Marlene Sommer - Heaven Came to Me: God Revealed Through Compelling and Convincing True Stores

Heaven Came to Me

GOD REVEALED THROUGH COMPELLING
AND CONVINCING TRUE STORIES

2016 Marlene Sommer.

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Contents

Preface

I did not visit Heaven. Heaven came to me. I have been incredibly blessed to have God reveal Himself to me personally, in both many worldly and spiritual ways. Whether I have been suffering through a personal loss or comforting a friend, truly improbable circumstances combining at just the right moments have convinced me of Gods presence and love in the most difficult times. These many true astonishing life experiences have reinvigorated and reaffirmed my faith in God. There is a God. God shows His presence in quiet and reticent manners or in gallant and glorious ways. The many miraculous moments I have experienced were definitely more providential than circumstantial.

I am not a person who spends time in Bible study. My husband and I have an active social life. We hang out with our close-knit neighbors for a driveway party, meet our fun group of friends at someones house to drink a few beers and watch the O.S.U. Buckeyes, or go boating on Grand Lake. And I love to travel and shop with my daughter and my sisters!

I am just an ordinary, everyday person who has been touched by the extraordinary. My amazing lessons have taught me how to endure many real struggles and heartbreaking experiences that have ultimately brought me to a personal relationship with God. These experiences have enabled me to relate to and empathize with others and to encourage them to fight through their own hardships and sorrows in life. I hope readers will relate to me because I am not a minister or a celebrity, but, rather, just a typical small town wife, mother, Girl Scout leader, school board member, friend, neighbor, and co-worker from Ohio.

Never in a million years would I have believed I would be writing anything about God. I have drawers full of childrens books that I have written for the past twenty-five years, and my goal was to pursue publication when my own children were grown. It is beyond my wildest dreams that, instead, I would have these incredible life experiences to share about God. In fact, it is weirder for me to be writing about my own life than it would be for my favorite NBA star to pursue a second career as a jockey! I can just see my favorite supersized Cleveland Cavalier player mounted on his horse, with his long, dangling legs dragging in the dust, as the announcer delivers the thrilling drama of the exciting finish Its Basketball is Overrated its Basketball is Overrated in the leadBasketball is Overrated is coming into the stretch Basketball is Overrated WINS the Derby! Definitely a long shot, and so am I. Yes, I never would have dreamed I would be telling readers how Heaven Came to Me!

In fact, I went from bunny dip to genuflect in my life plans. For my high school graduation gift, my aunt and uncle took me on a very nice trip. We traveled north through Michigan and the Upper Peninsula and south through Wisconsin, with our last stop at The Playboy Club Hotel in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. It was an absolutely huge and beautiful resort nestled among rolling hills and serene lakes. Inside the resort, I was so impressed that the bathroom stalls were as large as a complete bathroom in a house, each having its own phone! When my uncle took me out to the discotheque one evening, I was so mesmerized by the glamour of the Playboy Bunnies that I thought I wanted to be one. I should have known that such a silly fantasy would not be Gods plan for my life. I only had to reminisce back to the summer after my sixth-grade year.

One afternoon at the local swimming pool, a boy in my class said, Kessler, you are a carpenters dream! Yeah, you are a carpenters dream!

With an inflated ego, I strutted around the pool in my little bikini, showing off my deep, dark tan and flipping my sixties, waist-length hair back off my shoulders.

As I walked by the boys again, one guy repeated, Yeah, Kessler, you are a carpenters dream alrightflat as a board!

My self esteem instantly deflated like an inner tube and went right down the drain of that swimming pool!

Up until only a few years ago, I never would have believed Gods plan for my life would be to write about the incredible circumstances that have brought me to this point in my life. I guess being a Playboy Bunny was definitely not my calling, but then, none of us ever knows what God has planned for our lives.

I suppose God decided to use me to share my experiences because I am very loquacious and outgoing. He must have looked and me and said, Hmmm, I have not given her any talents, but boy can that girl talk! I will use her to tell a world that has forgotten about Me that I am still here for everyone.

I started talking in full sentences when I was eighteen-months old and havent stopped since. When I was in kindergarten, my teacher moved me and my little friend, Michelle Millisor, to take our naps on top of the tables because we could not be quiet.

At my parochial school, we had to go to confession routinely, and I always confessed the same sins.

Bless me Father for I have sinned. I talked in church and fought with my sisters. (I might throw an impure thought in just to spice it up.)

As soon as I got back to my pew, I was elbowing my friend kneeling next to me and already talking again before I even said my penance.

What did you get? I implored.

Three Our Fathers, three Hail Marys, and three Glory Bes, she replied.

Yep, me too! I giggled back.

In high school our German teacher, Sister Wilhelmina, would put her finger to her lips with a Shhh Bitte Fraulein Kessler Nein! as she shook her head from side to side. But as soon as she turned her back, my friends and I were talking about guys and planning our outfits for the weekend.