How My Spiritual Journey Began

I’ve believed in God and Jesus for most of my life.

But believing that God exists and having a relationship with Him are not necessarily the same thing.

It took me more than 60 years to really understand that.

My journey back to God began in a way I never expected.

My daughter had purchased a beautiful vintage bedroom set. Not long afterward, unusual things began happening in her home. Lights would seemingly turn on by themselves, and while she and her husband were traveling in London, a Ring camera sent an alert that someone was in the locked gaming room in the basement.

The video showed a bright object moving through the room.

There were recordings from different angles, and what I saw affected me deeply. Other people may have their own explanations for what appeared on those videos. I can only tell you what seeing them meant to me.

For the first time in my life, I seriously considered that there might be a spiritual reality around us that we normally cannot see.

Then something happened to me personally.

One day, before meeting my daughter for a hair appointment, I suddenly became extremely anxious, woozy and sick to my stomach. I had felt perfectly fine shortly beforehand.

When I arrived, I told her I wasn’t sure I could sit through the appointment because something felt very wrong.

She immediately recognized the feeling I was describing.

She believed it was connected to the presence she felt had been associated with the vintage furniture—something she and others had come to call “Lorraine.”

I wasn’t interested in communicating with it.

I simply said aloud that I wanted it to leave because I didn’t feel well.

Within several minutes, I felt completely normal again.

Could someone else explain that experience differently? Of course.

But I know what I experienced, and I know what happened inside me because of it.

Something changed.

Suddenly, the Bible Wasn’t Just a Book

That experience caused me to think seriously about something I had never completely understood before.

I had always believed in God and Jesus.

But I wasn’t sure I truly believed there was also a spiritual battle between good and evil.

Suddenly, the things I had read and heard about in the Bible didn’t feel distant anymore.

I wanted to know what the Bible actually said.

So I decided I was going to read it.

Then I looked at the size of the Bible and thought, This is going to take forever.

So I bought an audio Bible.

I started listening while I walked. I brought out two Bibles my grandmother had given me. I began searching online for Bible teachers and listening to sermons.

And then something unexpected happened.

I started hearing Christians talk about things I barely remembered hearing about growing up:

The full armor of God.
Spiritual warfare.
Praying in the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit.

Instead of simply accepting what someone online said, I started looking for these things in the Bible for myself.

And they were there.

I began realizing how much I didn’t know.

I Thought I Knew Christianity

I grew up Presbyterian.

When I was around 30, I became Catholic and went through the classes required to enter the Catholic Church.

So Christianity wasn’t new to me.

But the more I studied Scripture for myself, the more I realized there were entire parts of the Christian faith that I had never really explored or understood.

And that made me hungry to learn.

I didn’t want someone’s opinion about what the Bible said.

I wanted to read it myself.

I wanted to understand who God is.

I wanted to understand Jesus.

I wanted to understand the Holy Spirit.

And most importantly, I wanted a relationship with God rather than simply knowing about Him.

It Was Time to Go Back to Church

One day I was watching a Christian minister online when I heard the words:

It’s time for people to go back to church.

Something inside me immediately responded.

I knew I needed to go back.

So I searched for a non-denominational, Bible-teaching church.

And I went.

I loved it.

For the first time in a long time, church wasn’t simply somewhere I felt I was supposed to go.

I wanted to be there.

I wanted to hear the Word.

I wanted to learn.

And I wanted to grow closer to God.

The Word Became Part of My Everyday Life

My faith gradually stopped being something reserved for Sunday.

I began making Scripture part of my daily life.

I listen to the Bible while I’m getting ready in the morning. I listen while walking. A woman from church gave me The Daily Walk Bible, and I began reading the day’s entry from that as well.

I also continued listening to Christian teachers, but something important had changed:

I had the Bible to compare everything against.

That’s something I’ve come to value tremendously.

I don’t want to believe something simply because someone says it from a pulpit, on television, on YouTube—or anywhere else.

I want to know:

What does Scripture say?

And I’m still learning.

I expect I will be for the rest of my life.

Faith and My Health

Something else has happened during this journey that is especially meaningful to me because of what Great Wealth Is Health is about.

I’ve noticed times when anxiety would begin to overwhelm me and reading Scripture would bring an incredible sense of peace.

I’ve also had physical ailments that seemed to improve while I was spending time reading the Word.

I can’t prove to another person exactly why those things happened.

But I wholeheartedly believe that God’s Word has been healing for me—not only spiritually, but emotionally and physically as well.

That belief has changed the way I think about health.

I’ve spent a great deal of time learning about food, exercise, supplements, our bodies and the things we can do to take better care of ourselves.

I still believe those things matter.

But I’ve come to believe that health is more than the physical body.

We have to care for the spiritual part of ourselves too.

I’m Still Learning

I’m not writing this page because I have Christianity figured out.

I don’t.

I’m still reading.

I’m still asking questions.

I’m still learning how to pray.

I’m still learning about the Holy Spirit.

I’m still discovering things in Scripture that make me stop and think, How did I never know this?

And sometimes I’m still trying to understand what I believe about something.

But there’s one thing about which I no longer feel uncertain:

I want God in my life.

What began with an experience I couldn’t explain eventually led me back to the Bible, back to church, and into a relationship with God that I had never experienced this way before.

My journey has continued to deepen, including making the decision to be baptized and publicly affirm my faith.

And just like my journey toward better physical health, my journey of faith isn’t finished.

I’m still walking it.

I’m still learning.

And I’m still growing.

Why Faith Is Part of Great Wealth Is Health

When I started rebuilding this website, I realized I couldn’t honestly tell the story of my health journey without talking about my faith.

They’re connected for me now.

I can talk about nutrition.

I can talk about exercise.

I can talk about things I’m trying, products I’m researching and changes I’ve made.

But if I’m going to share what has genuinely changed my life, I also have to talk about God.

So this part of the website is where I’ll share some of what I’m learning—Scripture that has helped me, questions I’ve explored, prayers, experiences along the way and probably some things I’m still trying to understand.

I’m not here to tell anyone what they have to believe.

I’m simply sharing what I believe and what God has done in my life.

Because I’ve learned that our greatest wealth really is our health.

And for me, that now includes the health of my spirit