“Reincarnation is the natural circle of all life. All that is, all that was and all that will be is energy.”

Summer, 1978

The precocious red-haired little girl made her grand entrance into the world in the summer of 1975. She was a sweet looking little soul with big brown eyes, red curly hair and a smile that could melt any heart. She learned to talk earlier than most, which was not surprising as her young mother doted on her, reading to her, talking to her and tucking her into bed at night.

Shortly after acquiring the ability to convey thoughts into very short sentences, around 2 1/2 to 3, the little girl began to say things that disturbed the mother. It began one warm spring evening after the little girl’s bedtime bath.“Come and give Mommy a hug,” the mother called to her little girl, stretching out her arms in anticipation of an embrace. The child giggled and complied, but said to her mother, “You are not my Mommy.”The mother also laughed and said, “Silly girl, of course I am your Mommy and come and give your Mommy a big hug.”The child answered again, in a louder, more serious voice, pointing her finger at her mother and stating  “You are not my mother.”

The young mother was startled at the intensity the child made the proclamation, but she decided to drop the issue. She kissed her little one and tucked her into bed. As the mother left the room, the child said again, “Goodnight, but you are not my Mommy.”

The strange words continued. The child continued to insist that her mother was really not her mother. The mother was baffled, but their relationship continued to be loving and close, yet the child stopped calling her Mommy. One day, the exasperated mother said to her daughter, “Ok honey, if I am not your Mommy, who am I?”The child never hesitated when she answered, “Don’t you know you are my sister?”

The mother was again surprised by the intensity and quickness to which the child had answered the question. After mulling her daughter’s answer in her mind, she decided to further question the child.“Ok,” the mother said, ‘so I am your sister. Where is our Mommy?”

Again, the child never hesitated and said, “They put Mommy in the big box and took her away. You said she is never coming back but that you would take care of me.”

The young mother was speechless. Where was this coming from? The child watched very little television and was limited to programs such as Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. The child did not yet attend school as she was too young, and the only social outings consisted of a playgroup that met once a week and the mother was always there with her daughter. The mother was baffled. Was there something mentally or emotionally wrong with her daughter? The mother didn’t think so; the child was well behaved, sweet and very bright. This was obvious by the comparison to the other children in her playgroup. The mother tried to discuss her concerns with her husband, but he was of no comfort or help. He told his wife to never discuss this again and to stop putting ideas into the fantasy-filled head of his little girl. The young mother agreed to drop the subject but she knew in her heart that she had done nothing to encourage this kind of talk. But then, the next startling event occurred.

The child loved ice cream, especially the ice cream at a local place called “Peps”. The mother and child drove to Peps early one summer evening to get their favorite cone. Upon pulling into the parking lot but prior to getting out of the car, a local fire alarm began to sound. The alarm was fairly close so it was loud, but the mother was not prepared for the child’s reaction.The child began to talk fast and in a hushed tone, “we have to hide, we have to hide, the bombs are coming, the bombs are coming, into the cellar, into the cellar, hurry, hurry, we have to hide.”

The child was near hysteria and had crawled onto the floor of the car, crouching with her arms over her head. The mother made every effort to comfort the child but her efforts failed. By this time the siren had stopped but the child continued to crouch on the floor mumbling, “The bombs are coming, the bombs are coming.”

The mother continued talking soothingly to the child and she finally climbed back into the seat.

“See,” said the young mother, “I told you the siren was gone.”

The little girl looked directly at her mother and spoke clearly, “there will be more. The sirens will be back.”

This incident was even more baffling than the prior events. Where was her daughter hearing about bombs and hiding in cellars? The mother had always used the word basement to describe the area under the house and no one was around the child discussing anything about bombs. The mother told no one about the incident except her husband. He again dismissed it as a “child’s fantasy”, but the mother knew it was something more. She just didn’t know what it was or how to go about finding out, but God always has a plan for revealing His truth….

1950,s & 1960’s

I did not grow up believing in reincarnation. In fact, I never even heard of that concept until I was a young adult. I was raised in a traditional family and a traditional Methodist church. As a child, I attended Sunday school on a fairly regular basis. I was baptized when I was around seven years old, along with my four siblings, standing in the living room of my Grandmother’s house. I remember very little about the baptism, expect that I understood if I died after the event, I could go to heaven. I remember wondering about that concept and what happened to me if I died without the minister putting the water on my head. Was God really that mean and unfair that He would send a child to “hell” or some other scary place forever because my parents were negligent in getting me baptized?

