Author helps others have conversations with God
by Cheryl Sherry
(from The Post-Crescent in Wisconsin, December 28, 2002)

When Katharine Giovanni first started hearing the voice in her head, she seriously thought she had a case of multiple personality disorder.

But is was God's voice she heard, the very same God who told her to write her new book, "God, is that you? " a humorous and inspiring journal that provides meaningful insight into everyday conversations with God and helpful strategies for starting a personal spiritual dialogue.

"It's akin to learning how to read," the native New Yorker said from her home in North Carolina. "We are all born with the ability to read, but somebody has to teach us to do it."

Raised Episcopalian, Giovanni was far from religious. "I went to church twice a year and never really thought about God - ever." she said.

In 1995, while pregnant with her second child, Giovanni dreamt she toured heaven and hell. The dream perplexed her.

"I thought, 'Why would he show me hell if there wasn't a chance I was going to go there?' So I obsessed about it and asked everybody - my friends, my minister, everybody. And everybody had a different answer, which was unhelpful."

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A short time later, Giovanni saw an angel in her living room.

"I thought, 'Whoa.' This has never happened to me and hasn't since. I didn't tell anyone for two weeks, even my husband, because I wasn't sure I saw it. But the image stayed with me."

The final event came while she and her husband were building a house.

"I came out to where the mailbox stands today and got very humble and grateful," Giovanni Said. "Silently in my mind I thanked God for the wonderful house and beautiful family he had give me. This was a really cold day ... with no sunshine anywhere. All of a sudden a beam of light fell down on me. I felt like I was on a warm beach in Bermuda. I realized God had just told me he loved me.

"After all this happened I decided maybe I was born-again or something," she said. "I didn't know what a born-again Christian was, but I thought I must have had some kind of experience so maybe I should go to church. These were all conversations with myself. There are hundreds of thousands of religions in the world. Which one should I choose? All of a sudden I heard words in my mind. 'Follow Me.' I thought that was a strange thing for me to think. Why would I think that"

"For the next 48 hours, I started saying, 'Thank you God for my food, for this and for that and every time I did, I would hear the words, 'You're welcome.' My husband at this point wanted to fit me for a straightjacket."

Seeking to reassure herself that she wasn't going crazy, Giovanni went to a bookstore and found herself in the metaphysical new age section.

"A book leaped off the shelf at me and there was no one standing on the other side of the bookshelf," she said. "I kid you not! Once I recovered my composure, because books don't generally do that, I noticed it was 'Conversations with God' by Neale Donald Walsch."

That is when Giovanni realized the voice she heard was God's.

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"It wasn't my subconscious. It was actually God, and He was talking to me. So I started talking back. It has become something I can't live without anymore. I talk to Him about the little stuff and the big stuff. And I would talk to Him when I needed someone to talk to, and He would answer me back. So I started to teach my friends and family my method to do this."

So what does God sound like and where does the voice come from? In the book Giovanni says the voice comes from deep within. It is not a person's subconscious or intuition. It is God.

"Deep down inside your heart, you'll know. God speaks from your heart. It's your heart song. But if you are questioning who it is you are talking to, you may call Him on it and say, "'God, if it's you, prove it.' And He will.

"I would like to tell you I could have the word saint emblazoned on my car, but I can't, Giovanni said. "I am a normal human being who puts her pants on one leg at a time. And God really does help. The hard balls are still being thrown at me and soft balls. But having God with me allows me to duck faster when they come. It makes it easier.

"The state of our world today is just awful," she said. "God can fix it, but He can't fix it if we can't hear His answers. We have been taking other people's world for what God has said for thousands of years. People should ask their own questions and get their own answers. Imagine the changes that we could make overnight if we all could hear what He is saying to us."

From The Post-Crescent in Wisconsin, December 28, 2002

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