Why I Think Heaven Needs More Dinosaurs
What if Heaven is filled with the things that make us wonder?
One of the questions I get asked most often about Jonner and the Stuffed Animal Mansion is where all the ideas come from.
The short answer is that I make a lot of them up.
The honest answer is that I’m not entirely sure where all of them come from. Sometimes I wonder if they’re simply the product of an overactive imagination. Other times I wonder if God is gently stretching my imagination beyond what I have always assumed Heaven to be.
The longer answer is that I spend a surprising amount of time thinking about Heaven.
Not necessarily the theological details, although those matter too. I find myself wondering about the experience of it. What would a child be excited to discover there? What would make someone smile the moment they stepped through the gates? If Heaven is truly better than anything we can imagine, why do so many of our descriptions feel so limited?
When I was growing up, Heaven was often described with clouds, angels, pearly gates, river of life, and streets of gold. Those are beautiful images, and they come straight from Scripture. They never captured my imagination the way they probably should have.
What captured me was the possibility that Heaven might somehow be both completely new and deeply familiar at the same time. A place where God surprises us while also making us feel completely at home.
That idea slowly became the foundation for Jonner and the Stuffed Animal Mansion.
In Jonner’s Heaven, people don’t lose what made them unique. Instead, those things become part of the story. An aviation enthusiast gets airplanes. A Christmas lover gets eternal Christmas. A child who adores stuffed animals gets a mansion filled with them. A dinosaur fan gets Dinosaur Valley.
As I worked on the book, I realized my favorite question was no longer, What will Heaven look like?
It became, What does God create for the people He loves?
The more I thought about that question, the more it seemed to fit the character of God. We worship a Creator whose imagination gave us oceans, galaxies, hummingbirds, mountains, and sunsets. If Heaven reflects His goodness and creativity, surely it contains more wonder than we have dared to imagine.
Maybe that’s why I became so attached to the idea of the Father’s House.
Not because I think Heaven literally contains a giant rotunda filled with doors, balconies, and elevators. But because the image captures something that feels true.
A place filled with possibilities.
A place filled with stories.
A place where every door reveals another glimpse of God’s goodness.
The truth that Heaven is personal.
The truth that Heaven is relational.
The truth that Heaven is not less than the things we love.
It is more.
Much more.
And if there happen to be dinosaurs there too, I certainly won’t be disappointed.