Do You Believe In Angels?

[Carol Anne Kincaid~Paradis]

Do You Believe In Angels?

How I came to believe in the idea of angel healing.

Rebecca Marie

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Angels are among us. They can see, hear and feel us. Most of all, they just want to help us. This concept may seem foreign to many folks, and there was a time I would have thought you were crazy if you told me such things. However, the belief in angels is fairly widespread. According to a poll conducted by CBS News in 2011, nearly 8 in 10 Americans believe in angels.

This is how I came to believe.

A few short years ago, I was in the dark. Literally. I had been existing in a very dark place for a long time. A close family member had been struggling with mental illness. His erratic behaviors and emotional abuse were taking a toll on me; mentally, physically, and emotionally I was a wreck. I just didn’t acknowledge it, to myself or anyone else. Each day I’d put on a bright face and pretend all was well.

It wasn’t.

Around this time, my cousin had come from Los Angeles for a visit. When she visits we like to spend the morning talking and drinking coffee at my funky, tall kitchen counter, sitting perched on hand-me-down bar stools. My cousin Debbie and I are very different. We both take our politics and our coffee drinking extremely seriously. Debbie is a staunch Republican, and I’m a lefty-liberal Democrat. Debbie prefers a fancy French vanilla creamer in her coffee. I don’t believe in tainting my coffee at all. Strong and black is the only way I’ll drink it. Debbie knew this about me and had brought her own bottle of creamer along with her. It was comforting to know that she understood about my anti-milk-in-coffee quirk, and forgave me anyway. She also knew to abide by an unspoken agreement of steering clear of any kind of political discussion.

Despite our differences, Debbie and I hold a deep love for each other, a loyalty only cousins understand. It was our shared blood ties, running through and beyond us, that established our equilibrium, and let us see more than politics or coffee preference. On that hot summer morning, with our bare feet perched on the rungs of funky bar stools, we let the caffeine grease the squeaky stuck parts of our conversation, and flow over our words into empty spaces, as we shared our stories over the tops of steaming ceramic mugs.

On that day Debbie told me the story of a young man named Jeremiah. This boy worked as a waiter in a restaurant. One day he was serving dinner to a family that seemed in particular distress. He asked them if everything was alright. They told him their father was in surgery at that very moment, and they were scared. Jeremiah was Christian and asked the family if it would be ok if he prayed for their father. The family was Indian Sikh and told him so, but they said certainly it couldn’t hurt if he prayed. Jeremiah went to the kitchen and said a silent prayer asking for angels to be with the father during his surgery. Several days later the son came back into the restaurant and thanked Jeremiah for the prayer. But more than that, he really wanted to know what kind of God Jeremiah prayed to, that answered prayers so quickly. The man told Jeremiah that his father had woken up from a successful surgery and shared a miraculous story with his family. He said that during the operation he was visited by angels and the angels told him that they were sent by Jeremiah. His father didn’t know what to think of the visit, nor who this Jeremiah could be, but he recovered perfectly and credited it all to the gentle care of the angels.

I was a bit skeptical. My cousin is a reform Christian which is somewhere between a holy roller and an evangelical, and I respect her passionate brand of faith, but I thought this story sounded a bit too much like a Reader’s Digest tale or maybe something from one of those religious Guidepost magazines. My cousin saw the skepticism on my face and proceeded to get out her phone to show me Jeremiah’s Facebook post. The post was written simply and humbly and Jeremiah looked like a great kid. I took note. I believe in prayer and our family has its own legends about guardian angels, but I had never thought to pray to the angels. It just hadn’t occurred to me to ask for their particular brand of help.

