A Sad Thing

I saw a very sad thing today and I just need to write it down.

I was driving to work and going behind a slow old man driver. I was getting annoyed and thinking of how I was already late for work. Then the car in front of me swerved into the other lane to avoid something in the road. All I could see was that it was some sort of roadkill. "Gross," I thought, and followed suit in driving around it.

As I passed it I saw what it was - a tiny baby deer, young enough to still be covered with white spots on its back. It had obviously suffered a very recent death, no doubt at the hands of someone like me driving 55 mph down the curvy back road.

It just made me think about how normally dead animals in the road are either so mangled that they are unrecognizable or are so common that the sight of it doesn't bother you anymore. A dead possum or dead squirrel won't ellicit much more than an "ew" from me. But for some reason to see the little baby deer's body in the road just made me sad enough to cry. Which I did. For about the next two miles. I cried for that baby deer even though I know there are thousands of deers and that what I saw is not that uncommon. I cried for that baby deer even though I know deer aren't exactly the brainiest of animals and that the baby's mom was probably over it already. I cried for that baby deer even though I know the real world isn't like Bambi.

And even though I know that animals don't "go to heaven" in the sense of humans I prayed that God had been there and comforted it upon its death. I prayed that as a part of creation which God made to glorify Himself, the baby deer and its life mattered to God and that perhaps that baby, and animals of all kinds, will be present in eternity. I don't know if that is true, but what I know of God's character makes me believe that it is.