I Am A Child of God
(What Does It Really Mean?)

I started thinking real fast because I couldn't think of anyone that I knew named Lynn. I taught Released Time Seminary for 3 years and got to teach somewhere around 1000 students. Not being very good at remembering names I live in fear of having one come up to me and ask me if I remember them. Could this be one of those occasions and if so, why is she calling collect? Finally I remembered performing with a country singer named Lynn, but he was living in Nashville and I hadn't seen him for a while. Why would he be calling? But if he was, he was probably in trouble so I said, "Sure, I'll accept the charges." (Isn't it funny how your brain works? I thought of all that stuff in about 1 second!)

The operator said, "Go ahead Lynn." A timid, little female voice said, "Hi Dean. This is Lynn. You don't remember me do you?" Then came one of those soul searching moments when I thought, "should I lie through my teeth or take a deep breath, tell the truth and hope for the best." Luckily (since this is a church story) I rose to the occasion and told the truth. I took a deep breath and said, "I'm really sorry Lynn, but I don't." I anxiously awaited her response. Rather quickly she said, "That's O.K. I didn't really think that you'd remember me. I called you about 6 months ago, because someone had given me a copy of one of your tapes."

As soon as she said that, an event quickly flashed into my mind. I had been working in my recording studio one day when the phone rang. I picked up the phone and a girl introduced herself and told me that she was trying to get her life back together after majorly straying from the path. A friend had given her a copy of one of my tapes and she had enjoyed it and felt that it had helped her in trying to get her life back together. She decided to call me and tell me, so she looked up my number. I remember being so honored and I took down her name and number and thought that I'd like to meet her some day.

That was it! My entire association with Lynn had lasted a total of about 5 minutes on the phone, and now here she was calling me at 10:30 at night collect!

I quickly said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I do remember you." She said, "Oh, it's O.K." What she said next I can still clearly remember because it had a major affect on my life. She said, "I just wanted to call and tell you one last time how much your music has meant to me, and I wanted to tell you good-bye." Well, that sounded sort of weird so I said, "So what do you mean by good-bye?" And she said, "Oh, don't worry about it. It's no big deal." I said, "Hey, you can't just call me up at 10:30 at night... collect... and say, "Good-bye cruel world, this is it !" She said, "Oh, don't worry about it." I said, "Talk to me a minute."

I got to talk to Lynn for about 45 minutes and found out that she had "majorly strayed from the path". She had a baby when she was 15 that she gave up for adoption, got into drugs in high school and eventually went to jail for selling drugs. She was currently living in a half-way house in Ogden, Utah and she was going through a very bad week.

First, her boyfriend had told her she was just too messed up and he couldn't deal with it so he was breaking up with her. Second, her baby had been adopted by a friend of her sister's and she had sort of kept an eye on him. The baby and the family he had been adopted by had been killed in a car accident that week. And third, she had just gotten off the phone with her mom and her mom had told her, "Lynn, we don't approve of what you've done with your life so as far as we're concerned, we don't have a daughter anymore. Please don't call us again."

So here she was, all alone in a halfway house trying to decide if life was worth living.

As I spoke with Lynn two things came into my mind. The first was one of my favorite scriptures. D&C 18:10 - "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God" and I remember being amazed that anyone could feel so alone and worthless. The second was an experience I had while serving on my mission.

I was serving in a town called Bulawayo, Rhodesia. It was my favorite place on my mission. One of the things I liked best was all the little African kids. I've always loved kids and these kids were the best! I spent as much time with them as I could. They had the cutest accents and faces and always picked me up if I was ever discouraged.

On the day I found out I was being transferred I could barely stand it. I went in to tell them good-bye. It was an emotional time for me. As a "going away present", they decided to sing some of their favorite primary songs for me which I recorded on my crummy little missionary hand held recorder.

Next thing I knew I was on an airplane flying down to Johannesburg listening to my tape of the kids, crying my eyes out. They started singing "I Am A Child of God" and I had a tremendous spiritual experience. I thought, "I am a child of God. What does that really mean? Is it just a cute little song, or Mormon Propaganda or could it be really true?"

