“Who is God?”

“Where does He live?”

“Why can’t we see Him?”

“How can He see everyone at the same time?”

“If He lives in Heaven, and Heaven is in the sky, then why doesn’t He fall down?”

“What’s a spirit?”

“What does God look like?”

“How can we all be His children?”

These are just some of the many questions I remember asking my dad when we had our first “God” talk. Believe it or not, this occurred when I was only three years old! Occasionally, I may have a hard time remembering what I did a few weeks ago, or even just a few days ago, but I can remember things from my childhood as if they had just happened. It’s as if these exact moments of time were frozen in my head, to be played back like a video clip just as clearly as if they were taking place right now.

I can recall many memories from when I was three … sitting on the back porch eating Cracker Jacks with my grandfather, and the excitement of opening the prize together. Back then, the prizes were real toys — a miniature car or truck, a small panpipe, or maybe a whistle or a mini book … not just a tattoo sticker. I remember stepping on an anthill and getting stung by huge fire ants … and my mom accusing me of trying to poke my sister’s eyes out while she was in her little bassinet, when actually, I was just rubbing spit on her eyelids as she slept. I even remember gathering garden snails together on the porch and stepping on them with my bare feet. Disgusting I know, but what can I say? I was a little tomboy, even at that age! Poor little creatures. I feel sorry for them now.

One memory that especially stands out clear in my mind is the time I first learned about God. We were living in the naval housing off of Barnett Ave in Point Loma—a suburb of San Diego, in sunny California. My dad and I were in the front yard where we were playing catch with my new ball. At one point, he threw it a little too hard and it hit me smack in the face! I responded by blurting out a phrase that I had often heard him and my uncles say. We’ll just call it the “GDI ” phrase and let you determine what it was.

Well, my dad came over and told me to never say that again … that it was disrespectful, wasn’t nice and that God didn’t like it when we talked like that. “Why do you say it then, Daddy?” I asked as he came over to make sure I was all right. “I really shouldn’t talk like that either. It’s just a real bad habit,” he replied. “But you need to do what I say, not what I do.” Like any toddler, my attention span wasn’t that great because something else he said had caught my attention.

“Daddy, who is God?” I asked. He thought for a moment, then said, “God is our Father in Heaven. He’s the Father of everyone.” “But you’re my father,” I replied. “God is our spiritual Father,” he went on. “He’s a spirit, and we all have a spirit, a soul, inside of us.” This went on and on, with me asking a ton of questions about God and my dad trying to answer the best he could. His explanations, however, were very confusing to a three-year-old, and by the time we had finished this Q & A session, I had God pictured as a giant eyeball high up in the sky, looking down on everyone. And the reason we couldn’t see Him was because whenever we looked up He would hide behind the clouds.

One thing that really confused me was when my dad tried to explain how God looks. He said that a spirit has no body, no shape or form, and that God is invisible and is everywhere. He was as big as the sky, and he didn’t have a body like we did. That was something I couldn’t picture. How could He be our father if we didn’t look like Him?

I recall the story my dad used to tell while explaining about thunder and lightning, and it still brings a smile to me when I think about it. I used to be really afraid of thunder and lightning and still don’t like them to this day. But my dad would tell me that the thunder was just the angels bowling in heaven, and the lightning was when they got a strike. I always thought that was funny and tried to imagine angels bowling!

I bet at that time, my dad had no idea how this little conversation would affect me throughout the rest of my life. This was only the first of our conversations about God, and though we never spoke too often about it, there were times later in my life when I would come and ask him more questions about God and religion. This was the start of a life-long journey that would take me from one religion to another. But when I couldn’t find the answers that I was seeking, it even took me to the dark side, although I didn’t realize the dangers of dabbling in the occult at the time.