Angels Are Still Here

Whenever heaven wants to announce something big it is assigned to the angels to make the announcement. They have often been seen. They sometimes carry trumpets, sing and make an historic declaration as they did when the Christ Child was born. But sometimes they are just here, ready to help, hoping to be asked, ready with necessary equipment, unrecognized, not asking thanks, ever ready and willing.

It was a beautiful day. My daughter was driving our Toyota. I was in the front seat beside her; my granddaughter and her small son were in the back seat. We had just left Bear Lake where we had been overnight guests. As we’d packed the car with our overnight gear we’d noticed one tire, the back right one, seemed a little low, as if it might be losing a little air. Evanston, Wyoming wasn’t far away so we decided it would be a good idea to roll into a Big O Tire and have it checked before going on.

We found help and waited while the mechanics checked it out. It wasn’t much of a problem and soon it was all fixed and we were on our way again. We were driving from Evanston, Wyoming at a regular speed, where the highway separates into three highways, one turning left going around Echo Lake going to Salt Lake and the right one that cuts off going to Ogden. It’s a very dangerous spot with heavy traffic buzzing around each highway. As we began to round the corner, just barely before we hit the turn, there was a zzzzzzzzz sound and we knew the tire had blown!

“Don’t hit your brakes!” My granddaughter wisely reminded my daughter from the back seat.

“I’ve got to stop,” returned my daughter as two cars swerved around us, trying to get out of the way. We quickly came to a stop just as another car swung around us from behind and squealed to a stop in front of us, his car facing ours.

The girls got out and opened the trunk. The unidentified stranger in the miraculous car leaned over and picked up a toolbox that was evidently sitting right beside him in the front seat of his car. He picked it up and came to help us. He immediately changed the tire and put everything back and left as quickly as he had appeared. All I had time to say was a quick, “Thank you,” before he was back in his car again and gone.

Who was he? I don’t know. He came, did his work and was gone before I realized what had happened. Later I tried to remember what he’d looked like or if he had a name. He appeared, helped us and was gone!

All the way home I tried to remember what the stranger looked like and if he had said anything. All I could remember was that he came to help us and then left as quickly as he’d appeared.

Yes, he was an angel all right! They are everywhere. They ask nothing and give whatever is needed and then move on. That’s one of the way angels work. I thank that angel over and over whenever I think of him. I am so grateful. Yes, angels are still here and they help us more than we know!

“We [angels] hold your hand literally and figuratively throughout your life. Occasionally you are aware of our presence, yet most of the time you do not know that we are there.”
~ Doreen Virtue, My Guardian Angel

“Heaven sometimes inspires everyday people to act as earthly angels.” ~ Doreen Virtue, My Guardian Angel

“I testify of angels, both the heavenly and the mortal kind. In doing so I am testifying that God never leaves us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges that we face.” (“The Ministry of Angels,” General Conference, October 2008) ~ Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

[Pictured: My great granddaughter, Acacia.]

The Joys of Womanhood

I’ve always been glad I was born a girl, so I could become a woman, a wife and a mother. Even as a child, I believe I was aware of how special it was to be a girl. I’ve always felt that women were created with special gifts of spirituality, different than those of men, closer ties of communication with Heavenly Father, guardian angels and the Holy Ghost. I’ve always felt a little sorry for men . . . that they missed out on these particular special tender gifts, perhaps that is why Heavenly Father made it possible for men to hold the Priesthood, to make them equal to mothers.

Through out my life I have always been aware of the power and influence and responsibility that go with being a girl. Much has been written about the influence of an honorable woman, wife and mother. I have often felt this power or the lack of it, when I was young and even more so as I’ve gotten older. Life is easier if we have models to follow and I was fortunate to have goodly parents and to be raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with specific role models to follow. I loved studying the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ and Lucy Mack Smith, the Prophet Joseph Smith’s mother. I dearly loved my own mother and wanted to be just like her and tried hard to follow her example. I think we should live our lives as if we might become the mother of the next prophet, president, or the greatest teacher, piano player or movie star . . . something that would put our whole life into print. How scary . . . but famous people have mothers too. What if we became one?

Sometimes we live with people that are the opposite of what we want to become. These people too are examples for our lives. I had a friend whose mother was a ‘shouter’. She always spoke in a voice of command and my friend had a difficult time getting along with her. But my friend was wise. She disliked those qualities in her mother so much that she decided she would never be like that and she learned not to yell at people, or to judge and to be very forgiving. Knowing the circumstances of her teen years, I was amazed that she became such a soft-spoken kind person, building good communication with her husband and children. I asked how she did it and she said she constantly reminded herself of the person she wanted to become, learning to change negative feelings to positive ones. She also married a very good man who helped her in her guest. How did she get so lucky to find such a man? She became that kind of person herself.

