My relationship with God developed at an early age. I lived on my grandmother's farm in a place called West Virginia.  Instead of having other children to play with my friends came from the enormous amount of animals on the farm.

It was indeed a place of nature where one went bare foot almost the year round. I would eat rhubarb that was rubbed on the same salt block the cows would lick on. Picked strawberries, blueberries and blackberries for my grandmothers pies. Climbed apple trees and would eat until I was sick.  It was an endless journey for a little child.

Anyone who has traveled the roads of West Virginia is in awe of the beautiful mountains that seem to never end.  It was on one of these mountains I first found my relationship with God that I remember most about my childhood.

I remember the groves, the streams, the trees that loomed around me thick with wild animals and game of all kinds. The spring we got our clear drinking water from was so delicious along with the many kinds of berries we would pick for grandma to make berry pie.

I would sit on the ground & play with the dogs & cats. I would climb the trees. I would pick pa pa's & all of the beautiful & colorful flowers in the field that were always endless.

It was during these times I would feel this warm, loving presence that was all around me. I used to sit on my grandma's porch and feel something stirring inside of me that made me feel my own aliveness.  I never understood exactly what that something was until much later in life.

When I first experienced an awareness of God, I was about the age of three. I don't believe I really understood what this feeling was. But I knew I felt a magnetic attraction toward something that was pulling me towards the teachings of this man named Jesus.

It was during this age of my life I had my first Angel experience. I was living on my Paternal Grandparents farm along with my two sisters.  My mother had moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to find work so she could one day bring the three of us home with her.

It is strange why certain events stick out in a child's mind more then others. But I remember vividly how hurt I was from a spanking my uncle had given me for spilling water from a pail I was carrying from a spring at the bottom of my grandmothers house.

Maybe I felt alone & wanted my mom to be their to protect me from this man who thought he had the right to spank me. Looking back, it was probably only a tap on my bottom, but to me being a sensitive Cancer, I was screaming and crying so loudly that my grandmother put me to bed.

I remember lying their in my bed with my eyes closed and swollen from crying. When all of a sudden I felt someone sitting down on the edge of my bed.  I thought my dad or grandma had come into the room to talk to me.  But when I opened my eyes sitting on my bed was a man with the most beautiful eyes and face just staring at me. I did not feel he was a stranger, because in my mind I knew him.  His hair was long and brown and I do not remember what he wore.  But I do remember the words he spoke to me. He said, Patty, (the name I was called then) I am always with you, you will never be alone. He touched me on my face and I knew everything was ok. I knew I was loved. I closed my eyes with a smile on my face as the tears seemed to stop instantly and I fell asleep.  

That experience stayed with me. Yet I never spoke about it. It was something I must have taken as a matter of fact. I was about the age of four and had just been learning in Sunday school about this man named Jesus, in my own innocence I must have  thought everyone who felt as bad as I did had this same experience.

As a child I would sit and look up at the sky and would wish to return back to a place called home. As a little girl I had this persistent yearning to return to God. To be with this man called Jesus about whom I was being taught about in Sunday school.

The feeling I had as a child was like homesickness, except that it is not a sadness. It was a knowing deep in my memory of a time and a place I once lived. It was my home! The only real home I ever knew. It was the home I yearned for.

I remember the first time I saw the face of Jesus. I was sitting in Sunday school and I asked the Sunday school teacher to let me hold His picture. It was then that somewhere deep inside my spirit I knew him and I wanted to be with Him again.

As a little girl growing up in Cincinnati with my grandmother Mary Tabor I now know she was an active spiritual instigator like I am today. During those early years she stimulated my mind with her stories about Jesus. She and I had our own special world we lived in. She taught me as much as she knew about God from her viewpoint. Mostly on the sly, we two renegades routinely slipped away to talk secretly about this man called Jesus.

Looking back on those moments I know my grandmother was a true master. With her dear wrinkled hand clamped around my even smaller line less one, she regularly escorted me to myself. As she would say to me placing her hand on my heart, "Patty, God lives within you. No one can take Him away from you. He is yours."  I know now that it was her dear sweet words that pushed me on to find this truth.

It was such experiences I had with her that fed my inherent spiritual appetite. But as the years passed the dark, difficult times of my life overshadowed my grandmothers words. With the uprooting and dissolution of my small family, and economic hardship bore down upon me, I looked outside of myself for those pleasures that would take my pain away.

And I found these pleasures only took me further and further away from myself. From that place that my grandmother had said, God lived within me.

As the story of the prodigal son's return validated what I well knew (but temporarily rejected) was this:  That without God I could find no rest, no true inner peace.  I know now this impulse, this movement of my soul (to once more connect and embrace my grandmothers words) was the beginning of me being guided back to that personal relationship I had as that little girl with God.

Einstein said, "You might as well not be alive if you're not in awe of God."  How right he was. I had disconnected myself from that awesome, wonderful feeling I  had as a child.  I had to go back and capture that simplicity, that innocent more child-like belief to be my guide.

It was this truth I needed to set my body free from pain. Free from a condition that the doctors said was impossible. And what was so amazing was this GREAT TRUTH living and breathing inside of me.

It was His presence and my memories of my home with Him that the world I lived in was never able to replace. As I grew older in age I tried so hard to forget Him. I lived my life the way I wanted to live it.  Maybe, I was angry at Him for leaving me on this earth without Him.

Today, many years later, I now know it was in this yearning for God that continued to gently lift me away from whatever destructive path I was on. Whatever the reason, it was this deep love, this wonderful presence that lived around-me-and-in-me that pulled myself towards the journey that I am now on.

It is that voice, that calls my soul today for a greater meaning, a greater purpose in my life. Thus, this Web site has been in the making for many, many years.

Read more about Patricia's personal relationship with God in her upcoming book, What Happens When We Die.

Reserve your copy today.

Won't you take that step I took a long time ago and make this the day you decide to meditate? You will never regret it!

  Click here for more information on the subject