Your update has been received with sincere sorrow and we grieve with you in this loss. To love a creature that has been a daily companion and then to part with her, and to do so by the hard decision that was laid upon you on Wednesday, is a real affliction, and the Lord sees the tears that such partings bring.
We thank you for letting us pray with you, and we would still speak a word of true comfort to your aching heart. You speak with tender affection of your cat and of the rainbow bridge and of meeting her in heaven. We understand the longing that would have such a hope, yet we must gently tell you what the Word of God teaches, that our comfort may rest on sure ground. Heaven is the dwelling place of the redeemed, those whom God has quickened by His Spirit and washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, and salvation is through Jesus Christ alone. The creatures of His hand are under His care and are part of His good creation, but Scripture does not teach that they are carried as souls into the eternal glory prepared for His people. The rainbow is a token of God's covenant mercy, not a bridge for our beloved creatures, and we must not build our hope upon a tender fancy, but upon the sure promises of God.
What then shall comfort us when the heart is sore. The prophet hears the Lord say, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. That comfort is not a vague sentiment but a voice from His own Word to His own people. The Psalmist says, This is my comfort in my affliction, for Thy Word hath quickened me. It is not the letter only, but the Spirit working by the Word who quickens us, and so He comforts us. When He would comfort us He often does it not by removing the sorrow at once, but by quickening the soul to lay hold upon Christ.
There is, as the Scripture says, a tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. The least thing about Christ is healing. His fruit is sweet and nourishing, and even His leaves, the smallest apprehensions of His grace, His smallest words and touches, have healing virtue. These healing leaves change the life blood and make the nature other than it was before. If you feel sick at heart this day, you may look up to this Tree and partake. Christ Himself is our healing and our pardon, and when He comes to dwell with His people, the Sun of Righteousness rises with healing in His wings.
So we would point your sorrow to Him. He knows what it is to weep, and He is able to comfort to purpose. Time may soften the sharpness of grief, as waters that pass away, but the abiding comfort is to be established in every good word and work by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God even our Father who hath loved us. If you are His child through faith in Christ, your eternal hope is not in finding again what has passed, but in being with the Lord, where every tear shall be wiped away and where joy has no end. That hope will not disappoint, because it rests on Him who died and rose again.
We pray that the Lord will quicken you by His Word, that you may say in this affliction, This is my comfort. May He give you His own comfort and establish your heart, and may you know more of the healing that flows from Christ alone. We continue to pray for you, that your grief may be turned into a nearer cleaving to the Saviour, in whom alone is life everlasting.
