Tara Steckler - In Gods Time: Behold We are Walking on Holy Ground

In His Time opens the door for readers to realize that knowing God, a game changer for one's life, is very different than simply knowing about God.

As Taras eyes, heart and mind were enlightened by her near death experience, so was her receptiveness to the wisdom of the great spiritual teachers.

You will be inspired by the authenticity with which she writes about her own life and how God continues to transform her soul. Her story inspires me to examine my own experiences of God and the lessons He is providing.

Shirley France OblS.B.

Author of Soul Provider,

a book about Gods abiding presence

through suffering and death

In Gods Time is a journey of Taras story. A journey of her personal lifea journey of her spiritual transformation. It does not start at the time of her near-death experience, but it starts years earlierGod preparing her for her own unique spiritual awakening.

Tara brings to her near-death experience seeking many modern-day spiritual teachers who have shaped and guided her spiritual transformation. Tara tells her story a very personal story in a very open, transparent way. She tells her story as she lives her lifeauthentically.

I met Tara in a Centering Prayer group many years ago as she was just beginning to practice centering prayer that Thomas Keating was teaching through Contemplative Outreach. She questioned and struggled spiritually. She was brought up in a very conservative religious background. In the years that I have known Tara, I have seen a very personal, spiritual transformation in Gods time. I fondly remember the times that we drove from Denver, Colorado to Albuquerque, New Mexico to a spiritual conference with Center for Action and Contemplation with Richard Rohr. She shared her near-death experience and bounced off me all her new-found spiritual awakenings. We touched and contemplated on some very deep spiritual conundrums.

Taras story does not end as she shares her personal journey in her book, In Gods Time, but continues to this day. I leave you with this image at her daughters wedding. Despite her disabilities she was dressed in a beautiful, flowing, ruffles and allmother-of-the-bride gown, dancing with all the joy in the world. Her grandson tagged along with her as if he wanted to be enveloped in all her joy. Tara is not afraid of death. Her experience has given her the precious gift of enjoying her life to the fullest. And that is what she does today live her life to the fullest!

Vickie Befort College Professor

In Gods Time

By Tara Steckler

Illustrated By: Donna Lusky

Copyright 2019, Tara Steckler

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

Cover picture credits by Maria Gentile

Artist and design credits to Donna Lusky

ISBN: 978-0-35914-198-2

eISBN: 978-1-64440-608-3

Contents

I n 2007 my body systems shut down. For a few minutes I was without a heartbeat. Another few minutes and my brain would have been too damaged to continue to support life if I were revived. But I was revived in time to continue to live, thanks to the grace of God, and the talent of the doctors who were caring for me. My body was damaged in ways that would prevent it from recovering normal functioning, but in those six minutes I experienced something that would change the way I looked at life, my life and the life of the world.

There was no time to the experience that happened to me when my body died, but there is no question that Id left it and went somewhere I never dreamed existed. It was a place so full of love that it changed my life. Not on the surface, but deep insideit changed the way I look at life, the way I understand life and the universe were part of. This book is the story of that experience, and many other things that happened before and after, all of which I eventually came to see in the light of that life changing event.

Christ

Has no body on earth but yours,
no hands, but yours,
no feet but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which Christs
compassion is to look out to the world.

Yours are the feet with which Christ is to
go about doing good.

Yours are the hands with which Christ is to
bless all people now.

Teresa of Avila

We must be the change we wish to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

T he stories Ive written here may read like fantasy fiction with a supernatural edge. I promise you they are true. Before my near-death experience, I was a church-goer. I had the faith I was raised with from childhood. That faith seems a shadow to me now, for I now believe, so deeply that it is a knowing, that we all share a oneness with the universe and that all of us share in a divine in-dwelling. I saw it in the great love that enveloped me as my body struggled between life and death, and I see it now. I cant imagine that will ever change. My experience was so profound. Indeed, I believe God has orchestrated all the events I write about in this book.

S ome twenty-nine years ago, I was at the library in Madisonville, Kentucky. As I walked down the aisle a book fell off the shelf in front of me. I picked it up and looked around to see if someone might have knocked it off. But there was no one in sight. So, I thought maybe I was supposed to read it!

I checked it out. The book was about Bridey Murphy, a woman who had lived a long time ago, and someone who had gone through the process of past life regression while hypnotized, through whom Bridey Murphys spirit seemed to have spoken. The hypnotist who had guided the woman, seemingly through many life times shed appeared to have lived, researched all the identities that had revealed themselves, particularly the one called Bridey Murphy. The book focused on her lifethe life of Bridey Murphy. He researched the many details of Bridey Murphys life that had been revealed during the womans hypnosis and offered evidence of their substance.

During the time I was reading this book, sharing the information with my friend, Shirley, and with my co-workers, Shirley fussed at me. We were both Roman Catholic. The Catholic faith did not include belief in reincarnation.

At that time, I believed that anyone who thought reincarnation was true was headed straight to hell! Yet after reading Bridey Murphys story I was intrigued. I began watching TV shows about reincarnation and met people who told me stories that seemed believable. Now I really wondered if reincarnation could exist.

Monica

Seventeen years after that book fell off the shelf at the library, I was sitting with my friend, Monica, who announced that they would be moving to Glenwood Springs, a town not far from where we both lived, in Colorado. Monica and her husband, Mark, were leaving the house they had designed and built! I was shocked and upset. I couldnt bear the thought of losing her and Mark and told her that. Then Monica said something astonishing: she said that she and her husband were moving because she felt there was a spirit living there in their house!

It simply wasnt rational! Yet something in my memory was jogged. Years before, when Id gone down the hall to use her bathroom, Id just stepped through the bathroom door when I had the sensation that something flew right through me. I got out of that bathroom fast!

Then Monica told me that a neighbor had said the house was built on a burial site. The neighbor had urged Monica to move.

Girl, youve lived here all these years! I said.

Tara, said Monica. Shes written a book about this stuff. She wrote a book about Bridey Murphy. Do you know that name?

Yes, I murmured, I do know that name.