The only thing constant in Jan's life was change. From the time she was a baby until her twenties, she and her family moved over forty times, mostly because of an alcoholic dad who couldn't hold a job, but also a mother who was gradually descending into alcoholic denial as well. Her family of five siblings and two parents expanded and contracted depending upon divorce, alcoholic denial, and economics.
Her parents divorced when Jan was five, and she and a beloved older sister were left with their grandparents in a small town while their mother went to the city with her other siblings to find work and a way to support them. Jan learned to cope with abandonment and loss through stable grandparents, small-town life, and her sister's love. Once her family reunited, new challenges surfaced and a chaotic welfare-dependent life followed.
Jan and her siblings all met the challenges differently, with varying consequences to their family life. Jan took on the role of codependent family caretaker as she struggled against family dysfunction.
Just when her life took a turn for the better for her and her daughter, a new life-threatening health challenge emerged which took her in a completely new spiritual direction, forcing her to choose between two risky alternatives.
Through all the transformative challenges, Jan's spiritual life, her own intuitive guidance, and active dream life kept her afloat, with Spirit's light ever present through the darkest of times.
Jan Skogstrom is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and University of St. Thomas, and a retired Psychologist Emeritus, teacher, and minister. In addition to 25 years of teaching at her local community college, she has over 35 years of study in the Ageless Wisdom (Ancient Wisdom) and is a graduate of Sancta Sophia Seminary, a modern day Mystery School.
"The Light Shines in the Darkness is a riveting, articulate description of a little girl navigating a path through a dysfunctional alcoholic family by using her inner guidance, her dream life, the healing power of music, and attuning to her concept of a divine safety net which she called God. As an adult, Jan became a psychologist, and a college professor, and later, after a life-threatening illness, she became a minister of Ageless Wisdom. This is more than a memoir; it's a masterpiece that I have already used with my clients." - Jennifer Anderson, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist
"The Light Shines in the Darkness is the story of a remarkable, treacherous, loving life, both outer and inner, and brings to mind Joseph Campbell's outline of the hero's journey. The child of alcoholic parents, Jan and her siblings were shuffled about all through childhood, moving constantly, often separated from both parents and one another, changing schools, dodging child welfare, and later, enduring two years of medical nightmares, near-death experiences, being homebound for nearly two years, and unable to eat for several months. This little girl, saturated from a young age in crisis-living mode, became a college administrator and professor, a mother and spouse, and founded a church. Her life is hard, but also good. This book is not just the story of the outer life of this girl/woman, it is also the story of her inner life. From a very young age, she had an active dream life and felt God's upholding presence, a certainty reminiscent of the mystic Julian of Norwich's, that all will be well … all manner of thing shall be well. Her descriptions of the dreams, the divine consolations, are expressed in the most beautiful, unusual language. This book is a most compelling read." - Rev. Sarah Campbell
