Open Letter To God

God
The Human Heart
(according to STV:TFF)

Dear Sir or Madam,

First of all, I want to thank You for the (nearly) nine years we had with our beloved cat Bootsie and for accepting her from our loving arms into Yours yesterday morning. She was the most people-oriented cat I've ever known or likely ever will know and we will always be greatful for our time with her (which was much longer than we expected it would be when we got her in poor health at ten years of age in 1999, btw, so thanks again.)

However, I'm also writing to request a policy clarification from You. To be honest, it has been a while since I've reviewed Your Word. But I thought I remembered something about a Good Samaritan helping their neighbor, or a behavior-based rather than geographical definition of neighbor, or obedience rather than sacrifice, or something like that. Here's the situation:

Bootsie was suffering a great deal, beginning around 8 a.m. Her unseeing eyes were wide and dilated. She was vomiting, seizing, and crying. She could not stand up. Our children were asleep in their rooms and Bride and I wanted to take Bootsie to the vet together to end her suffering. We needed someone to come and stay at the house with our children. Our family members were all at least 20 minutes away.

We called our first choice neighbors. They were not answering their phone. We called our second choice neighbors. Bride told them of our emergency. We were told in return that because the husband had a Sunday School class to teach, they could not help us. Although I have since calmed down and become more contemplative and compassionate, I must admit this made me very angry.

Granted we are not particularly close to them, and if they had given almost any other excuse I would have probably been okay. But to say that teaching a Sunday School class was more important than caring briefly for your neighbor's children while they take their dying cat to the vet to end her suffering strikes me as wrong somehow.

Now it did end up being one of those things where, to quote You, "All things work together for good" because as it happened, it was just as well they did not help us. We took Bootsie outside and she probably enjoyed her final ten minutes or so much more than if we had taken her to the only open clinic (which clinic was going to charge us a $108 "exam" fee, btw God.) She even seemed to rally a little bit in the fresh air and after the final big vomit and seizures she was actually purring and at peace for a solid minute or so before leaving her body for good.

I guess my question, Lord, is this: What would you have had them do? Teach the class or miss the class to help their neighbor? Is there a scriptural basis on which this decision could be examined? I await insight.