All Creatures Great and Small-and what it has to do with writing

By Jennie Atkins

I recently had the opportunity to check off one of the items on my bucket list—not that I’m planning on kicking it any time soon. But ever since I can remember my husband and I have wanted to travel to Alaska.    

This month we were finally able to achieve our dream.

Although it rained every day we were there and Denali lay hidden in a shroud of clouds, we still saw a great deal of what makes Alaska great.  Mostly the animals that live in our most remote state.  We got to watch a Bull Moose dash across a four-lane highway in front of us in no more than three strides. We saw a mountain goat perched on a rocky ledge high above our heads and Sea Otters float by our boat (shown above).

We watched birds of all kinds grace the skies from the great Bald Eagle to the Tufted Puffin. And we stood in awe as pod of Orca whales (killer whales) breached into the air.

There in the place individuals once referred to as Seward’s folly or Seward’s Icebox, it was evident that God had not taken his creation lightly. I was amazed at the beauty around me.  It left me humbled at God’s infinite love and wisdom.

It also left me with the question: If God spent so much time and creativity on each of the animals I saw in that distant land, how much more had he spent on we, his children? He knew all of us, before we were born.  He created each of us with talents, with a special personality, and all in his image.

And now as a struggle to plot out my next book, wishing I could write like other authors I admire (the list is too long to mention for fear I would miss someone), I realize God made me different.  As unique as the Harbor Seal is to the throng of Sea Lions my husband and I watched lazily sleeping away the day on a rock jutting out from the water, so am I.

God made me different.  God made me unique.  He made my story unique as well.  I will never write like other well-known authors, but it doesn’t mean my story is less important or written with lesser quality.  It’s just mine.  I tell it in my way, in a manner that God has planted deep in my soul.