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I used to think, as a kid, that God was the guy who sat on a white chair like most kids believe that, with the beard and you get the Charlton Heston sort of look. But as I grew older, of course, you begin to change your mind about that. It's a lot harder now that I'm in my 50s getting close to that flipside, as they say, but I think God is sort of in all of us. I think God is expressed in us in the kindness and the acts that we do. But God's also in the trees and in the birds and in everything else. So, in the experiences that I have outside and all around, I feel just as much as if God's watching me or God's sharing with me as when someone does a good deed or I do a good deed. I sort of feel like God's working through me. So, it's sort of an all-encompassing sort of experience with God, I think, rather than just a separated God.
Not too long ago, a few years ago, we buried my father-in-law, rest his soul. He was a really good and kind man, and he told us a story not long before he passed about his trip to Alaska, and to honor him and to celebrate his life I took my kids and my husband and we all went to Alaska. And while we were in Alaska, we saw the eagles flying. And one eagle landed just outside of the bus we were in, and the eyes of that eagle just started at us. And we just kind of went, "Dad's here. God's here. This is what we were meant to be. This whole thing was pre-planned. We should have just been here." And we were. So, it was kind of like that feeling where you just felt like God has intervened, or Dad, that experience of transcending. It was pretty cool, actually. We all started crying. It was that moment of sort of everything is right. This is the way it was meant to be.
I felt at a time in my life that É I somehow felt like the mistakes I made were there. I think, though, I was a lot younger and I came to realize that that really wasn't what this was all about. I think I had to sort of grow up and experience all the wonderful things and the changes and sort of know that God's not that punishing guy. So, I thought that was God, then when I came to realize that wasn't really God, that was really man, and we all make mistakes and it was really man's mistakes and my mistakes that allowed me to end up in the way I was. And I just had to sort of move above that. And once I did, it made a big difference.