by Marilyn Barto
Very recently my husband and I had to have our 10 year old Golden Retriever, Nugget, put to sleep due to lung cancer. Needless to say, we were devastated. We received many letters and words of sympathy. In an e-mail from my sister she mentioned Nugget being in a grassy, green field, romping and playing. It reminded me of a poem I had heard some years back called the "Rainbow Bridge". I looked it up on the internet and printed it out. After I read it, I said a silent prayer to the Lord asking if he might show me a sign that this poem is true and that we would see Nugget again. I've never found solid Biblical evidence that there's a heaven for animals, other than His eye is on the Sparrow, etc. Ten minutes later as I was driving down a country road on my way to work, I saw two retrievers (a black lab and a golden lab) romping and playing with one another in a farmer's field. I was dumbfounded. I've been up and down this road daily and had never seen these dogs, and I'm always careful looking out for deer, dogs, cats, so I won't hit them. The only difference between the Rainbow Bridge image was that the field was covered with snow, not grass. Now, mind you if God had removed the snow and replaced it with green grass, I would surely have driven in a ditch. He was protecting me. Some will say this was a coincidence; some will say I'm losing my mind. I know differently. I will one day see my beloved Nugget.