Local Mom Pens Her First Book

Written by Bill Bittar

A big toad on her headboard, a bat in her bedroom ... the death of her cat Misty started Patricia Brooks on a journey of different animal encounters which she believes were not random, but rather God's messages of lessons and meanings. She chronicles her experiences in her self-published-book "God Is In The Little Things: Messages from the Animals".

"It's my first book," Brooks said at a recent Monroe Farmers' Market. "It's definitely divinely guided."

Brooks lives in Monroe and has two daughters, Lindsey, 18, and Megan, 16, a Masuk High School student. She says the "spiritual journey" that inspired her to write her book has helped her through a dark period after her divorce from her ex-husband, Steve.

"It's my story," Brooks said of her book. "It's all of it. It's very honest and very emotional. People contact me and say, 'I'm on page such and such and I'm crying.' People keep a lot of stuff close to the vest and my book is very honest and telling.

"A lot of people are walking around feeling sad and distraught for other reasons and I wanted to make them feel better ... that they weren't alone." 

During a Reiki session, Brooks said people told her she would write a book. She was a computer science teacher at Darien High School and had never written a book in her life.

Brooks didn't know what she would write, until she says she was in a dream-state in the early hours of Feb. 18. In her book, she describes it this way:

I was in a deep dreamless sleep when suddenly I was awakened, but awakened only in the dream space. I could see myself, as I observed from a distance, and I was given a visual of the top of my head being opened up, as if it were latched in the back, similar to a pot being lifted. As I watched, information was being transferred to my brain, kind of like a download. I instantly knew what the information was. The information was very clear and detailed. I was shown, chapter by chapter, exactly what I was to write in my book.

Then she said she received a second message within a two-week-period: Seek and you shall find, for God is in the little things."

Brooks said she was on winter break from school when she sat on her bed and wrote for four days straight.

The book, "God Is In The Little Things: Messages from the Animals" is based on animal totems, in which every animal is believed to symbolize something.

"I resigned from my job to do this — to devote my time and talents to spreading God's messages," Brooks said of leaving Darien High School.

Asked what she does to pay the bills, Brooks said, "You mean how do I do this, being a single mom with two daughters and one in college? I'm putting it in the hands of God."

Brooks' cousin, Lisa Seagrin hand-drew the owl on the cover of "God Is In The Little Things: Messages from the Animals" and Brooks' nephew, Evan Corey edited it. The book costs $12 and copies my be ordered through the website Godisinthelittlethings.com.