Several days later I was working from home. My work requires me to be tethered to my laptop minute by minute. Working from home means I become a virtual hermit. I keep the curtains drawn and and sometimes have the TV playing in the background. Muffin, my dog, sits at my feet, and works on showing me her saddest, most disapproving face. All day long she sends me accusing looks. How could I stay at home and not once go throw the ball for her? How could I keep the curtains drawn so I can’t see how perfect the weather is for a walk? Every little slight I have ever incurred, shows on her cute-as-an-otter face. I am a huge disappointment to my dog. And I hate to admit it, but she is probably right. In the engaged dog-owner category, I really do kind of suck. But with dogs it’s just like raising kids. We do the best we know how to do. I am very good at soft words and heavy petting and watching TV together on the couch. I realize that I fall short in a lot of my relationships. Wherever we are lacking, whatever shortcomings we bring to the table, we just hope like hell that the dogs and our kids will eventually forgive us.

On this particular day the TV was tuned to the Doctor Oz show. Dr. The guest on the show was an expert on angels. She had written a book about health and healing and specifically how angels can help with physical and mental illnesses. I almost couldn’t believe it. I listened carefully to double-triple make sure that they were actually saying angels and not angles or something else. Doctor Oz and all of the audience members had very serious expressions on their faces. No one looked as if they were playing a practical joke. Apparently, angel healing was a serious business. The angel expert said that all we needed to do was ask the angels for help. I was surprised to hear about angels on a show about health, but I was intrigued. Ok, second Angel reference noted.

Not long after this second incident I went to visit my small nephew in the hospital. He was only four years old and had been born four months premature. Because of the complications associated with being born before the lungs and organs have fully developed, he had spent the better part of his young life in various surgeries and treatments. His current situation was a bit dire and the doctors said he’d have to be in the hospital for a few more days. I decided to stop by the gift shop to get him something for his stay. I got a little jigsaw puzzle for him and found a willow tree angel figurine for his mom. As the gift store clerk was wrapping my gifts she commented on the beauty of the little angel. Then she proceeded to tell me that she aspired to be a guardian angel in her next life. Well, this threw me for a loop. The girl was young and very much alive and I wondered why she spent time contemplating her afterlife and aspiring to such angelic titles. It would never occur to me that I could choose to be a guardian angel. Angel reference number three, duly noted.

After these three distinct angel mentions in the span of a few days, I felt I had been given a definite message. It was a sign I really couldn’t ignore. One instance can pique your interest. Two seems like a coincidence; but there is no mistaking three. Three separate experiences on the topic of angels, when lately I hadn’t given much thought to angels at all. This seemed like a definite sign. Three is synchronicity. Three is like a pleading from the universe, “Please don’t ignore me. If you can’t tell, I’m all up in your grill for a reason — a damn good reason.” I thought maybe it was time to see what these angels were all about. I started at the first place everyone starts these days: Google. I searched angels and angel sightings and found the term angel-encounters. I visited every website I could find that allowed people to post their angel stories in their own words. I read story after story written by people who felt great loss or confusion or loneliness, who in their time of need, were visited by an angelic presence or given an unmistakeable sign. Each of the writers said the angels came to them, or made themselves known, and once they knew without a doubt that angels were with them, they immediately felt better. The angels were proof they weren’t alone, they were loved, and there were heavenly beings available to share their burdens. Although, not many of the writers expressed it exactly this way — the angels were a reassurance that this earthly life is not all there is. We may find ourselves in seemingly unbearable circumstances, but when the angels show up, like a reassuring hand on a feverish forehead, they remind us of unseen promises, of afterlives or other realms, or different ways of being. The great mysteries of the world open up before us and a small glimmer of eternity is felt, even if it’s just for a fraction of a second.

Okay, I was convinced. I decided to try it for myself. Apparently, angels are available to help us, but will only intervene when asked. I didn’t know exactly where to start, but prayer seemed like an obvious one. I hadn’t prayed in years and it felt silly at first, “Hi Angels. Are you there?” I prayed and wrote in my journal, asking for help with my loved one who was struggling, asking for peace in our household, asking for relief from the pain and confusion caused my his angry, irrational outbursts.

Miracles are not like what we see in the movies. Miracles are subtle and take time. Little by little things began to change, more synchronicities showed up. Eventually, my family member got the help he needed, and our lives are much improved. It may not have been a miraculous angel intervention with lights and wings and magic and sparkles, but it worked, and I’ll take what I can get.

“Thank you Angels!”

P.S. I Love You

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