The church and Sunday school we attended was a small local parish close to our family home. We didn’t go every Sunday, but more often than naught, my father drove us to the church. (It did not occur to me until much later in life that the two-hour Sunday school and church outing was the only time my parents were ever alone.) They never attended with us, and my father used to joke that if he ever stepped inside a church the roof would fall. My father was a firm believer in the do as I say not as I do theory. He did not believe in God, but he kept that opinion to himself until we were older, but he took the Lords name in vain on a regular basis. My mother said she believed in God but I never saw any religious practices in our home except the occasional prayer before a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. I think it is safe to say we were not raised in a Christian or religious home.

Upon entering middle school, I was allowed to attend MYF at our church. MYF stood for Methodist Youth Fellowship and met on Sunday evenings for a few hours. I loved MYF. It was a social gathering for teens and I enjoyed “socializing”, especially with the boys. Some of my earliest young girl crushes were on boys that attended MYF. The group also occasionally went on outings and /or invited guest speakers to attend our gathering. It was one of these events that changed my spiritual beliefs forever and introduced me to an omni-powerful loving God.

A young African American speaker, whose name I do not recall, addressed our group and spoke of a minister that was preaching love and God to the gangs of New York City. The true story was captured in a book titled, “The Cross and the Switchblade”, written by Reverend David Wilkerson. This true story shared the remarkable journey of a young minister into the gang-infested streets of New York City in the 1950’s.

I read this book over and over. The powerful testimony by this minister and the vicious gang members that turned their lives around because of the power of Jesus Christ and God was a life-altering revelation for the young girl from the suburbs of Pittsburgh. I knew, beyond any doubt, and I felt within my young soul, that if God could do this for the gang members, that He had to be omni-powerful, and very loving. He could not be scary, or judgmental or want to strike me down dead for some “sin” I had committed. According to this Reverend David Wilkerson, God loves us, and God loves us no matter what! I knew for sure, after reading that book, that God loved me, unconditionally and forever.

This was a freeing revelation for the wild teenager I was to become. I knew that no matter how much pot I smoked, how many times I skipped school or how many times I ran away from home, that God would always love me. After all, I didn’t stab or shoot anyone, I didn’t burgle businesses and steal, I wasn’t “rumbling” or fighting anyone like the gang members in the book, and God still loved them! So, of course, He would still love me for just having a little fun. Like I said, a very freeing thought for a teenager!

Late summer, 1978

The child continued her baffling words. The young mother decided to not discuss her concerns with anyone; she was worried they would think her child was not normal. One balmy late summer evening, the mother and her sister in law decided to take their children for ice cream. The mother and the sister in law were not particularly close, in spite of knowing each other since high school and had married into the same family. But this night they decided to go together with their children to the ice cream place they all enjoyed.

The little one of the sister –in-law was still in diapers so she rode in a car seat in the back with the young child. The two young mothers chatted on the ride to the ice cream place and were enjoying each other’s company. Upon arrival at the ice cream stand, a repeat performance occurred. The fire alarm began to sound and the young child repeated her actions of the previous encounter with the sirens.

“We have to hide, we have to hide, the bombs are coming, the bombs are coming, the child frantically cried.

The child again, crouched on the floor of the car with her hands over her head. The mother was horrified. What would her sister- in- law think? Would she think her little girl suffered with severe emotional problem? The sirens stopped and the mother was able to calm her child. Later, when the little ones were busy eating their ice cream the mother addressed the incident with her sister- in- law. She apologized to her for the child’s behavior and admitted that her daughter had done this before. The sister- in law did not act surprised or judgmental so the young mother decided to tell her how the child insisted the mother was her sister and the other strange words. Her sister- in- law was nodding her head as though she actually understood. Finally, she said, “Do you know anything about or believe in reincarnation?”

The young mother was taken aback. Reincarnation? What was she suggesting? Isn’t that when an animal becomes a human? Her sister- in- law laughed at the look on the mothers face.

“Look,’ she said, “I know that reincarnation is the way of the Universe. Your daughter is remembering a past life, obviously during some time of war. Let me give you some books to read that will help you understand about life, death and rebirth.”

The young mother was surprised but agreed to read the books. Thus began the reawakening of the mother’s soul and her journey back to One Spirit Place.

Reincarnation is a difficult concept for Christian-thinking people. The idea that we are born, die and then are reborn again into a new and different physical body seems to be in direct conflict with our western religious views. Our Christian religion is the only major world religion that does not embrace the reincarnation theory, but that does not mean that Christianity is right and the others are wrong.

