WELCOME TO THE STORY OF HOW SPIRITUALISM FOUND ME!
I was brought up in a Baptist Church. My mother was a Baptist and my father an Anglo-catholic turned Baptist. At the age of 17 while a member of the Boy's Brigade, I was baptized into the church, following an evangelical meeting by the church minister who was a great fan of Billy Graham. After a short period of elation at having found the Answer, I began to feel that something was still missing and that attitude of the church did nothing to allay this feeling. Blind faith did not seem sufficient and the members of the church with their superior attitude of "we're saved so hard luck to the rest of the world", only served as a complete turn off to me. Even the other church denominations in my district could offer me nothing of substance. I turned away from the church and away from God.
This state of affairs continued for at least 20 years, during which time I only entered churches for weddings, funerals and christenings. Then in 1993 my younger daughter, Philippa, was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 13. I hesitantly started to pray, but the churches still seemed wrong to me. We even had a couple of Born Again Christians come round, They sat and prayed with Philippa. This had no effect on either of us. It just did not seem to ring true, in fact Philippa said it made her feal very uncomfortable. Later we took Philippa to a Healer. This did seem right to both myself and to Philippa. She went 4 or 5 times to him and enjoyed the experience each time.
Eventually, at the age of 14, Philippa passed over. The bickering and insensitivity show by the established Christian churches had to be seen to be believed. For instance our local church vicar did not like conducting services for children and would not allow any music other than hymns or traditional funeral music to be played. The message of Jesus (who I sincerly believe existed) was not being shown by many of his followers.
Finally we found a minister to conduct the service, and he, I will admit, was prepared to consider our wishes as to the music to be played and the style of service we wanted.
A week or so after the service and the cremation, we had a second smaller and private service for the burial of Philippa's ashes. While this was going on I had a really overpowering feeling that Philippa was not gone for ever, it was just like she'd gone for a long holiday, and that one day we would be reunited.
Just over a year after Philippa passed, a number of coincidents started to happen. I would switch on the radio and there would be an interview with a famous medium (although at that time I had never heard of him), or an article about mediums would stand out from the newspaper page. At this stage I knew nothing about mediums or Spiritualism, I had not even associated the Healer with this. I felt that I had to investigate this further so I borrowed some books by this mediun form our local library. I was astounded... Here were explanations of events that made so much sense. I resolved to take my investigations further. The next step was obviously to find a Spritualist Church and to find out what they are about. This was harder than I expected as they don't get listed in the telephone directory in the way that conventional churches do. Again coincidence appeared to play its part, and as I was rushing to collect my elder daughter from her new job, I had to take a detour. There on the corner was a church and a voice inside my head screamed at me "Thats the one!". I stopped, and sure enough it was a Spiritualist Church.
The next big step was to go along. Now, having been brought up in the "Christian Church", and being faced with a totally unknown church, I was hesitant to say the least. However I plucked up the courage and asked a friend to come along with me. She agreed, but on the day before we were supposed to go, she had to cancel due to problems in her family. I decided to put it off as well (I didnt fancy going along on my own - I didnt know what to expect). That night I awoke with a start at arounf 2am. I had heard Philippa's voice shout "DAD" so loud that I expected the rest of the family to be awake. They were sound asleep. The voice I had heard was so full of urgency that I decided I had to go through with it and that evening I went along to the Spiritualist Church. And I have been going ever since.
So you see through those events - Spirit (or God) found me - after all I was the one that was lost, not Spirit. Also I was ready to be found. I sincerly believe that when the time is right, the way will be shown.
There have been a number of occasions where survival of death has been proved to me and I will write about them later. I will also tell the full story of Philippa and her short stay on earth.
I would like to say thank you to Peter Shore (the Healer). You helped Philippa so much. She passed to Spirit in peace and love. God bless you.
Back to my HOMEPAGE
To read all about Philippa and the way she became an inspiration to all... Philippa
OR click here for info about the Seven Principles of Spiritualism.
Or for stories that demonstrate our survival of death Click here
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