by Lorna Byrne
One other thing that's worth remembering about children is how spiritually open they are when they are very young. After all, they have only just come from heaven. Many of them see angels, even though they generally forget this later. Many of them may often also see spirits; particularly spirits of grandparents, or other relatives, who have come to protect them. I have frequently come across cases of very young children saying things like 'Grandda was playing with me'. I've heard of parents looking through a family photo album with a child who talks about knowing someone who was dead before the child was born. The child may even have a message for the parents.
Children are founts of wisdom, including from the other world, and we should listen to them more.
More and more people came to visit me. By this time Joe was so unwell that he was rarely out of the house, and when people came he would disappear. He was a proud man and he didn't want anyone to know he was ill. No one who came to see me knew what was going on in my life, or the difficulties I was facing with a seriously ill husband and the knowledge the angels had given me that he wouldn't be with me much longer.
A woman came to visit me, looking for the intervention of angels. She was a medical student called Marian. She told me that she was really stressed and couldn't cope with her exams. 'I heard that you talk to angels,' she said to me. 'I believe in God. I have faith and I believe in angels, but I really need help now, because I am under such pressure that I fear I am going to have a breakdown.'
Marian was studying to be a doctor and was almost qualified, but she was terrified she would not pass her final exams. She desperately wanted to become a doctor, and she knew that she could be a good doctor, but she was finding the whole process very tough. I told her that her faith and her belief had helped her through this rough period and that God had already sent her angels to give her the strength to stick it out. We prayed to God and the angels to send her angels who could actually teach her to pass her exams and guide her to become a spiritual, loving and caring doctor.
We all have our guardian angel with us all the time, but the guardian angel, in its role as gatekeeper of your soul, can allow other angels to come into your life to help you with different things. I call these angels teachers: these angels come and go frequently and are different to guardian angels.We asked for a group of angels who would be her teachers. As we prayed I could already see three angels on their way to her. They were striding towards her, but hadn't reached her yet.
'All three of them are men,' I said. 'Not a woman amongst them. I hope you don't mind that.'
Marian laughed and cried with relief and asked me to ask God to have the angels arrive before she left me because she really needed them. I prayed over her. I asked God for all the confidence, the courage and the abilities that she needed. And I asked for hope because she needed to be able to see hope within her own life. As I finished praying over her, I asked for the names of the angels who had been sent to help her. I was told that she could call the angels 'The Three Stars'. They had already arrived and were waiting outside the door for her to step out into her new world.
Recently, years after she came to see me, I got a call from Marian. She is now a doctor, working overseas and doing a lot to help people. She rang because she wanted to thank the angels. 'I had to ring you to ask you to thank them because, that way, I feel the message will get there quicker,' she said.
I had to laugh. I told her that with the phone call we were already thanking them. I reminded her never to forget to call on her three angels whenever she needed them. 'They are still there. They haven't left you. You still have a journey to undergo and a lot of work to do,' I said.
Marian had believed enough to ask the angels for help: she empowered the angels, and in return the angels empowered her.
Most of the time people came to see me, but occasionally, in special circumstances, I was asked to go to people's homes. Often if this happened someone would collect me and drive me. One day I was taken to a big old house to visit a boy of about three who was very sick. He was very run down and had difficulties breathing; he could hardly get out of bed.
There was an old man there, and I thought he was a member of the family. It was only when he sniggered at me that I realised he was a ghost, a spirit, but he had turned his light down so that he had appeared to me like a living person. He knew he had caught me out and he was highly amused by this.
When I was having a cup of tea with his grandmother, after seeing the child, she mentioned that her grandson was so like her grandfather, who had also lived in that house – as had generations before him. She said this a few times. For some reason I don't fully understand, the grandmother's continuous reference to him being like her grandfather was resulting in this spirit staying around. The spirit was that of a great great grandfather of the sick child.
I knew the spirit wasn't good for the family, that he was in some way a malevolent force, and that his presence was a part, if not all, of the child's sickness. All the time I was in that house I kept watching this spirit and praying that he be surrounded by love and angels, so that he could depart and go to Heaven and leave the little boy in peace.
A few weeks later, I was asked back to the house to see the little boy, who was now completely recovered and full of energy. I knew that the spirit had left.
I was amazed; the house looked completely different. The house I had been in a few weeks before had been damp and not very clean, with a big old staircase and an ornate grimy fireplace in the sitting room. Now I was in a beautifully restored and well cared for old house with no fireplace.
I asked the grandmother, 'Where's the fireplace?'
She looked at me a little strangely and said that nothing had changed since I was last there. It had for me, though. Not only had I seen the spirit of her grandfather, but I had been shown the ghost of the actual house – as it had been long ago, when he lived in it.
Chapter Twenty-three
Soulmates
Joe was still unable to work, but at least he was at home so he could keep an eye on the children and so sometimes I was able to get a job for a short while. I scrubbed floors in a school, I worked in a shoe shop, but the truth is there was not a lot of work available at that time for which I was qualified.
