This 'idea' woke me up early this morning, coming to me all at once, so I know it was a download from Spirit... hence "Rachel and Friends". This story is based on one of my early experiences, 12 years ago... it's my truth presented in a way that others may better understand.
It was a perfect day. It was one of those beautiful afternoons when the sun was shining and the birds were singing. There was nowhere I had to be and nobody needed me to take them anywhere. At home we were all jovial and lighthearted. It was one of those moments I wanted to freeze in time, and I was fully present in it. I did need to go to the grocery store (the only downside to my day). I cranked the radio up and opened the sunroof. I sang along to a favorite song and it felt like the angels were surrounding me, singing along!
When I parked and got out of my car, the most unusual thing happened. A young man came up to me. He just stood there. He didn't frighten me... I know this is going to sound incomprehensible, but if anything, it felt as if he had been in that beautiful moment with me! (Did he hear my music? Was he singing along? How long had I been parked here? Did he hear me singing? This should be embarrassing, but it's not. What is going on? Are my thoughts keeping him quiet? Can he hear my thoughts??) I looked at him, really looked at him. He didn't say a word, but he held up a picture of a little boy and another small child. They were smiling, sitting side-by-side in a little red wagon. Then, he held up a t-shirt. I recognized it as a t-ball t-shirt. It was blue with the number 43 in white lettering . Suddenly, carts crashed into the cart return and I turned my attention away. When I looked back, the young man was gone.
(Okay, focus, Rachel... you have shopping to do.) I went through the store, filling my cart and checking items off my list when another bizarre thing happened. I felt as if I walked into love and electricity mixed together. Yes, you heard me right. There are no words in the human language to adequately describe the feeling, but it seemed palpable. It was that feeling I described at the beginning, but stronger and electrified... love and electricity confined to an limited, physical place and compressed into a moment in time. Think of the feeling you get during a worship service when everyone is singing in unison and you suddenly feel embraced and energized by God's love... Or during the quiet pause in the service... Or when when you're in the woods or at the ocean or lakeshore, and suddenly you know you are not alone... ever. When you're having your devotion time or meditation time or prayer time. If you're a person of faith, it's that feeling that came to you and caused you to believe (hopefully). There are countless examples I could use to describe this feeling outside of ourselves. It brings us to know there is both a love greater than ourselves, while at the same time we are intimately a part of it. It's like that feeling in its strongest and purest form. God, love... it manifests itself in so many different ways throughout our lives, in unique ways to each of us individually... it is only considered unusual to run into the feeling unexpectedly... yet this is what happened (and still happens) to me.
Whatever you call it... experiencing God, love, divine presence or oneness or source... when you walk into it that feeling at the end of aisle 3, it is amazing... but it is perplexing and intense, maybe because of the unexpectedness. Just as you can feel an electric current or the vibration of an earthquake running through your body, so it was (and is) for me. The feeling is like pure love mixed with electricity.
The love was at once running through me and embracing me from the outside. Maybe a few seconds passed, or maybe 30... I'm not sure, but a young woman passing me in the opposite direction suddenly stopped. (Did she feel this too?) She just stood there, as the young man had. Suddenly, the red wagon picture and the t-ball shirt came to mind. Then, I felt the young man behind me. Somehow I knew he wasn't physically there, because he felt too close to me to be physically present... if that makes sense? The longer the young woman stood there staring at me, the more he lovingly nudged me. I had never felt more certain about something I was supposed to do.
I asked the young woman if she happened to be looking for a young man, because if so, I saw him in the parking lot. As it turned out, she had parted from her best friend, a young man whom she had thought to be gone or lost. She was confused, though. She couldn't understand how I would have known of this man who was a stranger to me, yet she hadn't been able to locate him. Of course, I understood her confusion and skepticism. This defied logic. I didn't know what to think of it myself. (Oh... the red wagon!) I told her about the red wagon picture. “Yes!” She identified her best friend via the picture he showed me that I described to her. She had this same photograph on her dresser. I felt something heavy melt away from her as a smile crossed her face and tears began to stream. She hugged me, thanked me, asked me for my phone number, and ran off to the parking lot. “Oh, and he has the t-ball t-shirt, too... the one with the number 43 on the back!” She turned to look at me; she told me she didn't understand this, and she thanked me again. She called me the next day to let me know that, as it turned out, her best friend's parents had also been looking for him. They have his blue t-shirt with the number 43 on the back. It is his childhood t-ball t-shirt. They asked her to thank me from them. She told me I had given them all a priceless gift. I told her I only did what I knew I was supposed to do in that moment... it was her friend who found me and brought us together. It was a God moment, if anything ever was in my life.
As you may know, my friend, this type of thing happened a few times in other places, other circumstances. I didn't know what to think of it. Some people (past or present) had told me it wasn't possible, or right. So I changed my stories, if I shared them at all. I learned what was acceptable. A dream of a person was okay, but a vision was not. A vision from God or the Holy Spirit was okay, but God couldn't possibly reveal eternal love for us personified through a flesh and blood person who may have been intimately connected to us and walked the earth beside us... (?)
I guess that would be too personal? Maybe admitting that I saw the 'missing' people would be akin to a bereaved parent admitting that the first person he or should would want to see in heaven would be their child. Does God not love us enough or know us intimately enough to understand this? Now I know this is the perfect and divine plan directly from God, the source of love itself.
Of course, what I described is not exactly how Spirit communication happens/ed with me because I don't see people with my physical eyes and I don't hear them audibly. They come to me and I see them in my mind's eye, the same way you see people in a dream or in your thoughts if you picture someone you know. I sometimes hear in my mind -as you do when you recall someone's voice- a super-fast sound-byte of a name, but most often I get a word or phrase suddenly as a knowing, as a thought. The feeling part is stronger than I have words to describe. The love always comes first, and it's never in a time when I'm experiencing negative emotions or lost in my own obsessive or critical thoughts. It's never when I'm anxious or super busy. My spirit friends are very respectful of my time and space, more than even the most considerate people among us here are! After an encounter, I feel like I truly know a spirit person... much more than I ever could in the best face-to-face human encounters, given the same amount of time. They put on no airs, they have nothing to hide now, they have no egotistical pride. They only care about their people here. They care about their loved ones' healing, their highest good... which is God's will for our lives here. They make me feel their personalities, they make me feel their love for their people here. They make me want to express things that they, as humans, would want to express here if they were still human. They admit wrongdoings and express apologies, they send appreciation and thanks and pride and so, so much love! More than anything, they want their loved ones to know that they are perfectly healthy and whole. They have so much they could teach us here, if only we could open our hearts to listen.