On Friday, July 9, 2010, my wife and I were riding our tandem bike in Woodland Union Cemetery in Van Wert, OH. We came across a little tuxedo kitten who was lying by some bushes and he started to chase us. We didn’t stop because we already had three cats and didn’t need another.

The next night we rode by the same place and there he was again. Once again he started to chase us and this time we stopped and brought him home. We had him checked out by the vet that following Monday and thought he was OK. But as it turned out he had congenital heart disease and died suddenly five weeks later on Tuesday, August 17, 2010. It was one of the most devastating things I have ever experienced, especially because he was such a friendly kitten and especially because he really did adopt us.

I made a mistake the evening we had him euthanized. We didn’t take his body home and give it a proper burial. I just couldn’t handle it at that point but that was the wrong thing for me to do–on multiple levels. On this the first anniversary of our chance meeting with that kitten, I still grieve for him. It’s just not right for a kitten like that to die so suddenly and prematurely. It represents all that has gone wrong in God’s good albeit fallen creation.

So Dondra and I went out to the cemetery this evening and held a little memorial service for Woody (we named him after the cemetery in which he adopted us). I read Psalms 24.1-2, 36.5-7a, most of 104, and 145.3-21. Each Psalm speaks of the goodness of God as Creator and God’s provision for his creatures and creation.

We said a prayer and asked God to not forget his little creature that was taken from us way too soon. I had an old wooden cross that our neighbors made and I laid it at the site where we first saw Woody. Now before you accuse me of practicing some kind of weird religion, I don’t think for a moment that Christ died for kittens. Christ died for humans. I laid the cross at the site because both Dondra and I needed to be reminded of God’s great love for us and for all his creatures. We needed to be reminded of the promise of the New Creation where hopefully we will get to see that little guy again–this time without heart disease. None of that is guaranteed of course, at least as far as Woody is concerned, but I hope and believe that the God who loves his profoundly broken human creatures so much that he became human and died on a cross to do something about it once and for all will surely not forget a sweet little guy like Woody, who loved us wildly (and we him).

Maybe, just maybe, I can dare hope that God will redeem all his good little creatures in the New Creation. May God use that hope and the memorial service we held tonight as a means of grace to bring us comfort for this and the other burdens we bear.