Most of the time when I wasn’t outside hanging around with the neighborhood kids or over at a friend’s house, I spent a lot of time in my room listening to records, reading, or just lying on my bed—arms crossed behind my head, thinking and pondering about all sorts of things. It was one of my favorite past times. Now, I don’t normally believe in astrology, but I’ve heard that Capricorns are usually serious types of people, and my youngest sister who is a Capricorn as well, likes to do the same thing. We are both serious thinkers and can contemplate about some pretty deep things, which we still do today.

Sometimes I would wonder about what my dad had said about Catholics, Jews, and Mormons. Our next-door neighbors were Jewish and I knew they didn’t celebrate Christmas or Easter, but celebrated something they called Hanukkah, instead. I once asked my friend John why that was. He told me that they didn’t believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. “Why not?” I asked, intrigued by the thought. “I don’t know, we just don’t.” He apparently knew as much about his religion as I had previously known about mine.

Years later, I worked for Associated Hosts in Beverly Hills, California, in their credit card processing department. There were a lot of Jews working there so I had plenty of opportunities to talk with them as well. We used to chat over buttered biscuits and honey which we got from the hotel cafeteria across the street. They were to die for! After talking with my co-workers, I found that my dad was right about the Jews not being Christians because they only saw Jesus as a teacher and not as the Savior or Son of God. Still, I enjoyed our conversations and learning what I could from them.

I was still a little confused about the Catholics, however. My dad had told me that they didn’t believe in Jesus, but when I questioned one of my Catholic friends about it, I found that my dad was wrong.

There was a big Catholic family who lived behind us in the cul-de-sac. They had eight kids at the time and later, had one more on the way. We all played together out in the streets and I had plenty of opportunities to ask them questions. I didn’t understand why my dad thought they didn’t believe in Jesus because as far as I could tell, according to my friends, they did. On Sundays, they would load up in one or two cars and head off to church. But as I said, their daily lives didn’t reflect the lives of the Christians I had read about in the Bible. I often heard profanities coming from the parents as well as from some of the older kids.

Now as far as reading my Bible … I think from the time I first got it when I was twelve, up until the time I left home at age twenty … I had read the entire book at least four or five times. I would read anywhere from one to ten chapters at a time, and then lie back on my bed and think and ponder about the things I had just read. Some things just seemed so clear and plain as day while others left me quite confused.

For example, I had no problem whatsoever identifying God, our Father in Heaven, and His Son, Jesus Christ. In my mind (I supposed it’s because I hadn’t been indoctrinated as a child) they were both two separate, individual beings. I remember reading in Genesis 1:26–27 …

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

… and I recall what my dad had said about God being an invisible spirit that was everywhere, and didn’t have a body like us. I began to wonder why in the world would he think something like that when it said right there in the Bible as plain as day, that we were made in His image and in His likeness. I thought of the impression I previously had of God being like a giant eyeball up in the sky and realized how absurd that was. But I also thought that the idea of Him having no shape or form was equally absurd. How could anyone believe such a thing! And where did that idea even come from?

If all things are created after their own form and likeness, and if we truly are God’s children and His spiritual offspring, then wouldn’t it make sense that we were made in His image and looked like Him? It all seemed so perfectly simple and clear to me. I also recalled the scripture where Jesus was getting baptized by John. He was standing there in the water, but a voice from heaven announced, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17). Clearly, a father and a son are two different individuals in the flesh. Why would it be any different in the spirit?

This seemed so obvious to me, even before I started to investigate different churches. Later … after I started reading some near death experiences and stories of people seeing ghosts or the spirit of a loved one … it dawned on me that the spirit looks just like the body only it’s not physical or tangible. People definitely were able to recognize their loved ones in their spirit form so it made sense to me that if we’re God’s children that we would look like Him since we were made in His image and likeness. From that point on, instead of the giant eyeball in the sky, I could now imagine God as a spirit man sitting on his throne somewhere beyond the clouds.

I recall how years later, my own son approached me regarding the same subject. He was only seven years old at the time — much younger than when I had made the connection. We had been homeschooling, and the Christian curricula we were using had a Bible Study that included memorizing some scriptural verses. One day as I was doing some grading and other paperwork, my son came up to me with his little book of verses and said, “Mommy, it says here in the Bible that we’re made in the image of God.” “Yes, it does,” I responded. “Well,” he said, “If we’re made in the image of God, then that means that we look like God.” I had to smile, knowing where this was going. “You would think, wouldn’t you?” I answered. You could just see his little mind turning and I could tell that he was really putting some thought into the matter. “Well, if we look like God, then that means that God looks like us.” “Yeah?” I replied, waiting for him to go on. “And if God looks like us, then that means that God looks like a man.” “Really?” I answered in fake surprise.

I saw so much of myself in him at that moment as I recalled my own discovery when I had read those very same verses. “Does he look like a man, mommy?” As I looked into those innocent eyes I recalled how the Savior had said that we must become as little children or we shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3–4).

I then asked him, “What does your heart tell you?” He quickly responded, “Well if He’s our Father in Heaven and we’re His children, then He must look like us and we look like Him.” How pure and simple, I thought. Why do people try to complicate things so much?

“Look,” I said, “Throughout your whole life people will tell you what things mean. It’s good to listen, but don’t always believe every thing you hear. Always go and ask God yourself. He will always tell you the truth in His own time, and you will feel it right here,” I said, pointing to his heart.

Going back to my own experiences, this seemed like a no-brainer to me. I thought I had many things figured out because in my mind, it was all right there in plain and simple English. I couldn’t understand why others couldn’t see it as well. Somehow, it just never sat right with me that we are the spiritual children of a shapeless, formless, invisible being, when the description I read in the scriptures made a lot more sense. Later on, the more I studied other religions and what their beliefs were, the more amazed and fascinated I became at what people believed.