God Loves Us All Greatly: Caring for Ourselves as We Care for Our Beloved Sick Pets

By Robert Arthur Hansen

God Loves Us All Greatly: Caring for Ourselves as We Care for Our Beloved Sick Pets by Robert Arthur Hansen

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685265458

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God Loves Us All Greatly

Robert Arthur Hansen

Caring for Ourselves as We Care for Our Beloved Sick Pets

ISBN 978-1-68526-544-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68526-545-8 (Digital)

Copyright © 2022 Robert Arthur Hansen

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Pastoral Care—an Essential Counterpart to Veterinary Care

Peppy My First Dog, and Trusting in God’s Love

Onesimus, Bacchus, and Having Faith

Steward to My Faithful Companions: Woody and Winston

Restoring Our Spiritual Self in Times of Crisis

Spiritually Reaching: The Lord Our God Who Loves and Suffers with Us All

Preface

Jesus loves me! This I know,

For the Bible tells me so;

Little ones to God belong;

They are weak, but God is strong.

—poem by Anna Bartlett Warner (1860),

hymn by William Batchelder Bradbury (1862)

This book was inspired by my experience of being compelled to care for my own spiritual and psychological needs during a personal crisis—as I cared for my seriously ill young dog, Winston. The book also describes my earlier experiences with distress, guilt, anxiety, sorrow, and grief in relation to ill health, end of life, and passing on of my four other dear pet dogs.

When you take your sick or dying pet to a veterinary hospital, unlike at a regular hospital, there are no chaplains (or rabbis or imams, for that matter) and no social workers to give support to you and your family. I therefore wish for this book to do that for you and your family.

It is my hope that what I’ve written will assist you and yours in coping with the experience of caring for your beloved pet who is very ill, is in critical trauma at a veterinary hospital, is at death’s door, or has recently passed on. I wrote this book to offer you some guidance for spiritual, emotional, and psychological support during these difficult times. May you invoke God’s caring, compassionate love and grow ever closer to God as you move through these challenging experiences.

I’m now retired; however, I spent the first part of my professional life as a Presbyterian Church (USA) minister, serving congregations and providing pastoral care, while further educating myself in the field of human psychology. Then for the last twenty-four years, I served mostly faith-based nonprofit organizations as a professional fund development executive.

When my dog Winston suddenly became so ill, I wondered, What have I done wrong? It was as if all my theological training and sensitivity heightened through pastoral care, and my entire learning of psychology had exited my psyche. I was sure that young Winston was going to die, and that it was my fault. I felt an overwhelming sense of emotional pain, fear, guilt, grief, and anticipated loss.

Before Winston entered my life, for some twelve years, I dearly loved a sweet-natured golden retriever dog named Woody. Then we had to euthanize¹ him because of a severely disabling orthopedic condition from which he could not recover (see chapter 3). I never again wished to experience such excruciatingly painful loss and overwhelming grief—and I vowed that I would never get another dog as a pet.

But time passed. And then a relative made it possible for an adorable black Labradoodle—a Labrador retriever and poodle mix breed—puppy to come into our home and become part of the family, consisting of my wife