Pets in the Afterlife

ANNOUNCEMENT:

Don't forget to do some of your Christmas shopping on my website at www.pmhatwater.com. For the first time, I now have an Online Bookstore and can fill the orders of wonderful people such as yourself, worldwide. It is set up for credit card purchases, too, through PayPal. Check in from time to time on my website, as I soon will be able to offer several DVDs done of talks I have given during 2007. If you haven't signed up to be on the mailing list for announcements from the website, please do. You can do that right from the site at the end of the Home Page.

Thanksgiving is soon upon us followed by Christmas and New Year's Eve. These celebrations are holy and sacred to most of us, and bring us together in special ways. Perhaps the tight money markets and challenging financial picture we are now faced with is a good thing. I mean that in the sense that this year few will have the funds to buy as before. Small gifts will have more meaning. We will all have to cut back some, many of us quite a bit. The days of deficit spending are coming to a close. What we are experiencing this fall is only a taste of what may be headed our way by next November, 2008. The good part is we can at last spend more time with each other, visit, play, cuddle up as we remember good memories and share precious moments. When was the last time you spoke of your own spiritual path or the concerns of your heart with friends and family? How about lively discussions as per certain videos or books or DVDs that offer us a new and better view, solutions instead of serial murders and mayhem. I don't know about you, but I've found a derth of good movies in 2007. Too much violence, even on television. I won't go to such movies, nor will I view them in my living room. An exception was the movie "Amazing Grace." If you missed it, hunt around. The movie is a true story that is unusually uplifting and may spark a lot of conversation and comments.

I am as busy as most of us are. So I am taking this moment in time to send you all good wishes and many blessings for the coming tide of wonder. When I remember my 70th birthday spent high in the sky aboard a hot-air balloon, I am filled with joy - the joy of living each moment as fully as I can. It is this joy I send you for the holidays. I know it will bring a smile to your face and lighten your steps. Happy Holidays! PMH


QUESTION:

"I am so confused. I really feel that I have all the signs that the afterlife is real; I feel that I was becoming very close to my true beliefs. Then my mother tells me, because I believe in Christ, that I should know that talking with the dead, and any other beliefs other than what is written in the Bible is not going to get me to heaven.

"She feels that articles and books of the spiritual realm and veil, are the devil's way of enticing me away from God and into evil.

"I have other friends tell me that I am looney, and need psychiatric help. Other friends tell me that I am believing in a fantasy, that thinking that we can travel through space and reach other dimensions and we will see the people we loved who have died, is just nonsense - that they thought I was smarter than that. They say that I am letting my imagination run away from me. I think my mother feels that I am doomed to hell. My friends say that faith is just for people to believe in something when someone they love dies, to give them hope. Nothing else. When we die, we are ashes to the wind.

"I am starting to question my own believing. They think because I want to see my dog Isabelle when I die that I am going nuts. I hired an animal communicator, and they had a big laugh over that, and said she was talking to me.

"Do you think animal communicators are real? Will I see my lost pets in the afterlife? I worry about them, especially Isabelle whom I miss horribly, and cry over every day. I wish she was with me at night, come and visit me. It was so unfair for her to die, and unfair that I prayed and prayed, and God didn't answer my prayers and took Isabelle from me. I feel that I am being punished.

"Please help."....Carolyn.

ANSWER:

No one can say for certain that you will see your pets after you die. Research on near-death states, however, suggests that you will because so many reports claim such to be true.

And, no one can tell you that one way of believing is better than another. Over 250 Christian sects exist - thus there is no single authority on what constitutes the Christian message, not even the Bible with its multiple translations, as some of them are still subject to question because of the Dead Sea Scrolls and additional Gospels now coming to light. The only true Christianity is the experience of God in your own heart and the reality of faith offered by the model our brother Jesus gave with the teachings of his life and how he lived it. You and you alone can decide what is right for you. There are wonderful books and CDs available now that will assist you in growing in faith and finding God within. Do not rely on others to do your work for you. Faith is an inside job.

If you have questions, pull out your M.A.P. --

• M - meditation
• A - affirmations
• P - prayer

If you have a problem, are troubled or confused, use your M.A.P. The guidance you receive may amaze you.

God is as close as your next breath. Visit various churches. Study different creeds and traditions. A powerful truth runs through all of them - the power of love, and of forgiveness and joy and grace and gratitude. God doesn't limit us. Why would you believe others who do?

Blessings always, PMH