Greetings!
I’ve often thought about why I am a minister & why I wanted to be this from such a young age (16). I believe it’s at least partly due to my grandparents who raised me. They took me in temporarily at the age of 6 until the rest of the family could decide who would take me permanently. My parents were divorced. My brother had gone with my dad, I with my mother but she was with an abusive husband whom she could not bring herself to leave just yet, so she brought me to my dad’s parents. In the month or so that I was at my grandparents, my dad’s wife, overwhelmed with a new marriage, a young stepson, her own first child & life, asked her priest to speak to my grandparents about taking my brother. This was fortunate for me & for my brother for it meant that my grandparents decided to keep & raise us both.
The truly amazing thing about all of this, is that the entire time I was with my mother & stepfather out of state for 9 months, I fantasized about the day that I would be brought back to my grandparent’s home, knock on the back door & throw myself into my grandmother’s arms. It was quite a detailed fantasy. Ironically, I did not fantasize about returning to anyone else in the family. I had quite a large family at the time, a brother, a dad, 2 sets of grandparents, lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, all of whom I loved dearly. I can still even now vividly remember this fantasy & how it felt. It a was very emotional fantasy because I was very homesick for my family left behind in another state.
All growing up with my brother & my grandparents, I took it for granted that this was how it was meant to be, never giving it a second thought. It wasn’t until several years ago that Spirit brought it to my attention that it was my doing that made it happen. What?!!! I argued – that’s not possible. Something that important would be preordained, predestined, preset. Right? How could something as important as who raises you be left up in the air? Well, plans go awry apparently. There is free will. Free will choices on the ground changed the outcome. My parents divorced, leaving everything up in the air & up for grabs.
Apparently, the choices my parents made for me & for my brother weren’t to my liking, not at the level of my soul & not at the level of my consciousness here. Hence the passionate fantasizing. And the outcome. I was dumbfounded when told of this. It explains a lot to me. My brother & I growing up were always aware that we landed in the best possible place & were very happy being together with each other.
Now in order to answer the question posed at the beginning, I had to explain to you the unlikeliness of being raised by my grandparents to begin with, so that you would understand something. Neither of my parents were spiritual at all when I was younger. Maybe, had they stayed together, that might have developed. My dad’s spirituality came much later in life after the death of his last wife. As far as I am aware, my mother’s spirituality never developed. She battled alcoholism for the rest of her life after their divorce.
My grandparent’s however, were both very spiritual. I went to church with my grandfather almost every Sunday from the age of 6 & loved that time with him. When he walked into church he dropped his worries & this allowed me to see & be with who he really was. It was a wonderful gift to me to be able to see & experience this as it taught me that people wear a mask most of the time to hide their truth & true selves. I learned to look beyond the surface to the truth in others.
My grandmother was not a church goer but she was also very spiritual. She was like an Earth Mother. She knew the name of every plant, tree, animal, bird. She knew all about nature & anything natural. She was intuitive & could “hear” & was open about this. I will never forget being woken early on a Sunday morning to be told to “Hurry and get dressed! We have to go see Uncle Stanley before he dies!” She had heard his name called to her as she woke up that morning & knew he was going to die that day. My Uncle Stanley was my grandfather’s older brother & he was sick with stomach cancer in the hospital. We rushed to see him. He died later that day.
This was how I grew up. I believe this helped lead me to who I am today. My parents divorcing & losing each other & me was damaging but this ultimately led to good in my life.
Love to you in the Light of God, Dawn