How I know God is Real

The question is:

How have I come this far in life

with a strong belief in God?

How have I come to know that God is real?

Because as a child I was taught about a man named Jesus Christ.

His father is God, our Heavenly Father.

I was taught to pray at the side of my bed

and to trust in His will

by a mother who struggled with depression, alcoholism, and mental illness.

Out of sheer necessity,

I prayed to the heavens for help

when she wasn't capable of being a mother.

The first time I knew God heard my prayers

was when I was in 5th grade,

sitting outside on the front porch

on a Friday night,

praying that my dad's car would come around the corner

*right then*

to save us kids from our mother's fury.

And he did.

My dad's car lights came around the corner,

and he pulled right into the driveway

just like I needed him to make my world safer.

I learned from that experience that God is real

and He listens to me and blesses me with answers to my prayers.

My strong belief in God continued to grow

because I continued to pray to Him--

I needed a Heavenly Father.

I still do.

Years later,

I would ask another question:

"Is the LDS Church true?"

I'd been receiving missionary lessons for several months

and they invited me to pray and ask God to know for myself

if what they were teaching me was indeed, true.

I hadn't ever asked a question like that before--

to have a spiritual knowledge of something.

And I did as they told me to do--

I asked the question and was given a specific answer:

"It's true, hold on."

I was 15 years old.

Holding on meant I would be kicked out of my parent's home with the clothes on my back

on a snowy Colorado day.

Holding on meant I would live with people I barely knew and finish high school.

Holding on meant my life would change in ways I was unfamiliar.

Holding on meant I would never let go.

Years later,

I gave birth to a special needs son, Dean.

My heart broke into a thousand pieces--

I begged and pleaded with Heavenly Father to not make me go through

that unfamiliar path.

He didn't change the diagnosis--my son was not miraculously healed.

But I was given the strength I needed to care for him and my other children.

One very long night though,

I was walking the floors with baby Dean--who was very sick.

As I was considering how I could make him feel better

I remembered that we had a humidifier...

I went to the closet we kept it in--in our very small two bedroom apartment--

but it wasn't there.

I looked in the kids' closet, my closet, under the sink in the bathroom--

still, I couldn't see it.

At 2o'clock in the morning, I was exhausted and filled with worry over my son.

I stood in the dimly lit hallway

and prayed outloud,

"Heavenly Father, I need this humidifier. I know you know where it is. Please help me to see

it clearly."

I opened the hall closet once more--and there it sat on a shelf eye-level, right in front.

I knew it was an answer to my simple, sincere prayer.

How do I know God is real?

Because of these sweet experiences and hundreds more.

Because I need Him. I need His comfort, His wisdom, His strength

and all else to get me through this mortal experience.

He has never failed me.

I have learned to trust in His timing, His ways, and His love for me

and my family.

For ways you can strengthen your relationship with Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, I invite you to https://www.mormon.org/beliefs/god .