Sandra Shaw Dawood
I earned my MS degree in Marriage, Family, and Child Counseling from Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California. My PH.D. degree in Clinical Psychology was attained at the United States International University in San Diego, California. During the process of working on my dissertation, pertaining to symbolic functioning, I was introduced to James Paget Henry, M.D., PH.D. This humble man was my mentor for a brief time. He read my dissertation and expressed to me the significance of symbolism in an individual’s relationship with God. One of his books is Instinct, Archetypes and Symbols: An Approach to the Physiology of Religious Experience (published in 1992). You may view some of his prestigious accomplishments on the internet.
The following are some examples in my life that left strong impressions on my mind until this day:
When I was seven years old, my mother separated and divorced my father, a non-violent man. Later, she married a violent alcoholic husband who was physically abusive toward her. I saw my father only several times after the separation and while I was attending school, even though he lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Soon before I entered the seventh grade, my mother and I separated from her husband in Richmond, Virginia. After we arrived in Philadelphia, we stayed with my mother’s brother, Cecil, and his wife, Beatrice, my father’s sister. Donald and Joyanne were the son and daughter of Aunt Bea and Uncle Cec. Shortly after arriving in Philadelphia, my mother left to go back to Richmond to be with her husband. I chose not to go back to that environment. I remained living with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. In 1958, Uncle Cecil died of cancer when he was forty-six and I was sixteen, a junior in high school. I loved him, my father figure, and I miss him very much.
My final separation in December 1966 from the father of my children was soon after my twenty-fifth birthday. My children and I arrived in California to be with their father about three months before my final separation from him. In December, my older daughter was six and my younger daughter was twenty months; my son was three years. At that time, I had to learn how to drive a car. I remained a single parent for almost nine years.
I married my present husband, Younan, in 1975. He was born and raised in Egypt. While I was caring for my father in my home, from 1992 until his death in 1994, my mother died in 1993 and my husband had an affair. About three months after my father’s death, I suffered severely from major depression and had an emotional breakdown. I was hospitalized at the San Bernardino County Department of Mental Health where I was previously a mental health clinician. Some of my former County colleagues visited me at my hospital bed.
My book shares some unbelievable experiences as I opened my eyes to Eye Statement communication between God and me; I have interpreted His messages in a playful and childlike way. I originated and defined Eye Statements as the ways God uses particular symbols, situations, or events within our daily lives to communicate with us. I believe that God’s Eye Statements, by use of coincidences or other spiritual means, are God’s supportive communication with me; and God gives us infinite images to provide us with an opportunity to have open-ended communication with Him.
