All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at

www.harpercollins.co.uk/green

Source ISBN: 9780008144432

Ebook Edition © December 2015 ISBN: 9780008144425

Version: 2015-11-03

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Introduction

Chapter 1: Love and Valentines

Chapter 2: Angels and Christmas

Chapter 3: Births, Birthdays and Deaths

Letter to Readers

About the Author

Also by Jacky Newcomb in the HarperTrue series …

More by Jacky Newcomb

Moving Memoirs eNewsletter

About the Publisher

Introduction

An angel is a common symbol at Christmas. I mean the gold and sparkly ones we use in decorations, of course! We place them on top of the Christmas tree; they decorate our Christmas cards and we light our candles in angel-themed holders. It was the Archangel Gabriel who told the young Mary that she was carrying a child. That child was the baby Jesus, and so Gabriel became known as the Christmas angel.

The angels were given the special task of watching over the small family on their journey to Bethlehem. One of them also told the shepherds that the Christ child had been born. Many witnessed the angels that day and readers of the Bible will recall that the poor shepherds were terrified at the sight. Much as I love angels, I’m sure I would have been just as frightened if several angels had suddenly appeared overhead while I walked with my sheep! Wonderful though their visit must have been, I’m sure the subtler visitations we experience today are much more comforting.

What is an angel or guardian angel? That question is on many people’s lips. We have all seen angels represented in paintings, statues or figurines as winged beings or glowing figures, but is this who they really are?

Angels are said to be manifested by the divine being, the one true creator – or God, as we tend to call ‘him’. It is said that God made the angels just before, or just after, he created humans (depending on which source you believe!). Some feel that God is an energy source (like a cloud of electricity), and all of his creations are like sub-clouds that separate from this heavenly being. Like drops of water in the ocean, we and the angels are not separate from each other or from God, but are all parts of the ocean, all parts of the energy cloud, all God. He/she is whole in all of us: in the souls on this side of life, in the souls on the heaven side of life, in the angels and in beings on other planets, too.

Many believe that angels watch over and guard us. But this is just one of the tasks they seem to take on. There are stories of their interactions with human lives that go back as far as you can imagine, before humans even began recording their history – whispered experiences passed down from one generation to the next.

While some don’t believe they exist, these stories of angels interacting with human lives have been around for many thousands of years. If they are not real then why do people talk about meeting them, seeing them, hearing them or experiencing these beings of light? I am an ‘experiencer’. I have been lucky enough to have a great deal of contact with God’s angels. They have helped me and communicated with me many times. They reach out to us in their own way, and although contacting us through many different layers of consciousness can be a challenge, they still seem to manage it.

Some people believe that I personally hear and see angels all the time. This isn’t true, sadly. I live a normal life; I’m a wife, mum and grandmother (‘Nana Jacky!’), and on occasion I have had some unique, extraordinary experiences. Some might call them mind-blowing (I know I do). It seems to be no different for some of my readers. Some have more angelic contact than others, though there seems to be no specific reason why this might happen. Angels come when they want to and visit when we need them. Occasionally they appear when we ask them to, but sometimes they arrive unannounced. Always they are welcome. They seem to appear when we feel afraid or alone. We might not always see them (in fact, usually we don’t), but if you are really lucky, you might sense them, hear them or pick up a little sign that they are there. Your angel is watching over you.

Can we really define an angel? Many have tried. They seem to be a type of spirit, but not like a human soul. They are beings of light but without solid bodies (or what we would call solid); they may not have a physical presence in our dimension, but they certainly have substance in their own realms. They exist, but on a different ‘level’ to the one where we humans live, and yet they seem to have the power to intervene in human lives. It’s their divine and inspired role, their assigned task.

There are recorded stories of angels helping in war-torn areas, saving people from falling off cliffs and lifting cars in the air to a place of safety to avoid vehicle crashes. They’ve moved people away from out-of-control vehicles and urged them in another direction to keep them from getting hurt. They appear at the bedside of the sick and walk alongside those who are frightened or grieving. Some have felt them, some have smelt them, others have sensed their touch and many more have seen them.

Lots of people are happy to talk about their angel experiences. Many of their stories fill the pages of my books. Others are more reluctant. They feel their angel contact to have been nothing short of miraculous. They feel their experiences are to be whispered, treasured, as secret, private moments of pleasure and comfort, joy and peace. These people feel their encounters were meant just for them and them alone, and I respect that point of view … But luckily for me, not everyone feels that way, and without these people there would be no books of angel experiences. I have always shared my own angel and afterlife visits with my readers. In fact, I feel I have been blessed with so many for that very reason: I was meant to share them. Telling the world about angel experiences, including my own, is my life’s mission.

Your loving experiences come from all over the globe. There is no age barrier to having an encounter. Babies and the elderly see them equally. You may believe in angels or not – they still come to us in our time of need. Many start believing in angels only after they have had an encounter, which makes a lot of sense when these beings are so elusive in our day-to-day lives. It’s truly a challenge to believe in something that you’ve had no contact with, or maybe no interest in, before. Some tell me that they want to believe in angels but aren’t sure how they can make the leap between wanting to believe and believing. These books of angel experiences do help. It always amazes me that people who don’t know each other, who have never met or spoken with each other, can have very similar experiences in their lives. They may come many years apart, and the individuals may have nothing in common at all, no shared interests, yet angels come to them in their hour of need. Their encounters may connect them at many different points.

I love to talk about my own angel visits … and there have been many. Angels often appear to me when I sleep. They also come to me when my body is relaxed in meditation. My mind works best when it’s open to their contact, in an altered state of consciousness. This may also include the day-dreaming state we get into, when our minds are bored of what our hands are doing – they are fed up of making beds or washing up! People tell me they have extraordinary angel experiences while simply staring out of the window, wiping down a table or when their mind wanders during a boring speech. Your angel might reach out to you when you’re waiting for your name to be called at the doctor’s surgery or taking a bath or shower. They are waiting for us to idle our time away or mull something over. We create a little space in our waking consciousness for them to reach through and make their presence known. There is no perfect time, but lots of opportunity. Angels reach out to us in our time of need, when we are unsafe, sad or lonely. They are always here for us and inventive at finding out new ways to let us know.

Over the years I’ve recorded stories of angels helping humans in many ways. They love to help in times of danger but might also appear to simply hold your hand when you need a little reassurance. Your guardian angel (your personal guide and protector) will always be close by but will

Olete lõpetanud tasuta lõigu lugemise. Kas soovite edasi lugeda?

A Christmas Angel: True Stories of Gifts from Angels at Special Times

Teised, kes otsisid seda raamatut, loevad

Teised selle autori raamatud