Christopher's diet as a coeliac added to the financial problems, Joe needed special food too. I struggled hard to feed the family with the limited money we had. We lived from hand to mouth. My daughter Ruth now laughs that the only time she got a piece of meat was when she chewed the bones of the meat from her dad's plate.
There were some short periods when Joe's diabetes was under control and he was well enough to do odd jobs. During one of these spells he gave driving lessons, but I always looked on in fear, concerned he might have a turn. He was always very happy when he was well enough to work, but unfortunately these periods never lasted long.
We had chickens in the garden, so every so often Joe used to call on a coffee shop in the town, looking for remains of bread to give the chickens. He didn't say that they would also help feed his wife and children, but they did.We used to go through the bags of food he would bring home to see what was edible, cutting off the mouldy parts. Sometimes there would be a perfect cream cake or a fresh loaf of bread in the bag. I've always believed that the man who ran the restaurant guessed what the story was and deliberately put these in.
At one stage we were deeply in arrears with the loan on the cottage and in danger of losing our home if we didn't pay. I went to the Social Welfare office to see if they could give any help above the disability pension that was being provided. Joe came with me. Although Joe was seriously ill, they didn't believe our story. They queried was he really sick: despite the medical certificates, they said they believed he could have worked if he truly wanted to. After Joe died, the woman in the Social Welfare office apologised to me.
In desperation, we put part of the garden up for sale. On reflection it's clear that I was so desperate to make life a little more comfortable fo
r Joe that I sold it for considerably less than it was worth. It did, however, allow me to clear some of our debts.
You lose your dignity when you have to beg, but sometimes there is no choice, particularly when there is a family involved. One of the symptoms of Joe's sickness was that he was always cold; even in summer he would be shivering. I went again to the Social Welfare, looking for money to buy him thermal underwear. Again, they said nothing was wrong and refused to help. What frustrated and upset me was that I could see many other families being given financial support. I think the fact that we lived in our own cottage, tiny as it was, rather than a council house, influenced them, as did the fact that Joe, with his pride, always tried to look well and respectable when he went to see them.
My angels kept telling me to go to a local charity. I fiercely resisted. I was tired of losing my dignity. Why would they believe me if the Social Welfare didn't? Eventually things got so desperate that I rang them and made an appointment to see them.
I went to see the charity and explained our circumstances. They sent a man to visit the cottage, to inspect us. The man walked around the cottage slowly, looking at everything, opening cupboards. He then turned to me and announced, 'If you have a bag of potatoes and a tin of beans then your family won't go hungry. You're not in need of our help.'
I tried to explain about the dietary needs of a coeliac – how Christopher needed a special diet to grow otherwise there was a danger he would be permanently stunted (in fact, at seven years old he weighed only two-and-a-half stone, when he should have weighed at least four) – I explained how Joe's sickness meant that there were a lot of foods that he just couldn't keep down. But the man didn't seem interested in hearing, I'm sure he believed he was right.
In the end, the charity gave us little bits of support, but much of it was no use. They would drop in free vouchers for particular foods, but invariably it would be a food that Christopher and Joe couldn't eat. One Christmas we got a voucher for a turkey, and we were very pleased about that, but when I went down to collect it, the humiliation of the experience took all the good away. The committee was there calling out names as people came forward to collect their turkeys, when they called my name they said, 'oh yes, you . . .' I felt they had been talking about me, and they believed we were chancing it, taking food out of the mouths of those who really did need it. Little did they know!
One day I ran into Sean, a man I had known from the prayer group in Maynooth.We no longer went to the prayer group as getting there was too much for Joe. I missed it – both the praying together and the company of the people who we met there. In fact, at this time I went out little – to do the shopping, to collect the children from school, to work the odd time I had a job for a few hours, but nowhere else. Joe's health was so unpredictable that I was afraid to leave him on his own for even a short time.
Sean was now a member of the local charity committee and soon after I'd run into him he called in one day to have a cup of tea with me. Sitting at the kitchen table I told him the truth of our circumstances. He was the only person I ever told the full extent of our financial difficulties. Sean was devastated, and he promised to get more help from the charity for us.
It wasn't that easy, though. When Sean raised our case with the committee, they fought hard against giving us help and eventually refused his request. I know that this was the work of the devil. Sometimes Satan makes it more difficult for us to do what we are meant to do; on some occasions the forces of evil try to frustrate us in our lives and the work that we are doing, making life harder for us than it might be otherwise. Sometimes it's in quite subtle ways, such as distracting us away from something we're supposed to do. I know this is one of the reasons that I received so little help with my family when Joe was sick. In this case the devil was blinding the people to the circumstances in front of them.
I am in a constant battle with the devil. When someone has a very strong faith, the devil tries to make it difficult – and frequently succeeds in the short term – but I know that no matter how hard the evil forces of Satan try to frustrate the work, God and the angels always win in the end.
