll never know but we have to believe that he knows we loved him.
Thinking back to my last moments with Brody: He came to our bedroom door this morning at 5:30, waking me up. I thought maybe he needed to go outside but it turned out that he just wanted me to come keep him company. I sat there with him for about 15 minutes as he stood there struggling to breathe. When he calmed down a bit, I headed back to bed, but since I get up at 6:00 anyway, I decided to head upstairs for some quite time with God. It was then that God met me and allowed time for a beautiful divine appointment with my dog. I started out by asking God for his peace in knowing what we should do with Brody and the peace in letting him go if it was his time to go. I started reading about God’s peace and he showed me that sometimes we lack peace because we are holding on to something so tightly that we can’t grab on to what God has for us. Just then Brodie struggled his way up the stairs to spend time with me. I broke down in tears and released my hold on him, surrendering him in to God’s hands, asking that God would take the pain from him no matter what that meant. I sat there hugging him, praying for him, crying out to God for him, and repeating over and over that I loved him. So, although I didn’t get to be there with him when he left, I did get my last good-bye after all. As much as it hurts to see him go, our prayers were answered and he is no longer in pain. God continues to be faithful and hear our cries… and delivers blessings, disguised as taking a loved one home.
God Bless you, Brody! You were the best dog and we will never forget you!