Touched by Angels - True Cases of Close Encounters of the Celestial Kind (Electronic book text)

Eileen Freeman believes in angels. Not the stern, demigod figures we've sometimes painted them to be, but rather intelligent beings, different from humans, who are vastly more ancient and wise. They show themselves to us visibly; they talk to us; they teach us. They want us to know about them and their mission, which is to help us, as individuals and as a race, to grow in love and wisdom. They don't care whether we're Christian, Buddhist, Moslem, Hindu, Sikh, or anything else. All they need from us is a certain openness to their existence and an active willingness to be part of the encounter. They want us to survive. In Touched by Angels, Eileen Freeman details these encounters--that of the woman who thought God had abandoned her dying husband until she saw an angel, praying quietly by his bed; that of the young man who gave up drugs after an angel appeared to him at a family funeral and led him to the grave of a man with his same name; that of the young girl whose fear of death was forever dispelled when her guardian angel assured her that her grandmother wasn't cold and lonely in her grave, but warm and happy in heaven. Those who have experienced these mystical visitations--from Dag Hammerskjold and Cotton Mather, to ordinary adults and children--have each believed, with a strange clarity that precluded doubt, that what they were experiencing was true. As Freeman assures us, such close encounters are a gentle promise that our God is a loving God who cares intimately about each one of us, even giving us into the care of a guardian angel, who leads us toward love and away from fear and hate.