A Little Angel Visit

I've written about angels before on this blog (here and here for instance, as well as in the end paragraphs of this post here). I love Elder Holland's reminder that "we need to speak of and believe in and bear testimony of the ministry of angels more than we sometimes do". I have a very strong testimony of angels--a certainty that friends, ancestors (some we remember and many we do not), and even posterity on the other side of the veil are constantly involved in God's work and purposes in our lives, and that, as Nephi tells us in 2 Ne. 32, they are able to speak words of comfort and words of Christ to us through the power of the Holy Ghost.

The other night, well after midnight and with sleep eluding me, I felt myself slipping towards the panic and illogic that can only properly assail you in that state of late-night sleeplessness. It was many things--worries about everything still needing organized for the upcoming Girls' Camp I am in charge of, intense parenting worries, etc., and I cried out to God almost, it felt, like Peter as he began to sink on Galilee; and, while my rescue was not, perhaps, quite so dramatic, I did feel an unexpectedly quick calm begin to settle on me. It seemed as though someone were smoothing back my hair (as a mother might do while soothing a troubled or ill child). And then I felt words--bathed in light--come to me. "It will all be all right." Over and over those words repeated themselves to me with a power they don't possess in and of themselves. And then, as I began to feel peace, an image came clearly into my mind. I saw my grandma's house--just her pretty back entry. I felt the familiarity of the surrounding thin iron railing we used to try and balance on and saw the rose garden to the side of her porch. I even recalled the exact look of the brown wooden box at the back of it. And then with that image and those words in my soul, I fell asleep--vaguely feeling that it must be my grandma who was comforting me.

The next morning, as I pondered the experience, and wondered if my conclusion that it was my grandma who had been sent to comfort me was real or part of my own fancying, I recalled that I had had another moment, years ago, of feeling that my grandma was near. It seemed to me that I'd had that experience at some point during my pregnancy with Hans (so sometime in late 2016 or early 2017). I found a journal with entries ranging from 2015 to 2018 and flipped it open; and do you know what entry it first landed on? That very entry about my grandma. I almost laughed out loud. It just seemed too impossible to be a coincidence and like it was a confirmation that it indeed was her. 

And then I recalled that for the past month I have actually been thinking gratefully of the help angels have been giving my family and praying that I might be more aware of that help and of who we are receiving that help from. (Because I want to feel the connection that exists with those loved ones and feel properly grateful for their involvement.) I also recalled that Shannon had told me only a week or two earlier to pay closer attention to small things that help me know who is blessing me. 

Anyway, that experience reminded me again of the reality of loved ones nearby and blessing us and being sent to pave paths for us. We don't always (or even often) get to feel them the way I did that night, but I believe they are there more than we could even hope. And it's just like God--who very well could do everything himself--to allow us to be a part of His work and to use us (whether in life or in death) to bless each other. What a lovely thing to be a part of.

"The Lord knows you ... He will send His angels before you. You will feel their presence." -- Elder Uchtdorf