I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.

Luke 18:17

The love of a child for a stuffed animal is an example of the kind of love God has for us. Unconditional and pure. When I die, I will leave behind and totally abandon all of the stuffed animals which have been with me through childhood and my entire life. They'll probably be thrown out, in effect desecrated, and I will not be able to protect the sanctified link to my own youth and innocence since I'll be dead. This issue is heartbreaking for me, and I've struggled to figure out the answer. How could a God of love, healing, and restoration separate me from the most special and precious part of my life?

The key, I suppose, is that our mortal bodies are "tabernacles" (tents) which we temporarily inhabit, so the stuffed animals are even more so. Whatever makes a stuffed animal special is not its material form as much as a quality imbued in it by the child. What we take to heaven with us is not material, not the stuffing and cloth, but something more precious.

"You can't take it with you" -- the standard line about material possessions. But why would you want to? God is a creative God. He created us. We created stuffed animals with personalities, character, and so forth in imitation, because we are made in God's image. So why can't God recreate the stuffed animals, or give us the power to recreate them? I can't imagine God wanting to sever us from one of the most holy and pure things in our earthly lives, the stuffed animals of our childhood which are in many cases more real than actual people.

Something dwells in the earthly vessels of stuffed animals that makes them magical to children (and adults) -- I do not know what. It may be angels inhabiting the stuffed animals. It may be the inherent creative power of human beings, in children undiluted by as much sin and cynicism than will later be the case. But it is not the cloth, stuffing, and seams which matter.

When I die, I will take the essential qualities of the stuffed animals with me: their love, loyalty, comfort, basic character, etc. And these qualities will be recreated in heaven as something new, something better; the recognizable stuffed animal, to be sure, but something much more than there ever was on earth. So much so that both myself, and the stuffed animals I created, will never want to look back at the old perishable containers.