I started thinking... I am the son of Bob and Melba Kaelin and as their son I've inherited certain qualities from them. I know I brought a personality with me from the pre-existence, but I also inherited some stuff from them. If they are my earthly parents and I've inherited things from them, and God is the literal father of my spirit then it would make sense to me that I inherited something spiritual from Him. Maybe lots of things, but I figure at least one. And if God is wonderful and great and perfect, there must be at least one thing inside of me that is wonderful, great and perfect.

What an amazing discovery! I AM A CHILD OF GOD! He is really my father! He knows who I am. He loves me. He wants me to be happy. I am like him.

I thought as I talked to Lynn, how does someone get from "I am a child of God. I'm wonderful, terrific and good" to "I'm worthless and I don't want to be here!"? You see, Lynn was raised LDS. She went to primary and she sang "I Am A Child Of God". She went to Seminary and read "Remember the worth of souls is great." How did she change? What happened?

I had an opportunity right out of college to work in Los Angeles with some pretty famous people. Most of them I didn't really care for, but a couple of them I really liked. One of them that I liked was Bette Midler.

I was working as the piano player for a rather famous voice teacher. He worked with a lot of the stars from the entertainment business. When they came into their lessons I got to meet them, talk to them and play piano for them while they took their voice lessons.

One day I was sitting in the waiting room reading a "People" magazine and there was an article about Bette Midler. Well, it just so happened that Bette Midler was sitting about 6 feet away from me waiting to go into her voice lesson. (Pretty weird, huh?) Anyway, I looked up and said, "Hey, there's an article in here about you." She said, "Yeah, I know. I don't want to hear it. They always write such garbage." I said, "No. They say really nice things about you." And she said, "Oh, what do they say?"

I read her a paragraph that said how talented she was, how nice she was, how beautiful she was, what a great singer she was, etc, etc. And it really was true. She really was nice and fun and talented and a beautiful person.

When I finished I will never forget what she said. She said, "You know that's really interesting because it's obvious to look at me that I'm not very attractive, and I don't sing very well. I guess I can be kind of funny sometimes."

You know, all those years in High School I thought I was the only one that stood in front of the mirror and thought, "How can I face the world looking this ugly? Why can't I be more like Joe? He's cool and big and has facial hair and all the girls like him." It never, ever occurred to me that maybe Joe was standing in front of his mirror at that same moment wondering the same thing. But here was Bette Midler who was rich and famous and talented and she was saying, "It's obvious to look at me that I'm not very attractive!" WHAT A DISCOVERY! Everyone at some point in there life thinks that! And why do we think it?

It's become obvious to me that we live in a world that loves to point out that you don't measure up. See everyone is a little insecure and so our weird brains figure that if we can find fault in other people it makes us feel a little better about our own insecurities. So lots of people sit around and try to find fault with others. As ridiculous as this seems the scary thing is that if you're not careful you can actually start to believe what they are saying.

I wasn't always insecure. In fact when I was a kid most people accused me of being pretty "cocky". I must admit I was very confident. And why was that? Well, a couple of reasons. The main reason was because I had people that believed in me; coaches, teachers, leaders, parents, friends and especially my brothers who constantly told me how great I was and how I could do anything. And you know what, I believed them.

Looking back on it I really didn't have that much to be all that "cocky" about. I was really into sports, but I was always really small. I remember my little league football coach constantly reminding the linemen that on pass plays they had to make sure and knock their guys on the ground so that "Dean could see." My first year in football I played in the 55-85 pound division and I only weighed 53 pounds. I was relatively coordinated however and I had all these people telling me I was great and I could do it so I did. I was always the captain and when the game was on the line I always thought "I hope they get the ball to me because I know I can do it."

When I had moments of doubt or discouragement I can still remember my older brother standing on the sidelines every practice, every game yelling "Whale on 'em Dean, whale on 'em!" And even if I was going up against someone twice my size I believed I could do it, and I usually did. Though I was extremely small, I had dreams of maybe even becoming a professional athlete. Why not, I had always been small, but yet I had always excelled.

Then came high school! My brother had gotten married and moved away and someone forgot to tell the high school coaches that I was the "star". All I heard was, "You're not big enough" and

"You're not fast enough."

