December 24, 2001 

"I'll Be Home for Christmas"

I want to share a little bit with you of my experience with the Father.  Our relationship began a long time ago.  I was reminded of it today when I looked out of the window and saw the seagulls.  We don't see those in Omaha, Nebraska, but years ago, there was a song out called "Jonathan Livingston Seagull."  The first time I heard it I thought, "Oh, that's what I want."  Jonathan was a little scavenger, taking the food that other people would provide at the shoreline or off the ships.  One day he knew,  "There has to be more.  There has to be more."  He kept trying and trying and finally broke through into a great white seagull. 

That's what was happening to me.  At the time I was flying with the airlines, and when the passengers would be resting in the evening, I would look out the window at all those stars in the heavens and think, "There has to be more.  Who put all this in place?  Who gave us all this beauty?"  There's a Scripture that says, "When God put the stars in place, they answered so joyously, ‘Here we are!' "   I kept saying, "Here I am.  Do You know me?"  I would look down upon the earth, and everything would look so small and insignificant.  I'd think of Psalm 8 and think, "Lord, who am I that You would even be mindful of me, that You'd even think of me, that You'd even know I'm running around down there myself, millions and millions of people.  Who are we, and who are You?"  So here I was, clear up in the heavens, thinking, "I'm like Jonathan, Lord.  This plane just isn't going to go high enough.  Where are You, and who are You?"  This is when I seriously started looking for the Father.

So I quit the airlines, came home, and made a list of all these churches that I would investigate to see if I could find the Father.  I talked with minister after minister, would check off the list, and of course the last church on my list was the Catholic Church.  "Oh Lord, You wouldn't call me there.  That's not where the Father is."  But when I went to visit for the first time, I didn't know what I was looking for, so I really couldn't put too many questions before this priest.  When it was time to go, he took one hand to open the door and he put the other hand on my shoulder and said, "Nadine, everything is going to be all right."  When he said that, the Father spoke to me through him.  I felt it in my whole being.  I was very lonely at that time.  My mother and grandmother had died, my father had remarried, and my brother had just gotten married, so my whole family was gone.  I was very much alone.  Nobody knew that, but the Father did, and He spoke through this priest telling me, "Everything is going to be all right."  I felt it.  So I asked this priest, "May I come back?"  He said, "Certainly."  I went back two nights a week for six weeks, and then one day he said, "How would you like to make this a Christmas you'll never forget?"  So he hurried the instructions, maybe skipped a few, I'm not sure, and baptized me the day before Christmas.  It was a homecoming.  Remember the song, "I'll be home for Christmas?"  I came home for Christmas! 

Excerpt from "Camden Charismatic Conference," NJ, 1999.