When I was a child, I lived with a foster family which consisted of an elderly couple and their daughter. I was their only foster child and I loved this family very much.

Eventually, my foster parents died and their daughter married. My mother re-married and I went to live with her and my stepfather. Altough I kept in touch with the daughter of the foster family for a while, I never saw her again. Years passed and I heard that she and her husband had moved to the west coast and had a son.

Eventually I married and we moved to northern Massachusetts. One night, shortly before Christmas, the children were in bed and it was quiet when suddenly I remembered that the previous Christmas I had unexpectedly received a Christmas card from the daughter of that foster home. I didn't know how she had found our new address.

Suddenly I was overwhelmed with the urge to communicate with her. I remembered that her California phone number had been on the Christmas card. I hunted for the card, found it, grabbed the phone and dialed the number. I remember feeling a great sense of urgency. When she answered the phone, she was crying. She told me that her husband had suffered a heart attack during the past hour and had died. The ambulance was just leaving the house with his body. Her son wasn't home and she was alone for the moment. She was so grateful that I called, and I was glad for the chance to be of comfort to her. We never talked again. Months later I called the number again and her son told me that she had died shortly after her husband.

So what really happened in that incident? I never felt that it was a co-incidence because I had such a powerful compulsion to make that call.

Posted by N.J.
Respond to john@beyondreligion.com

John Sloat's Response:

Have you ever read any of the angel books by Sophy Burnham and others? There are literally hundreds of books of this sort, and they all say the same thing, that our angels can actually engineer these events. If our angels can communicate with us through numbers, or lights, or bird calls, or other such signs, I have no doubt that they can put an idea in our heads so forcefully that we feel a compulsion to act on it.

A woman recently sent me a book she had written about how she had channeled information from her parents from the other side. Her mother tells in detail how our guides can focus energy to drill an idea into our heads so that we get what appears to be an inspiration and act on it.

I have no doubt that your angel/spirit guide tapped you on the shoulder and put it into your mind to do a caring thing for your friend. But think how well you had been prepared to do this. They knew that you were the one person perhaps who could do it most effectively.

Posted 12-4-03