The journey from an idea to finished product has been one that has taken me through unforeseen channels of eager endeavors, artful research, writers block, self-doubt, joyful elation, personal sorrows and spiritual triumphs. Only God could have written this script and only by the help of the Holy Spirit could my pen write the words that would be placed in my book. It is like living a lifetime in a small cosmos of time.

Now, with the book in its second week, I feel only what I can describe as peaceful surrender. There is much to do now! It is like the moment that a mother feels following the birth of her child, as she holds it close, she knows much is ahead but, she rests in the moment and miracle of the precious gift before her. It is so similar, those feelings, as Animals in Heaven? Catholics Want to Know! has become a reality. It is a moment to offer grateful thanksgiving to my Creator for all that He has given me!

There was the the isolated and peace-filled time that I took to start the book’s beginning in the high mountains of North Carolina, where my Dalmatian, Bud and I shared the wilderness with a bear as our closest neighbor. Then finally arriving at the evening of the Book Launch in Saint Augustine, Florida, in an Inn which was built in the mid 1880’s as a stable. This book has been touched in smallness, obscurity and quietude. I have felt Jesus’ presence in all the ways the book has evolved.

My life has been full of creatures both wild and domestic that have been a blessing all. I cannot imagine living outside of the realm of the wild and wilderness about us and all the beautiful creatures which populate these areas. It is in this environment, in the vista of God’s mirror that I grew close to the One who embraces all of His creation, at times being left breathless in the beauty of solitary moments with creation and creatures.

My husband, Greg was such a part of that joy. The love of creation wasn’t something that came naturally to him; he was raised much differently than I. But, in our love, his love for me came to embrace that which I loved. One summer evening, sitting high atop one of those North Carolina Mountains, he turned to me and said, “I never knew the fullness of God’s love until you showed me His face in creation.” And he kissed me in a way that connects two people intimately into eternity. Eight days before his death in 2008, he made me promise that I would write this book for the glory of God’s kingdom in this world and the one promised.

It has been a road “less traveled” with few interludes along the way. It has been in that solitary that I found strength, in my weakest moments that I found comfort and guidance and at the end of the journey that I “walked into the light!” Thank you my God, my Savior and my Comforter for asking much of me, I offer all to your glory!

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