We have been told by our church leaders that angels are people who have passed on after having already experienced earth life themselves. These are those who are sometimes sent to earth by God to bring a message of value to whomever they were assigned to visit. Then there are those who have written books where they describe angels as people who most likely knew us in our pre-earth life and were assigned to look out for us while we sojourn here, during our brief turn on earth.
I remember reading a book as a young man. I believe it was entitled, My Turn on Earth, where the author described the pre-earth experience as a place where, like here, we had family and friends. One paragraph, as I recall, talked about one being called to leave for earth ahead of his friend and then promising his friend that when his turn came that he would look out for and take care of him. The friend and he had both promised to support one another so that they would both make it back to the Father in the end, as guardian angels, so to speak. I remember being moved by the relationship they had one with another and wondered to myself if there really were friendships in the pre-existence. Do I have someone looking out for me? Were the seemingly miracles that have happened to me, those that were of a protective nature, miracles brought about by that pre-earth friend of mine, my guardian angel? Who could really know without a visit from an angel who would be willing and able to sit down and discuss the in-the-world, out-of-the-world issues.
Kayla Lemmon wrote an interesting article October 2013 entitled, “Angels wear boots: So, lace them up.” In the article, she states that when she was little, she met an angel. She described the experience this way: “All of us—me, my parents, and my grandparents, were at the ocean in a motor home right beside the surf when we saw him. He was walking down the beach alone, head hung. We were inside eating sandwiches and Oreos when we noticed this man took a turn toward our motor home and eventually tapped on the door.
“I’m sorry—could I just get a drink of water? I’m thirsty” is all I remember that he said. I instantly jumped up and grabbed him a plastic cup of water and a handful of cookies before anyone could move from their seats. The man smiled at me and shut the door. We wanted to ask him if he needed something or was in trouble, but when we stepped outside to yell for him, he was completely gone. No footprints. No tire tracks. And with evening breaking over the beach, there weren’t even any people for miles both ways. It was an angel, I decided.”
As Kayla grew older, she came to realize, as I have, that there are angels everywhere. They are they who bring food to your door when you are not feeling well. They are they who help another up after having fallen. They are they who teach us to be kind and caring people by shovelling the widows sidewalk during the snowy season, who babysit our babies when we need to go someplace important. They help us move when we have been employed in a distant place. The things that angels do are always things that we are grateful for, things that would have been very difficult without having their help.
Angels are actually every place. When a person needs help, almost always there is someone there to lift us up and to help us out. They seem to come from everywhere and even from “nowhere.”
You and I can be angels, too, and we don’t even have to apply by filling out an application or go to school to take years of training. All we have to do is start!
I can help lift someone up who has fallen; I can do everything that has been listed above and even more. All you really need is a desire to be a kind person with an honest and abiding concern for others, others who are appropriately called our brothers and sisters. They may not have wings, they may not be dressed in white; they may even be wearing muddy boots and gloves with a shovel in their hand. You have to have the energy to do things for others that they, in many cases, cannot do for themselves. The interesting thing about charity is that when we are doing something charitable for another, we always seem to have enough energy, even though we may have expressed exhaustion just before we were called upon to serve another. May God bless us with “charitable energy” and a desire to want to be real live angels. Maybe we do not have a particular message to share, but all we need is a helping hand.