An Angel on My Shoulder. Theresa Cheung

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ colourful, to the point where I was able not only to lucid dream at will – that is, to know I was dreaming – but also to travel out of body. (There’s more about my night-time adventures – and in case you’re wondering I mean this in a spiritual not a physical sense – in Chapter Five, Night Visions.) But it wasn’t just in my dreams that I saw angels – I felt their presence in my waking life too.

      One occasion stands out in particular. My children were two and four and I was waiting with them at a bus stop when a couple of drunken men started to harass us. I was backed into a corner and with a double stroller it was hard for me to move away from them quickly. As their language became more menacing and threatening I glanced at the cars flashing past in the street and prayed for someone to notice what was going on.

      Moments later, a blue limo pulled up on the opposite side of the road. I remember thinking that I hadn’t seen a blue limo before. The door opened and a blonde fairskinned woman in a dark blue suit leaned out and said quietly, ‘Leave her alone.’ The drunken men turned away from me and started to walk towards the car, at which point the woman closed her door and drove off. The drunks kept stumbling along behind her as if they were in a trance. I watched them walk off into the distance. I kept hoping the woman would come back and offer us a lift, because it took another 20 minutes before the bus arrived, but she never did. Whether she was an angel or a human guided by an angel I’m not sure, but I have never forgotten her, or her shiny blue limo.

      The Flashing Cursor

      I also believe that angels look over my shoulder as I work. I love what I do, but when I first decided to take the plunge and put my steady teaching and journalistic work aside and go freelance as an author, many of my colleagues and friends told me it was unwise as I’d never be able to earn a living. They were right. A book contract back then was like gold dust. I was strongly advised to get an agent, but I never needed one. After countless rejections I got my first contract for a book about health and that book led to another and another. And over the past eight years I’ve never been out of work.

      It wasn’t until a few years ago, however, that I was finally given the chance to write about what I am truly passionate about – the paranormal. It wasn’t too much of a leap from health and popular psychology, because in my mind the only way for a person to feel truly happy and fulfilled is to be healthy in body, mind and spirit. I have to admit, though, that although I was thrilled to be asked I was also rather apprehensive. I knew that some people would think I was crazy, especially my old student friends and tutors from Cambridge, who had made it clear to me during my student days that they were highly sceptical of my belief in life after death. I knew I was putting my credibility as a non-fiction author on the line. But as my first paranormal book assignment was an encyclopaedia about the psychic world and my task was to present an objective voice, I didn’t think my decision would be too heavily criticized. Fortunately, that encyclopaedia went on to become a success, as did subsequent ones, and that success gave me the opportunity to write this book. When my editor called to ask me if I had any angel stories to tell, without hesitation I told her that I had enough to fill a library.

      With the contract signed, I sat down in front of my PC to begin my first angel book. I opened up a blank document and stared at the cursor flashing on the screen. Though I felt tremendous happiness to be doing this work, I also had butterflies in my stomach. I had never written about my personal experiences of the paranormal before. I’d also never been entrusted with writing up the intimate personal stories of other people, so this was my greatest challenge to date as an author. I wondered if I was up to the task; self-doubt began to creep in. I needed to know if I could do this. I decided to ask my guardian angel for a sign.

      I focused deep inside myself and asked my guardian angel to give me an answer. I concentrated long and hard. I poured my heart out with all the honesty, courage and conviction I could find. Then I waited for an answer. There was nothing. I waited again. Still there was nothing. I looked again at the cursor flashing on the screen. It was flashing impatiently and angrily at me. The angels clearly weren’t going to reassure me. Did they simply want me to get on with it?

      I started to tentatively write down some thoughts. They were disjointed and confused at first, but at least they were a start. Then I dug out my Angel Talk files and mailbox and started to transfer stories. I was starting to create a book. I read through a few paragraphs and enjoyed what I was reading. Encouraged, I kept on writing. The words flowed.

      After a few hours I glanced at my watch and realized I’d been working for three hours without a break. Time had flown by. I went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, but the kettle wasn’t working. I tried the lights and it was the same. We’d had a power cut. I went back to my office. My computer had powered down and there was no power to switch it on. It was then that I panicked. I’d never had a power cut before, so hadn’t got into the habit of saving my work every few pages. Worse still, I didn’t think I’d even saved it at all. My entire morning had been wasted. Were the angels sending me the message that the book wasn’t a good idea?

      Half an hour later the power came back on. Fearing the worst, I switched on my PC and to my delight all my angel files were there just as I had left them. I resumed my work on the book with a new peace of mind.

      The most remarkable thing about this experience, though, is that later I found out that my house had lost power not at 1 p.m. when I went into my kitchen to make a cuppa, but at 10.30 a.m. Somehow, when all the other electrical appliances in my house had lost power, my computer had kept on running, allowing me to work uninterrupted. Sure, it’s possible that it had gone into battery mode, but for me there was no mistaking that the angels were sending me a message loud and clear. Once again they had shown me that when you start to acknowledge their presence in your life, you start to notice them everywhere, in everything – even a flashing cursor.

       Chapter 2 In the Arms of an Angel

      See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way.

       Exodus 23:20

      I can imagine what angels might look like from my dreams and from images I’ve seen in clouds or in paintings and from the hundreds of accounts of people who have seen them. But in my waking life I have never actually had a traditional angel encounter complete with blinding light, wings and halo or felt the brush of angel wings on my skin. Still I know, without a doubt, that angels exist and are here to help us.

      When I was growing up in a household of psychics and spiritualists I often felt frustrated and inadequate because I didn’t seem to have inherited the ‘gift’. I attended many psychic development classes and workshops where fellow students would see visions of inspiration and brilliance. I, however, would sit in darkness, feeling peaceful but hearing and seeing nothing. It wasn’t until my thirties that these channels started to gradually open for me and even now I can’t predict when they will do so because on every occasion when I have had an angelic encounter it has been spontaneous. I still can’t summon, see, hear or feel angels and spirits like a seasoned psychic or medium can, but this has not in any way dampened my belief in angels and their guidance. This is because over the years I have learned that, like everyone else, I see, hear and experience angels in my own unique way. Looking back, I can see that angels were helping me throughout my life. I just wasn’t aware of it at the time.

      In this chapter I’ve gathered together a collection of stories which show just some of the many mysterious and dramatic ways in which angels can intervene in our lives, and what’s interesting is that not one of the people who contributed these stories believes themselves to be psychic or clairvoyant. They are simply ordinary people whose lives have been transformed by something extraordinary. СКАЧАТЬ