Thank You for that. It was encouraging. I have yet to feel like I belong in a church but when I am outside with my dogs or gardening on my knees I feel like He is with me. Those are the only places I feel like I am in the light and blessed. Perhaps that is my place.
I often tell people my dogs are angels. Unlike people they can't lie. Some think me a nut for that but they were there when I was very ill. Whenever people let me down and I cry they come sit beside me sometimes nuzzle me or gently put a paw on me to reassure me. They are all Golden Retrievers and all unique in personality as they are in color. They range from a very light gold to almost red gold. It is easy to see a halo on them.
My real mother gave me up for my Great-Aunt to raise. Strange since she had 11 kids and I was the one she gave up. My Great-Aunt had 2 boys she adopted but she let us all know we were merely farm hands. I never saw her have a kind word for anyone even her husband. We got beat a lot and was never told she loved us or ever got a hug from her. Strangely she was also attached to dogs. Maybe I took after her anyway. I often saw her hug and kiss the dogs and tell them she loved them but never a human. She is dead now. You would think I would be bitter and hate dogs but not so.
Her adopted sons never knew until recently I was a blood relative. Guess she was ashamed to tell them.She seemed to hate my real mother and called her bad names telling me I was just like her even though I never knew then what the names she called me meant and I had not had sex until my husband.
I should have grew up a mean person and an evil one but I am quite opposite. I admit once when I was a small child I prayed over a cat that got badly injured but it died anyway. I almost lost faith then but I got visited by 2 ???? whatever they were. No dream. Very real since the 2nd night and the 2nd visit I had a flashlight to shine in their eyes and scare them back. I got too scared though and pulled the covers over my head thinking I was dying and they came to get me. If I stayed silent I thought they would just go away.They never talked. One was a young man in a military uniform with a high collar. He just stared ahead and when I tried to touch him he disappeared. The other was a very old man dressed all in white and he had a long white beard. He sat in a chair beside my bed and seemed to be quite sad. No one could explain it but I never talked about it until I grew up because my Great-Aunt said I would be thrown in a nut house. I lived in Virginia then and we had even visited someone in one and I remember it was called "Central State Hospital". Scary enough place but the stories about it were worse but I think most told those stories to keep you on the straight and narrow. Maybe you have an idea what I saw as a child or the meaning but I never saw them again.
My youngest son saw 2 visitors when he was 4 and it scared me pretty bad. He does not even remember it but I wrote down all he told me at the time. When I questioned him about them when he stopped talking about them he said they were gone now but I am sure he saw them dead and not a natural death. He was not allowed to watch scary movies so I know he did not learn that stuff off TV and he had not started school yet. The place we were living we had just moved to. Weird huh?

Thanks again. CC