I remember I only had about 2 friends on the football team because although we had all grown up and played together and had been friends as kids, I had chosen not to follow the group and

start drinking and there was only a couple of us who didn't drink. Anyway, one of these 2 friends, a great big lineman sat down by me one day and put his hand on my knee and said, "You know Dean, you're so talented in music I don't know why you're out here wasting your time playing football." This was one of my "friends".

Needless to say, no one believed in me and so I stopped believing in myself. I started thinking, "I hope I don't get the ball. I don't want to be the one to blow it!"

In Jr. High I received a special award in English, but a high school English teacher pretty much convinced me I was no good at English. He didn't seem to like anything I did. No matter how hard I tried he would criticize everything I turned in. I remember one time I made an extra special effort and turned in what I thought was a paper above and beyond the call of duty, something I was very proud of and sure he would like. When I got the paper back there was a note on the top. It said, "Dean, this sounds different from your usual work. I hope you didn't copy it from somewhere."

By the end of my senior year, although I had taken Honors and A.P. English I decided not to take the A.P. Test. For two years this teacher had told me I couldn't cut it in English, so I decided not to waste the time or money in taking the test. After much prodding by my friends they finally all but dragged me to the A.P. Test.

When you take an A.P. Test you can get scores from 1 to 5. 3 is passing. I felt positive that I could do no better than a 2. I mean I knew I wasn't dumb, but I pretty much knew I wasn't really all that smart either.

That summer I received my A.P. scores in the mail. I opened it pretty much just out of obligation and spent quite a while looking for my "2" and I couldn't find it. I saw a "5", but I knew that wasn't my score so I continued looking. (Those sheets have so many numbers on them you can't really tell what's what.) After about 10 minutes my brain finally accepted that I got a "5" on the A.P. English test! Wow! Amazing! I checked the name on the sheet to make sure it was actually my score! And it was!

I was so shocked, but excited and knew I had to share this information with someone. So I pulled out the phone book and called my high school English teacher. Needless to say he was very surprised to hear from me, as we weren't real close while I was in school. When he answered I said, "Hi! This is Dean Kaelin and I just wanted to call and tell you that I got a "5" on the A.P. English test!" and I hung up.

Two months later I was at my old high school at Homecoming and I happened to walk by this teacher's room. He saw me and called out to me to wait as he wanted to talk to me. He said, "You know Dean, ever since you called this summer it has really bothered me. Either I was grading you unfairly or there was some other problem and I've been racking my brain trying to figure it out." You see, I was his only student out of 70 to get a "5". I thought, "Yes! There is justice in the world! He's going to apologize to me and I will be big about it and accept his apology and tell him it's O.K." Then he said, "And after thinking about it, I've decided that you probably just weren't doing your best work for me."

We live in a world that likes to point out that you don't measure up, and if you're not careful you'll forget that you're a child of God and that there's greatness inside of you and you'll start to believe them.

During my mission I started to get my confidence back, because I started to remember that I was a child of God and that there was greatness inside of me! I tried out and played 2 years of semi-pro baseball and then made the decision to make music and teaching my life, but it was MY choice. I didn't let others make it for me.

My message is that we truly are children of God and that there is greatness inside of us. If we say, "I can't do it, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not good looking enough," what we are really saying is that we don't really believe that we are children of God, because as children of God there is greatness inside of us and we can literally do anything we set our minds to.

How much greatness is inside of us? Greatness enough that Christ our brother personally was willing to come down to earth and give His life for ours so that we could become all that we could become! After D&C 18:10 says "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;" it goes on to say in verse 11, "For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him." That is how great we are!

My brother got married and moved away, but what I have learned is that I have another older brother who stands on the sidelines of my life. He is there at every practice, every game and at every challenge of my life. He knows just how I feel and what I'm going through because he's been there. People made fun of Him. They laughed at Him, through rocks at Him, spit on Him and at any moment He could have said, "No, it's too tough! I don't want to do it." But he gave His life for me! Why? Because He loves me and knows that I can be great and wants me to be great! And when life gets tough and I think I can't do it, if I listen real close I can actually hear him say "Whale on 'em!"

About a year after Lynn's collect phone call I got another call from Lynn. (This one wasn't collect.) She said, "Dean, I just wanted you to know that I'm being re-baptized Sunday and I hope you can come."