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Xlibris AU - Faye Roots

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116 pages

English

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A little girl wants to know if God is real. She calls out to the sky ‘I don’t even know if you exist. Show me. Are you a big God or just a story?’ This is the story of her life of discovery. As if by Shafts of GOLD, many supernatural events and miraculous experiences impacted a life of valleys and hills, and now the old lady who KNOWS her God is indeed bigger than the child could have ever imagined,
Her experiences and life certainty now is that the Christian God…… Father, Son and Holy Spirit is TRUTH.

Sujets

Philosophie et théologie

God

Christianity

Religion

Informations

Publié par	Xlibris AU
Date de parution	19 juillet 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781669888741
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

SHAFTS of GOLD

Faye Roots

Copyright © 2022 by Faye Roots.

Library of Congress Control Number:
2022909209
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-8876-5

Softcover
978-1-6698-8875-8

eBook
978-1-6698-8874-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/07/2022

Xlibris
AU TFN: 1 800 844 927 (Toll Free inside Australia)
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Contents
Chapter 1 Early Years — A Seed Sprouts
Chapter 2 Sprouting Years
Chapter 3 Maturing and Learning
Chapter 4 Maturing Physically
Chapter 5 Figure on the Road
Chapter 6 Growing!
Chapter 7 Navigating the 1960s — Learning and Growing, Turmoil and Discovery
Chapter 8 Mid- to Late 1960s — A Journey of Rough Personal Seas and Heart-Challenging Events
Chapter 9 The Beginning of Spiritual Clarifications
Chapter 10 Canberra
Chapter 11
Chapter 12 1970 — Lifechanging, New Beginnings (In Retrospect, Wow!)
Chapter 13 New Life Together
Chapter 14 The 1970s
Chapter 15
Chapter 16 A Beach Encounter
Chapter 17 1980–2000
Chapter 18 China, 1999
Chapter 18A Continuing the Unfolding Events of This First Decade in the Twenty-first Century: World — Spiritual and Personal Life
Chapter 19 Life Unfolding
INTRODUCTION TO Chapter 20
Chapter 20 2011
Chapter 21 Butterfly Stories
Chapter 22 2011–2020
Chapter 23 Writing– Inspiration– God’s Gift
Chapter 24 Life’s Bowling Balls
Chapter 25 2017 — Disturbance on the Sea
Chapter 26 2019
Chapter 27 2020 Worldwide Pandemic — A Celebration
Chapter 27B 2020 — COVID and Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary
Chapter 28 2021
Chapter 29 Hard To Write