The experience described with my young daughter led me to explore the idea that she had lived a past life. The information and personal accounts that I read, along with my own experience with her, convinced me that reincarnation could be the truth. However, I was raised a Christian, and I still struggled with the concept.

In the mid-eighties, the Methodist Church I was then attending was experiencing some extremely difficult challenges. The much beloved pastor had been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of brain cancer and died very quickly at the young age of 42. The associate pastor was a young woman with a difficult task on her hands; to keep a fast growing, large popular parish and ministry from falling victim to the difficult transition left by the passing of their much loved, charismatic long term minister. The associate pastor was well liked and respected and was doing an outstanding job of holding her flock together.

At that time, I was also going through a transition. I had recently remarried a wonderful man, but our blended family was experiencing adjustment issues and we were going through a difficult and turbulent time. We had been forced to relocate to Gainesville, Florida unexpectedly. We were foster parents to an infant with a serious heart condition. While staying in Gainesville for a temporary job assignment, the baby became critically ill and required open-heart surgery at Shands Hospital. During her recovery, I mentioned to a nurse in the pediatric ICU that I was looking for a church. She recommended Trinity United Methodist Church and she told me about the inspirational pastor O. Dean Martin. I was looking for a church that felt right and my family and I started attending on a regular basis. Not long after that, Reverend Martin was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

At the time, I was experiencing very vivid dreams. Some of these dreams were unsettling; dreams that included precognition, or events that later came true. But many of my dreams were vivid dreams that had me as a different person, in a different time period, saying and doing things that were not me in this life time, but in the dream I knew it was me. I began to suspect these were past life dreams, but it was difficult to think of me as having been alive before as someone else. It was not the way I had been taught in my Christian upbringing. I cautiously approached the associate pastor and told her what was happening in my dreams. I will remember her words forever. She told me that our Christian religion did not embrace the concept of reincarnation, but it was not refuted either. She went on to tell me to embrace my knowledge and remember that whatever my truth, it was all about God.

So how does it work? Why do we incarnate? We decide to return into a physical body to experience life as we know it in the physical world. That experience is based on what lessons our soul wants and needs to learn and what our soul is helping to teach others. We are all on a journey to One Spirit Place – to reside within the Source we call God; energy at its purest. This concept is difficult for us to grasp when we are in a limiting physical body, but remember that energy is all that is.

Prior to any incarnation we decide from Spirit what the upcoming incarnation will be like. Along with our Angels, Guides, soul clan members, and, of course, God, we make basic decisions about the direction we want this upcoming life to take. We decide who will be our parents, what career paths we will choose, what possible love connections we will form and most importantly, and most importantly, what lessons we wish to learn this time and what lessons we will come to teach. We also choose several “exit” points; which we have free will to decide which one we will take and return back to Spirit.

It is a difficult concept to grasp, but it is important to understand that what happens to us in this life is always agreed to on a soul level. The information that we planned and agreed to prior to the incarnation is what we call our souls’ “path.” At the time of our physical birth, we carry with us the memories and knowledge from Spirit. We remember who we are, but as we grow we often forget why we came to the planet. But our soul always remembers and is constantly trying to talk to us. Our soul is trying to keep us on our path or get us back on it if we have strayed too far off. The soul is the part of you that continues to exist after physical death; the “energy” we often refer to. Our person is separate from soul in that a physical body cannot survive without a soul, but our soul survives without a physical body.

So it is that all too often, our soul has agreed to something that our person is not aware of or agreed to and our person can agree to something our soul has not agreed to. (The Universal Law of free will). The key to all of this is bringing your souls awareness and your physical conscience awareness together as one or as closely aligned as possible.

Remember that none of our decisions are carved in stone; we don’t just choose one career path, or one possible spouse. We choose several possibilities and have more than one “soul mate”. Free will is the ultimate gift from God, and we are always free to choose any option we desire. Free will can also ruin the best-laid plans. You might think the person you are with is your “soul mate” and that might be true, from a spiritual point of view, but that does not mean the relationship will survive or even be in your best and highest good. Conversely, you could be with “the love of your life” and have a wonderful relationship and that person may not be someone you preplanned to be lovers with this time around.

But be forewarned, if you are unhappy in your life, you are way off your pre-planned options. If your career choice is not fulfilling or answering that deep call within your soul, you are off track. If you and your significant other are not allowing each other to follow your souls journey and find true peace and happiness together, you are not on your pre-planned path. Understanding your life’s lessons and listening to your inner voice calling out to your person is the way to a journey in this incarnation unlike anything you have ever experienced.