What does my puppy have to do with the 8th Screwtape Letter?

This is not a way I expected God to teach me about Himself

As I write this, my body is aching, I have a dehydration headache (despite trying to drink more water), and I’ve spent the last three days falling into fits of tears because a season which was meant to be filled with so much joy has turned into a deep source of sorrow.

“We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons.”
- Uncle Screwtape

Getting a puppy was something that my husband and I had talked about and looked forward to for years.

It was something we had to put off while still working full-time, out-of-the-house jobs, but my husband felt the lack of a dog in his life – especially when his family dog passed away mere days after we got the keys to our first home. For me, dog ownership was going to be a shred of joy materialising from the lifestyle I’d longed for since graduating uni: being a work-from-home entrepreneur, an artist who could rise early, walk with my fluffy companion, and come home to sit at my desk with a hot brew while he napped beside me.

When God opened the door for that lifestyle to become a reality, a puppy soon followed, and despite the sleepless nights and playful teething bites, I’d not seen so much happiness in our home before. My husband was a different person. Our lives felt like they’d been set on fire with this new little addition to our family.

And then a few months in, Humphrey’s behaviour started to alarm us: he was getting more (not less) fearful of going on walks, riding in the car, or meeting other dogs. He started to growl when we’d come near him at meal times or when he had particular toys. These problems escalated when met with well-meaning but unhelpful advice from fellow dog parents, and the reality soon hit me: if we don’t help this dog, we will lose him, either by rehoming… or euthanasia.

We learned that our puppy had an issue called “resource guarding,” which presents itself as aggression when they think they need to “protect” a precious resource. Resource guarding-prompted dog bites are one of the top causes of dogs being put to sleep. Suddenly, this animal that had lit up our house with unspeakable joy was becoming the deepest source of heartbreak and fear.

Our ability to train him out of these behaviours is literally a matter of people’s safety, a matter of his survival, a matter of whether I’ll be faced with the future bereavement of having to re-home him if we ever have children.

I was raised in a nation (and a version of evangelicalism) that thinks very dismissively of God’s creatures. In acknowledging that humans are the most precious creature to God, I was subliminally taught that all other animals were almost unimportant outside of their role as food or labour – that dogs, for instance, were here to serve us and our needs.

And while I’m not implying that we have to bend over backwards and submit our entire lives to our animals, getting a dog myself has incidentally led me to so many scriptures which confirm just how much God loves all of His creation (and how much He bids us to love it too).

Before having our pup, I might have said “it’s just a dog.” Now, I have this alarming and strange ache to have Humphrey in my arms. I choke at the thought of losing him. I wake in the night with fear coursing through me of “what will happen if…?” I look into his eyes and see a little life who is loved by God and gifted to our family.

This time of joy has suddenly become a very heavy time of grief. Every waking moment feels like trudging through mud. Humphrey’s anxiety offers little relief throughout the day, and his guarding tendencies keep me in a state of hyper-vigilance. I’m exhausted. I’m afraid. I’m bitter at the thought that others don’t end up with such difficult puppies – that this was our luck of the draw.

The reality of what must be done to save our dog in juxtaposition with my own daily fears and health issues (unrelated to Humphrey) has been a sobering reminder of how quickly things can change. I was, a few months ago, doing well, starting a new business, raising a new puppy, filled with joy.

Now, an earthquake, a change of circumstances, has plunged my “peak” into a “trough.” And incidentally, it’s one of the reasons that re-launching the podcast in the new year has been delayed.

So what does all of this have to do with Screwtape?

“Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation – the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.”

Letter 8 is one of my favourite letters in the entire book. It’s a worshipful response to the hard truth that our lives never remain static – which means that suffering can meet us just as swiftly as joy.

While Wormwood is delighted that his patient appears to be in a state of spiritual dryness, wise-old Screwtape knows better: our struggles are no more eternal than our delight on this side of Heaven. While we remain in these decaying vessels (that’s a gruesome description of our bodies, I know), we remain subject to the constant flux of time, which means that we undulate, we ebb and flow, we rise and fall back. This can happen in our finances, in our health, in our relationships, in our careers, or in my case with a puppy I adore and am also afraid of.

Yet Screwtape, in his disgust, reminds us that despite our eternal spirits longing for an end to undulation, God’s goodness means that He meets us where we’re at, in these mortal bodies, to dignify us in our valleys while whispering to us a reminder of the promised eternity to come.

“Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks.”

I don’t believe that God actively gives us trials to “test” our faith – this is a version of theology I once held true, but I realise now that it is a reductionist view of suffering, and an insulting depiction of a God who is described as a loving Father. Suffering happens for all sorts of reasons: sometimes it’s the consequences of ours or others’ sin, and sometimes, like in the case of a struggling puppy, it’s merely the result of a world which remains broken while existing without the embodied, perfect, holy presence of God Almighty. Either way, one fact remains: God does not abandon us.

I do not say this flippantly. I do not say this without having gone through many-a-season of feeling that God has been utterly silent. I say this, in fact, to myself, in this very moment, as I fear that we made a terrible mistake by adopting this dog and questioning whether God is punishing us for our foolishness. I say this to my own doubt. I say this to my own pride. I say this to my own threads of poor theology.

God loves us. God does not abandon us. He dignifies us in both our seasons of suffering and of joy. He honours our questions and our doubt and bids us choose Him even when we think He’s not there. He invites us to lean into the instincts of our eternal spirit – the part of us that is not subject to decay – to re-discover in Him the hope-filled promise that there will well and truly be a day when all suffering will pass away. There will be no more illness and death. There will be no more deception and greed. There will be no more strife between man and animal. A day will come when all harmony is restored. We know this because Jesus really is who he says he is. He really did die on the cross and rise again three days later. The promise of the gospel really is true.

As we begin Lent in the lead-up to Easter, I invite you to listen to this podcast episode and then look up some of the additional resources that I mention throughout, particularly Kristen LaValley’s book, Even If He Doesn’t, which is launching next week. (Pre-odering this stunning book about suffering as a Christian will do so much to help Kristen, and I have no other reason to endorse it apart from the fact that I believe it will help you. It’s certainly helped me.)

Whether you’re in a season of suffering or joy, I encourage you to use this podcast and other helpful resources to dig deeper – to access that eternal part of you that was DESIGNED to find rest in the truth of Jesus.

I am determined to do everything in my power to make sure that my dog’s life is not the price that must be paid to keep others safe. God has provided for us (through the gift of pet insurance) to employ experts who are educating us on the best possible way to help this sweet little animal cope with living in a human world. I am fighting for his life because I believe in “On earth as it is in Heaven” – in a world where all creation lives in harmony, not conflict, and all life is treated as precious and loved by the Creator.

I am digging my heels in during this “trough” season because I believe that even in the act of looking after a dog, God is with me, He cares deeply, and He invites me to learn more about who He is as I submit to His love and power over my life. It is restful to serve a loving King.

“Lord, the earth is filled with your faithful love… Sustain me as you promised, and I will live; do not let me be ashamed of my hope.”
Psalm 119: 64;116