Do you believe that there is more? Do you think there is a place that our spirits go after our time here on this earth is through or do you believe that when we die it’s finite? It’s just over?
Throughout my whole life I have believed that there was more for us than this life here on earth. When I was a little girl, I had the belief that when we die we go up into the clouds with the angels singing. An incredibly magical place where everyone meets again and lives in a beautiful sort of paradise. A place where there is no longer any concept of time or endings. A place without pain or suffering.
Some people equate this with the word "Heaven". Some may have a completely different view of what that means or may not believe anything like this at all. I suppose my thoughts of this unearthly place may have changed somewhat over the years and there was even a time I questioned the foundation of my beliefs completely.
That is, until I was faced with so many incredible experiences that I will call signs that I could no longer dismiss them.
I think after we are faced with the unimaginable heartache of losing someone we love, we want so much to hold onto them in any way we can. We can’t take the possibility that they could be gone from us forever. Some may say that this is just our subconscious trying to deal with the immense grief, that it is all in our minds.
I mentioned in my book, When the Last Bell Rang, about having these significant experiences and the belief in the scientific law called the Law of Conservation of Mass, discovered by Antoine Lavoisier in 1785. It states that matter is neither created nor destroyed. It just takes on a different form. If this is the case then wouldn't that be the case with human beings? How could we as matter not take on another form when this form has ended?
Doesn't that make you think?
Many of us want to believe that our deceased loved ones are still with us, watching over us and still around us somehow. Is it that we are just making this up in our minds?
I can recall some of the first times I remember noticing significant signs. It was after a loved one had passed when I was younger. They were a heavy cigarette smoker. I happened to be driving in my car a few weeks after they passed. I began to smell cigarette smoke. Not just a light smell that sometimes you can get if you drive by a car where someone is smoking but it was heavy as if they were right next to me. I was driving on the highway at that moment with my windows up and there was absolutely no one around me that I could dismiss it as being them. I really was confused. Did I just imagine this? It was just so real.
One morning, some years later, I was washing my face in the bathroom and felt someone lightly rub my back, when I turned to grab a towel and look, no one was there. It was right after the birth of one of my daughters.
Could it have been a loved one that had passed, showing signs of happiness over the birth of my child? I don't remember feeling afraid after the initial startle, but I do remember a sense of calmness come over me.
Since then I have had so occurrences that I could not just call coincidences. I have felt so many times that I wasn't alone. I especially would feel these types of moments when I was in the middle of needing some extra help in my life. After the traumatic loss of my husband, I went through an incredibly dark time. It was a time from which I didn't think I would ever recover. I began questioning everything I believed in, especially my faith in a higher power or in any life after death. The interesting thing was that the more I tried to deny my faith and the angrier I became at everything, the signs began to intensify. I would suddenly smell a familiar cologne, or pick up coins that just seemed to appear in front of me with very significant dates on them. I would hear a song on the radio or other places whose lyrics were as if trying to tell me something. The more I would try to dismiss them, the more they would come.
If you are a believer in these signs, it is said that we get messages through repeating numbers, significant numbers, the time on the clock that you just happen to notice every day even if you haven't looked at the clock all day until that exact moment. White feathers are also supposed to have a significant meaning. It is supposed to be a message of hope and it was also something I seemed to find all the time for awhile. I would find them in the most random places, both inside and outdoors.
While walking through street one night after leaving a restaurant, I felt something fall on my arm. It was a white feather. There were absolutely no birds around me nor was I underneath anything that something could have fallen from, nothing but the open, star filled sky.
Have you ever been just about to leave your house and something suddenly stops you? Maybe it’s “remembering” to check something or you get a phone call which then delays your departure only to find out later that there was an accident or something that you could have been involved in if you hadn’t been halted. I have many times.
Maybe coincidence? Maybe something more?
Many people also speak of cardinals. The beautiful red birds that are said to hold some significance to those who have passed on. It is supposedly a symbolic visit from a loved one or loved ones that have passed on, letting us know that they are still with us. That they are still part of our lives in some way.
Ha! The funny thing is that as I am sitting outside writing this, two cardinals along with a monarch butterfly flew basically together right by me almost as if to say, yes you can try to dismiss this all you want but we will keep coming. I believe the next realm still has a sense of humor. I constantly see numbers and letters on licence plates that are very significant.
There was a time within the last couple of years that I was trying to make a very major life decision. It was the first major decision I had to make on my own for my daughters and me. As I was driving one day, I had come to a stoplight. I then glanced at the license plate of the car directly in front of me which had the numbers of my birthday. There was nothing else. There were no letters, just my exact birthday. I literally gasped! To me I took it as a message of validation of the decision I was about to make. It actually felt comforting.
I have had so many experiences like these that it became difficult for me to just dismiss as a coincidence. I am sure that there will be people that will look at this as sheer lunacy and think that people who believe in this stuff are just grasping onto the memories of their loved ones, not wanting to let go. That the heartache is clouding the minds of those that grieve. I however feel that the situations and experiences that I have gone through have given me a stronger belief and faith in another realm.
Call it heaven, call it paradise, call it beyond the veil, but to me whatever it is, it's very real.
I guess that is the message I’m trying to deliver here. Everyone has a way they live their lives. Everyone has their own set of beliefs and ideals. We may not all think and feel the same about situations but as long as what we believe brings out the best in us, the best people that we can be, I think that is what counts the most.
Without my faith, while I was questioning everything I believed in, I was in what felt like a dark abyss.
I was sliding more and more down a path where I didn't like anything I was seeing, especially not within myself. When I began to regain my faith, including the faith that I had in myself, I started to become a better version of me.
I began to find the light again and the will to hold on and keep moving forward.
What do you believe?
What have you experienced?
Have you had signs that are significant to you?
“Those we love don‘t go away, they walk beside us everyday.”
In Faith, Hope & Love
Janine 🌸
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