This is the trick that I have learned and I’m still working hard at it . . . to become the kind of person I want to marry, to treat others the way I want to be treated, to love my children as much as I want to be loved. These are simple rules, but full of power to change our environment and thus our lives.

I have always liked movies and have followed the lives of my favorite movie stars quite closely at times. I find it is all about choices. We don’t change others . . . we can only change ourselves. Others may change if they admire who we are, but it will be their choice. People don’t change just because we want them to. So many of the movie stars and other famous people marry the wrong spouses, get a divorce and then marry the same kind of person all over again. It’s not only movie stars of course; their lives are just made more public and easier to study.

This is a wonderful age to live in! There are so many choices available. Today women can make their own opportunities, they can get education in many fields, and information and help are everywhere. Because there are so many choices it is also more difficult to decide and easier to make mistakes. However, mistakes are methods of learning and forgiveness is a blessing. We need forgiveness for our own mistakes as well as learning to forgive others. Our mistakes teach us to make better choices, not making the same mistakes over again.

A blessing that I have found to be so important to my life, is to remember the tender communication, the special blessing of womanhood, the spiritual ties that bind us to our Heavenly Father and Mother. We are born with those special feelings; those ties are always there, unless we break them. They are held strong with obedience to the commandments Heavenly Father has given us that keep them strong. However, if we break those ties, communication lines are down, we are alone and we feel that despair. Repairing the broken ties is difficult and painful, but it can be done. It’s called repentance.

I’m remembering the special times in my life . . . my happy days of growing up in a family of love, the sometimes sorrowful times of growth, the thrill of being a wife, bringing a new baby home from the hospital, and the joy of talking, playing and being with our children. The only advise I feel qualified to give is, “Enjoy being a girl! Feel the power of doing the right thing at the right time. Live each day caring about other people, listening to others and learning how to please our Heavenly parents.” This has been a guide in my life. If I can just please my Heavenly Father and Mother, then I can feel good about myself. Self-confidence comes from the approval of our Heavenly Father. Enjoy being a girl! ~ Shirley Sealy

We Have Come a Long Way

We have come a long way from George Washington’s rules of etiquette and My Fair Lady’s reference of murdering the English language. The culture of South and West Virginia in the beginning of the new world, as they struggled to build a country of refined cultured and educated people, while fighting poverty and resources, can hardly be found in our advanced nation of electronics and trips into outer space.

In today’s advancements in filming, computers and the net, that can open up the world to resources of knowledge at the touch of a key . . . what has become of good old-fashioned culture and respect?

I grew up in a family that worked hard to develop means of expressing ourselves in dignified ways. We loved cowboy shows of the Old West, where they often shot each other, but their language didn’t consist of expressions about the private parts or activities of one’s body to make the point of the conversation more emotional.

I grew up in the days of the Golden Era of Hollywood, where the movie stars protected the image they displayed before the world. I loved the stories they portrayed in Hollywood, where when the hero did the wrong thing they had to live with the consequences, and the good guys were the ones who cared about their fellowmen. Our movies didn’t portray violence in every scene, like blowing up the neighbor’s car, or scenes of constant adultery. The argument today seems to be that those stories weren’t real or truthful. Sure some of our closets were covering secrets, but the truth is still the truth. What we live for and earn we attain, and when we break the rules of integrity and go to war with ourselves and our fellowmen, we have to pay for it one way or another, individually, or as a nation and a world.

I remember when someone could ask the question, “What’s going on here?” without added a swear word or the name of deity. I remember when someone could get angry and not include parts of our bodies or Heavenly beings in the discussion.

Every time I hear someone include necessary but indelicate acts of our bodies as just a means of making the conversation crude, I wonder what other countries think of America as they watch television.

As I attend movies today, and I try to be careful and check ratings, I realize that the entertainment field needs scripts; they need stories with feeling and people caring about each other. Sex is only as wonderful as the feeling between the two people who indulge, and sex without spirituality is a crude form of physical gratification without responsibility.

I want to pay tribute here to the courage and dignity of the youth of today who live with crudeness all around them and refrain from indulging. To those who still feel the beauty of nature and learn to emphasize their speech without vulgar, crude words that embarrass those that hear them, I commend you. We need more forgiveness, more understanding, and more love and examples like George Washington, who cared enough to want the nation to learn of culture, etiquette and good manners. It hurts to see beautiful people use ugly crude expressions.

All right, so I go way back to the good old days. I love dignity, beauty, pretty flowers and little animals. I look for stories with tender feelings that bring me to tears. I care about people who love honesty, who fight for right and want to help others. I long to live in a world of love and caring, where emotion is real and gratitude a common expression of how we live . . . And let it begin with me! ~ Shirley Sealy