Sean found it very hard to believe that he couldn't get more help for us. He was allowed to bring us some vouchers for food, and he was distraught when he realised how little good they were to us, given the dietary requirements. Sean took a detailed list of the foods Joe and Christopher could eat, and every so often after that he would bring us a small bag of groceries. I'm sure he was paying for these out of his own wallet.
As time went on, more and more people heard about me and came to see me for help.
One woman who came to see me about this time was a grandmother, not very old, but a grandmother nonetheless. She was called Mary. About ten years previously, one of her neighbours had given birth to twins, one of whom died shortly after birth. Mary told me that even when the mother was pregnant, although she was not a close friend or a relation, she felt drawn to the babies. She couldn't quite understand it. When Mary first saw the baby, Josie, in the cot she knew there was a connection, a bond, even before she reached into the cot to touch her little face.
Many of us have heard the phrase 'soulmate', and we tend to think of it mainly as a romantic concept – as the perfect partner, perhaps someone to marry. But one must remember that a soulmate could be a child in the same way as it could be an adult. People go around searching for their soulmate, but he or she may be in another part of the world. It may be that person you send a few euros to help, that man in a wheelchair, the child with Down's Syndrome you've just passed by in the street – any one could be your soulmate.
As Josie grew, Mary continued to be very close to her. Any time that child was sick or in trouble,Mary would instinctively know. And it was the same for Josie, too. At times, the child would tell her mother that she needed to go and see Mary, and when her mother asked why she always got the same answer: 'I know Mary needs me.' Her mother didn't always allow Josie to go to see Mary when she asked, because sometimes it might be dark, or lashing rain, but Josie would keep asking until she was eventually allowed to go. Josie would arrive at Mary's hall door, knock and say, 'Mary, what's the matter?' Mary would just look at the little girl and think, 'My God – she knows that I'm feeling sad today!'
They were soulmates: different ages, the same sex, but soulmates nonetheless. Soulmates have a very special connection to each other. Each knows how the other is feeling.
Mary is dead now. Some time before she died, she said to me, 'I know Josie is my soulmate – I knew it wasn't my husband.' It was an understanding that she came to, towards the end of her own life.
Mary's death had an enormous effect on Josie, whom I had also got to know. When Mary died, she felt as if a huge piece of her heart had been taken away.
It's very possible that Josie will meet another soulmate during her life – as there can be more than one during a lifetime. I believe that sometimes we miss our soulmate because we don't recognise him or her: we are too busy, but that doesn't mean that the other person doesn't recognise us.
We also all have to learn that we can love someone and cherish them and give our lives for them, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are our soulmates. It's so sad to see young people, or not so young people, who say, 'I won't settle until I meet my soulmate'. As soon as they say that, they are putting a big block on finding someone who may not be their soulmate, but who may be able to bring them considerable happiness. You needn't search for that person, because if your soulmate is to pass through your life, then they will, whether it is for a brief moment or a longer time.
I remember watching the news with Joe one night. There was a report of a horrific train crash in the UK. I had noticed a picture of this in the paper earlier in the day, but had avoided it. Yet I knew, somehow, there was something I was supposed to see. I should have known better, though, when God and the angels want to show me something, I can't avoid it.
There was film of a man on a stretcher, surrounded by rescue worke
rs. I have no idea who the man was, other than that he was a survivor of that train crash, but I do know that, whoever he was, he had just met his soulmate on that train and that his soulmate was now dead. I knew this because I was allowed to see the contact between them. As he was being carried on the stretcher, he reached up with his arm and I know he was able to see the soul of his soulmate; I was allowed to see that his soulmate was comforting him, making sure he survived. I wasn't allowed to know what gender the soulmate had been, or whether he or she was young or old, but I know it was his soulmate and that they had met only fleetingly.
I remember feeling terribly sad and thinking, 'Oh my God, I hate this.' Actually, hate is the wrong word. I felt such pain as I was watching and such compassion for the pain and loss the man on the stretcher was feeling, seeing his soulmate as he reached out for that brief instant. I don't know whether he would remember he had fleetingly met his soulmate. Sometimes spiritual things happen when we are in a state of pain and shock. Afterwards, we wonder if it really did happen: did we see something, or was it just a flash of light?
Around this time I became very conscious of the connection between myself and a man who had murdered his wife. No matter where I went or what I was doing, this connection would appear in some way. I'd turn on the radio and hear something about the murder; I'd be walking down the road, and somehow would come across a newspaper, maybe even on the ground as I was walking past. The print would stand out, as if it were rising from the paper, and the only thing I would see in that newspaper would be something about this horrific murder. One evening, I went into the front room and turned on the television. The late news was on. I went to turn it off, but the television wouldn't turn off! I heard one of my angels say, 'Lorna. Sit down and watch the News.'