Intro to Sh afts
This is the memoir of a shy girl and her search for the right path for her life. It is also the story of an extraordinary God and shafts of gold which sometimes broke through to guide the child – and then the young woman – on her life’s journey.
CHAPTER 1 Early Years — A Seed Sprouts
I, Faye Tognola, was born during the Second World War years of the twentieth century.
In June 1943, my father was fighting overseas. His family did not know where; they were told the Middle East. This was true in the beginning, but in the final few years of his military life, he served in the jungles of PapuaNew Guinea.
He came home only twice in seven years and did not meet me until the end of 1946. My mother told me years later that I terrified him – a gentle, trusting hazel-eyed blonde little girl, so different to where he had been and what he had suffered. My 3-year-old self must have been a shock. He was a loving husband and father, but there was a distance between us that lasted until the final years of his life.
My mother and my half-sister, Maureen, were my early nurturers, but the thirteen-year age difference between my sister and myself meant that she was married and left our home when I was still incredibly young. Memories of those times are now shadowy. I only know I was loved, cared for, and protected. My sister’s intervention indeed protected me from harm from older girls and their attempts to influence me when I started school. Maureen saw something when she passed the school, told my mum. Only I ever knew what harm was averted, and I was never able to say, ‘Thank you, big sister.’
One of my earliest clear memories in my life is of a stretch of sandy beach and rolling waves. A huge building with holes in the walls on the front and sides loomed over everything. My grandmother, for a few short years, owned a beach house on Bribie Island, off the coast of Queensland, Australia. Mum, Maureen, and I visited. This was the only time I remember when we ever visited her there. It was necessary to come on a boat. My mum and I both became seasick.
I was young, around 3 years old. My dad came home at the end of the same year. It was probably 1946. My nan spoke seriously to me that day. Most of what she said, I cannot remember, but she spoke of the war. She told me to remember the building on the sand with the holes for cannons that guarded the island. She also spoke that day gently to me of love and loss and held me tightly and told me to walk the ‘right’ path.
I am grateful for this grandmother, although I did not at all understand why her spirituality often seemed to worry my dad in the next few short years. She was from a strongly Celtic Scottish background and had married a strict Presbyterian miner who ruled his family – wife Nan and my mum and her three siblings – with a rod of iron. He was the head of the family, and hellfire awaited all who did not live by his rules. I think this was why when he died quite young, long before I was born, my nan escaped like a bird and flew into some very strange spiritual areas. She was known as a clever teacup reader and dabbled in fortune telling in the tea rooms and café she owned.
My mother once told me seriously, ‘You are very like your nan, but you must find your own path. Remember always that imagination is a gift, but a lie is wrong and a distortion of truth. There is no such thing as a “white” lie.’
This single piece of information was vital to me as I walked my own pathway of spiritual discovery. I remember looking upwards with a kind of heartfelt longing and prayer. Help me to find the right way .
I loved my schooldays but, as a painfully shy child, suffered much from being ‘misunderstood’ or overlooked. I remember my first week of school with sadness. I twice wet my pants and had to endure hearing how frustrated the teachers were that I came to school before I turned 5 – bright enough to be accepted but not toilet trained. It was not until someone, perhaps my mum, explained that I could not draw attention to myself by putting up my hand and asking to go that I was allowed to quietly exit when necessary, and the problem never occurred again.
This became the pattern for early school life. I was not selected for plays, participation in sports, or classroom discussions because of my quiet, settled manner. I desperately wanted to put myself forward but was too self-conscious.
One memorable event at school happened when my class was selected to perform in the pantomime Snow White at a local hall. Oh, how much I wanted a part! My classmates leapt around – ‘Pick me! Pick me!’ – and children tried out for various roles. I sat quietly. At the close of the selection session, someone noticed me. I was quietly invited to be an understudy for the wicked queen. I was delig hted.
My class teacher was surprised. He said later, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were interested?’
I went to every rehearsal. I learned the lines and felt all the drama and passion. I began to understand at this time of my journey that I could do anything if I hid behind the costume of a different person. Being personally invisible became my goal.
This was confirmed to teachers when the unexpected occurred. The girl who had the part of the queen tearfully announced that she could not do it. They intended to blacken her teeth and wanted her to act really evil. It was two days before the opening, and she refused to do her part. I heard a lot of discussion about whether the play should be cancelled.
I walked up to a teacher and, with confidence, said, ‘I have been rehearsing. I know the lines. I can do this .’
My first time before the eisteddfod in the hall, I surprised everyone, including myself, with how much I became involved in the character of that evil queen. On the night in the hall, my parents were frightened for me, but I discovered that if Faye were lost behind the costume and even the blackened teeth, I could become someone else.
Our school won the eisteddfod that year – certainly not because of me, but I did get a mention in the paper. ‘A fine portrayal of the wicked queen by Faye Tognola – congratulations! Your strong Australian accent will be improved by speech training and elocution.’
My very Aussie father was furious. ‘What’s the matter with an Aussie accent?’ he shouted.
I was not at all upset by the comment. The queen came ‘alive’; that was nothing to do with Faye, the person.
My most valuable lesson occurred when I was 8. I went to church with my parents; it was the first time since my sister’s wedding. I remember it was for a funeral. Some distant cousin had died.
I sat in that gloomy, dark brown church, feeling bored as adults spoke on and on. What they were saying meant nothing to me. I tried to be patient and still – but then I saw something.
I saw something that triggered a hunger in me to seek after what was true and Holy. The dark dusty corner of that church was infused suddenly with a bright light, and I saw figures with human likeness and wings with hands clasped as if in prayer.
It was so breathtakingly beautiful, I called out, ‘Look! Look up there! They must be angels. They’re saying prayers.’ I pointed empathically.
My voice echoed in that large building. Faces automati