Hello!<\/p>\n
I’m an 18-year-old girl who is beginning to have doubts about my faith.\u00a0The reason is that I recently had to put down my pet rat and I am taking it pretty rough. It is so rough that I’m doubting myself and my religion (Catholic). My questions are these: Is she in heaven right now? Is my little rat who licked my nose, played with me, cuddled with me, ate dinner with me every night, made me happy and want to get out of bed in the morning in heaven with God? She was more than just a rat to me. She was my companion. Kind of like a daughter in a way.\u00a0Why would God separate us? Why would He allow a human being to get so close to an animal if they didn’t go to heaven together?<\/p>\n
Thank you for reading this, and I hope I get an answer soon.<\/p>\n
Have a good day.<\/p>\n\t
Almost all animals on this earth live far shorter lives than humans. Therefore, any animal you have as a pet is one you will likely see die at some point. A domesticated rat typically lives only two or three years.<\/p>\n
It was you who chose to give love to this animal. You invested a lot of your emotions into your pet. But now that your pet has died, you want to blame God for the natural order of this world? It sounds to me that you are the one with expectations that could not be met.<\/p>\n
Consider that in my office, I have a number of plants. I get pleasure from taking care of them and watching them grow. While I would be disappointed if one of them dies, I know that such does happen. I don’t expect my plant to go to heaven. I know that it returns to the dust of the earth. From a biblical perspective, plants don’t have life, as an animal does, but they do have a place in the order of this world and we can enjoy them. Animals, too, have a place in this world, but they only exist in this world.<\/p>\n
Animals have life, but they do not have a spirit that lives on after death. Only man was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27); that is, man was given a spirit like his Maker. In discussing death, Solomon mentions in Ecclesiastes 3:18-21 that men and animals face the same fate — we both die. Though by faith we are certain that men go to heaven, we can’t prove this while living in the physical world. “Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth?<\/em>” (Ecclesiastes 3:21). Even though this is expressed in the form of a question, notice that there are two different fates for men and for animals. Animals return to the dust of the world, as do the bodies of men. But the spirits of men return to God. “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it<\/em>” (Ecclesiastes 12:7).<\/p>\n You have nice memories of your pet — treasure the memories. However, life doesn’t revolve around what you want or how you think it should operate. God made the universe, including you and me. We can only accept the rules of this sphere and be thankful for what we are given.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: Hello! I’m an 18-year-old girl who is beginning to have doubts about my faith.\u00a0The reason is that I recently had to put down my pet rat and I am taking it pretty rough. It is so rough that I’m doubting myself and my religion (Catholic). My questions are these: Is she in heaven right…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[109,370],"class_list":["post-18043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-death","tag-pets"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":42200,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-animal-guides-compatible-with-christianity\/","url_meta":{"origin":18043,"position":0},"title":"Are animal guides compatible with Christianity?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I'm a teen and I got in trouble with my mom just for trying to contact my spirit animal. She said not to do it again because she does not want me to get possessed by a demon. She did not explain to me how or why. I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26683,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/im-shocked-you-would-tell-teenagers-not-to-have-sex\/","url_meta":{"origin":18043,"position":1},"title":"I’m shocked you would tell teenagers not to have sex!","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Wow, I've just read an answer to \"Is it bad that I want to see my boyfriend naked\"\u00a0and was shocked, do you honestly want to ruin a relationship between two teenagers by saying they should end their relationship because they might end up having sex?\u00a0 Do you really believe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42831,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-girlfriend-died-and-i-feel-like-im-losing-my-faith\/","url_meta":{"origin":18043,"position":2},"title":"My girlfriend died and I feel like I’m losing my faith","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Several months ago my beautiful girlfriend died from a heroin overdose. She and I were so in love and my life revolved around her. We missed each other the moment I would leave for work. We were together for two years and have been through a lot together.\u00a0 I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34349,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-god-care-about-all-the-surgeries-im-going-through\/","url_meta":{"origin":18043,"position":3},"title":"Does God care about all the surgeries I’m going through?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I was an evangelical Christian over five years ago. I am still a believer. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs or anything like that. I don't have a girlfriend. I stopped going to church about two years ago. It was because I had surgery (Palatal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20716,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/will-i-still-be-a-mother-in-heaven\/","url_meta":{"origin":18043,"position":4},"title":"Will I still be a mother in heaven?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 5, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Will I still be a mother in heaven? I know that we won\u2019t be married in heaven and that we will have some recognition of others that are there with us, but if I am in heaven and so is my daughter will we still be mother and daughter?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34806,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/for-a-bible-class-i-was-told-to-ask-someone-a-series-of-questions-i-was-surprised-at-the-response-i-got-and-i-dont-know-how-to-answer\/","url_meta":{"origin":18043,"position":5},"title":"For a Bible class, I was told to ask someone a series of questions. I was surprised at the response I got and I don’t know how to answer.","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, I'm taking a Bible class that aids in helping brothers and sisters spread God's Word. As part of an assignment, we were to ask a non-member of the church the following: What interests you the most? Is the Bible from God? Is Jesus God? Will most go to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}