My Childhood Relationship with God

ALBERT EINSTEIN IS WIDELY QUOTED as having said, "I want to know God's thoughts. The rest are details." I'm no Einstein, but that's exactly how I've always felt. For as long as I can remember, I've had a deep yearning to know God — and hearing Bible stories in Sunday school did not meet that need.

I grew up the oldest of four kids. Both of my parents were alcoholics, which made life unpredictable and scary. I was taught at an early age to always say my prayers at bedtime, so I did. I used to pray that my parents would quit drinking and for God to break all the whiskey bottles in the world. When this didn't happen, I got discouraged with praying. What was the point of prayers if they weren't answered?

My father's mother was a very religious woman and a member of the Women's Christian Temperance Movement. She talked about hell a lot, saying that's where drunks went when they died. She made God sound so scary. This was the guy I was supposed to be praying to every night? In spite of what Grandma said, and even though my prayers were unanswered, I still had a desire to know the real God. I wanted the truth and somehow knew there was a whole other story than the one I was hearing.

I remember my parents taking us to see Fiddler on the Roof. I was deeply affected by the main male character, who would go outside and talk to God all the time. I felt a yearning to be just like him, no matter how long it took.

I went from feeling discouraged to being mad at God for not answering my prayers. I decided to pray to Peter Pan instead. I figured if nothing else, he might come and take us to never-never land. Then I wouldn't care if God didn't break all the whiskey bottles. Peter never did show up, so I went back to saying my prayers at night, pleading my case to God.

Thankfully, when I was fourteen, my prayers were answered and my parents got into recovery. Life took a wonderful turn, and I felt like we were finally becoming a normal family. Mom and Dad both got on a spiritual path and taught me everything they were learning. I was like a person who had been in the desert for years; I soaked up everything they could give me. They would tell us really cool stories about God that they had heard at meetings, and this just made me want to know this guy even more. My father was an avid reader, and I would read his spiritual books, such as Emmet Fox's Sermon on the Mount and books by Norman Vincent Peale and Catherine Ponder, when he finished them. I could not quench the thirst I felt and knew I had to go even deeper, although I didn't know what that meant.

By the time I was seventeen, life was going very well. We all seemed to be healing from the previous years and were getting on with our lives. I was in my last year of high school and got accepted to the University of Minnesota. I was looking forward to becoming a social worker, a mortician, or a minister — a strange combination of interests, I know. But I felt drawn to helping people with their pain, working with the deceased, and helping people know God.

Whenever I tried to pick one career, my inner voice would tell me, "Wait." Every day I asked God to show me what His will was for my life. In the fall of 1965, I got my answer — and I wasn't at all happy about it!

Discovering My Spiritual Gifts

ONE NIGHT WHILE MY FAMILY WAS SITTING around the dinner table, chatting about the day, one of my brothers went downstairs to practice his drums. He was just learning to play and usually sounded kind of clanky.

After about a minute of his playing, something changed. The music began to sound really nice — smooth and professional. My parents, my sister, and my other brother all stopped talking and listened. A few minutes later, my brother came flying up the stairs. He was visibly shaken and kept asking us if we'd heard the music. We all said we had, and before we could ask him how he'd done it, he blurted out that a "white figure" had floated through the door, moved across the room, put his hands on top of my brother's, and played that really nice music. My brother said he'd tried to drop his sticks but couldn't. He also said that even though he'd had his eyes closed, he could still see this "man" playing the music through his hands.

After a few minutes, the ghostly figure had floated back across the room and out the closed door. That's when my brother dropped his sticks and came running upstairs. He was very upset and said he was never going to play his drums again.

My mother was in a prayer group at the time, and one of the women there had mentioned going to see a medium in St. Paul. Mom immediately called the woman and asked for the name and number of the medium.

When Mom called the medium and introduced herself, the medium replied, "Yes, Mrs. Bodine. I've been expecting your call." Mom told her what had happened, and the woman said the white figure was my brother's guardian angel. The angel was named Dr. Fitzgerald, and when he was living on earth, he'd been a drummer.

The medium told Mom that this had happened for a reason and that she needed to see Mom and her oldest daughter (me) for a psychic reading. She also said that Mom and her children were born with some very unusual gifts. My mother hung up the phone, telling the medium that she would call her back but that she needed time to process all this information.

When Mom told us what the medium had said, I took no comfort in the explanation that my brother had a guardian angel who used to play the drums. All I could think about was, What if I had a guardian angel who wanted to get my attention? What might it do? That night, I slept with my lights on — and they stayed on for the next two years!

Mom called the medium back the next day and set up an appointment for us. We were so curious to know what she meant by "unusual gifts" and why she'd been "expecting" our call. We had our appointment about a week later, and Mom and I freaked each other out on the drive over to St. Paul. We had no idea what to expect. Mrs. Olson was an absolute sweetheart. A petite woman from England, she had an adorable accent. Mom went in for her session first, while I sat in the living room watching TV with Mr. Olson. I was so young and naive. Seventeen and...