Spiritual Rebirth—How The Urantia Book Transformed Me

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MaryJo Holman-Garascia

By MaryJo Holman-Garascia, Colorado, United States

When I found The Urantia Book in 1985, it was the beginning of the remaking of my character and a true spiritual awakening—a feast for a famished soul. I was thirty-eight years old and ripe for the experience. In the beginning of my experience with the revelation, I thought to myself, “If I keep reading this book, I am going to have to make some changes in my life.”

I plunged in, head over heels in love with this new concept of God, newly in love with Jesus, and with the promise that I might be reborn. I remember those times vividly. The teachings of Jesus, especially, took me by surprise. Even though I had abandoned God along with the Catholic Church in my youth, I had never fully abandoned Jesus; seeing his life and teachings in the book brought tears of joy and gratitude to my eyes. I often read Part IV through a mist of tears in those days. The teachings of The Urantia Book—and of Jesus—fundamentally transformed the way I interfaced with the world and with the people in my life, and that remains true to this day, thirty-plus years later.

As the teachings about the cosmos spilled out before my astonished eyes, my inner cosmos began undergoing a transformation, too. It was not all sweet, as anyone who has dismantled a shaky foundation to make way for a new and finer edifice can attest. There were a lot of emotional scrapes, bruises, and an uncomfortable face-to-face with my flawed nature. But I was determined—and thrilled beyond words.

My rebirth of the Spirit was a “stormy” one. As I began processing the wealth of spiritual information in The Urantia Book, I experienced the “fringe of conflict” that besets all who transition to a life in the Spirit. Even though I made better decisions about where I wanted to be and was feeling far more right on the inside, it took a while before my outer life completely caught up. But over time, evidence began accruing. Things got progressively better, even though there were those times of two steps forward and one step back. Those times were hard, but now God was my companion. Even the rough patches of life were not so bad. I still had my share of clouds, but now, all of my clouds had silver linings.

It was as a direct result of my embracing The Urantia Book and the matchless ministry of Jesus and his Spirit of Truth that I was able to come to terms with my rocky past and the people who were part of it. I learned the value of forgiveness and the humility of its reciprocal nature. I learned to tame my rebellious temperament and surrender myself to divine guidance. This was a revelation in itself: I did not have to be in control of everything, and I could trust God to show the way.

Appropriately enough, after nine months, I completed a read-through of the book, at which time I truly could feel the newness of life in the spirit, which these teachings had wrought. As my spirit expanded, my mind expanded, too; my capacity for understanding took quantum leaps, and renewal became the order of the day.

The Urantia Book came into my life at a time when I was most in need of it; its sane, reasonable, and loving instruction has helped me to live a better life, a happier life, a life that has true meaning to me. I have happily dedicated my whole being to something far greater than me and yet something so intimately a part of me: the Kingdom of Heaven—that place of peace and joy that Jesus promised was within, and that, with his grace, I found.