I love summer, I like fall and I love spring. Can we just skip winter?

Pickles is one of my every-morning cartoon favorites, but even though I love autumn too, I also feel like singing that old blues tune, "I hate to see that evening sun go down." I do truly love summer and the older I get, the worse I hate to see the leaves turn and the temperatures drop. I'm cold-natured and getting worse with age.

We haven't covered our pool yet for winter, but we will soon and I hate to see that happen. When I'm working from home, as I was yesterday, I can take my breaks and my lunch on the pool deck along with my bestest canine buddy, Harry the pool dog, ever vigilant for any critter that might invade his territory.

Yesterday, I had a can of sardines for lunch and an Atkins-friendly low-carb beer, topped off with a cigar. Now that's a great lunch. And to prove once again that he will eat anything, Harry licked the mustard sauce left in the sardine can until it looked like it was factory new, ready to be refilled.

Soon the sun won't feel so good and the pool will be covered and the pool deck won't be such a pleasant place. And as the famous economist John Maynard Keynes said about the economic future, "In the long term, we're all dead." So enjoy fall while you can, endure winter and look forward to another spring, maybe.

Of course, there are worse things than growing old. There's growing old alone. I have a wonderful wife to share my life with (third time's the charm) and two children, a step-daughter and five grandchildren.

My sweet wife's brother Teddy gave us the above carved stone and my sweet wife put it out in the garden area next to the pool where she labors to diligently. I'm not taking it as a bad omen that it got cracked.

That's her rusty watering pot and the two shiny stones are some of the ones our 2.5-year-old granddaughter in Pittsburgh hand-painted and presented to us this past summer. Life is good and God is great. I'll continue to enjoy life as long as I'm here, and after that, I'm really enjoy the land where we'll never grow old.

Will we see our lost pets in heaven?

Will Rogers used to say, “If there are no dogs in heaven, I want to go where the dogs went.” The most-often asked Bible Question I get is “Will see our lost pets in heaven?” Below is my response to that question. Other Bible questions and answers are in my online archive. If you have a Bible question, check my Bible Q&A archive first and if I haven’t answered your question, send me an email and I will research it and respond.

Bible Answer: I have taught before that man is the only creature with a soul, while animals do not have souls, based on the ending of this one verse in the King James, Gen. 2:7, “and man became a living soul.” But that is not what this verse really says.

W.E. Vine’s "An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words" says the Greek word translated “soul" is psuche, which means “an animate creature, human or other.”

The Hebrew word used here for soul is “nepesh,” according to "Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words," which says, “The KJV alone uses over 28 different English terms for this one Hebrew word. The problem with the English term “soul” is that no actual equivalent of the term or the idea behind it is represented in the Hebrew language.”

Vine says the use of “soul” in Gen. 2:7 is “an unfortunate mistranslation of the term.”

"The KJV Parallel Bible Commentary" says this about the KJV use of “living soul” in this verse, “A better translation would be ‘a living creature or person,’ as the phrase (identical) is also used of animals (Genesis 1:21, 24). Thus, soul is not a reference to the concept of body, soul/spirit, but rather to the fact man became a living being. Man is distinguished from animals by being created in the image of God.”

So, do animals have a “soul”? When Adam sinned, the penalty of death came upon the entire creation, so does that mean we can assume animals did not die until that time?

Romans 8:19-22 refers to when man will be redeemed with new, spiritual bodies, and says the other parts of God’s creation will be delivered also, referring to all other life.

“¹⁹For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; ²¹because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. ²²For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.”

Does that mean animals will be resurrected into new life, like humans? I don’t know.

Perhaps the writer is accurate who wrote, “Heaven is the place where when we first arrive, we will be greeted by every animal we’ve ever loved.”

It is certainly within the power to God to resurrect any of His creations, man or animal. Heaven will certainly be a perfect place where we shall want for nothing.

(John Myers has been a Christian lay speaker, Sunday School adult teacher and avid student of the Bible for more than 30 years.)