Member Spotlight I: Gloria Bodenmuller, children’s author

If insecurity had been a state in the Union in the 1950s, Gloria Jean Bodenmuller would have grown up in it. Her father and her maternal grandmother were alcoholics. There was physical and emotional abuse in the family of migrant workers. Gloria’s mother, whom she calls a “sweet, loving, simple woman,” took the abuse because she had come from an abusive, alcoholic home. Gloria helped her raise the boys in the family when her sisters left home between the ages of 12 and 14.

The Lord has brought her out of that state in her personal exodus through faith, but she sees a lot of young people still living there.

When her son and 2-year-old granddaughter moved in with Gloria and her husband, Fred, several years ago after a divorce, Grandma could see familiar fear in the eyes of her granddaughter, Laurel Shea. That went away after the girl came to know Christ, Gloria says. After Laurel Shea and her father moved out, Gloria wrote her first book, Angels All Around Me, and dedicated it to Laurel Shea.

“When she went to school, I made an effort to go there just to see her, but the Lord had plans for me to minister to other children, too,” Gloria says. “I would go to school and have lunch with her and talk, and she’d get up and leave very confident. But the other children would stay around and just talk to me and open up their little hearts about their lives. ‘I don’t even know who my real brother or sister is.’ It’s just awful what children go through today.”

When Gloria would ask if the children needed prayer for something, they’d say yes.

“Then, in weeks after, they’d come to me and say, ‘Oma, will you pray about this for me?’ Then they would come to me and tell me how their prayers were answered. I would sit in amazement.”

Like Laurel, the schoolchildren began calling Gloria “Oma,” a German term for grandmother.

Gloria began realizing that she had a connection with children, especially those who need reassurance through the Lord and through human love and attention.

That realization was accompanied a few years ago by the reawakening of a talent that had slept for decades: writing. Her talent had first been noticed by a high school teacher, who told one of her brothers 10 years later that she was still a hard act to follow in that area.

After she became a Christian in 1970, her writing mostly consisted of keeping a journal. After a longtime friend encouraged her to write a book, she started taking writing classes, though still had no thoughts of what to write or for whom. Then she came across a copy of My Little Golden Book About God, a book she had always wanted as a child but couldn’t afford. That inspired her to write for children.

She first wrote Angels All Around Me, finishing it in 2008. Gloria stresses to the book’s young—and old, if need be—readers that they’re never alone. “I know that Jesus is here with me,” she writes. “He also gives me angels. They are all around me. They are sent by God to protect me.”

The book alternates between Gloria’s words and selections from God’s Word that reinforce her message, which is little more than the words of reassurance she had been giving to the children at her granddaughter’s school all along.

Now the school allows her to visit and present her books, each of which are an explicit presentation of the Christian faith.

“They’re very open,” she says of the children.

Their positive response to her presentations, and the positive response to her talks at churches about her life and faith, spurred her to write more books. Six in all are now available: Angels All Around Me, My Very Own Book About Gardening, What is Easter?, The Christmas Star, Heaven, and the new What Is Love?, which was written and illustrated virtually by children. Each book includes narration on CD and children singing.

Essential in all the books is the Gospel, Gloria says. Scripture permeates her work because, she believes, children’s number one need is “for Jesus Christ and the Gospel.”

She’s not done writing, either. Gloria says God is leading her to write her autobiography, which will be tied in with the Advocacy for Victims of Abuse, a ministry run by the Evangelical Covenant Church.

Gloria’s books are now available through Amazon.com.