Click HERE to view Rev. Jimmie Scott’s guided meditation during the service.
Well, I am so blessed that today I get to be here to speak about my favorite topic: angels. And as I look around the audience, I already see many angels here that are in body to help people — including the girls from Helping Parents Heal, who help people who have children in spirit. My angels. And … [Congregants applaud]
And then there are every day angels who shop up in our lives. I was kidding Rev. Jimmie backstage, because he’s one of my angels. When it looked like I was going to flunk out of my internship in ministry school, Rev. Jimmie said, “Oh, I’ll get you through it.” And it’s because of Rev. Jimmie that I’m a minister … so you can blame him! [Congregants laugh]
So, when we have earth angels, they step in just when we need them. And they step in with exactly the words or the help that we need. So, before I was doing this talk, I just thought, “Well, I’ll put out a call for angel stories,” because I get to hear these stories all the time with my Helping Parents Heal friends and people who have children and spirit; angels are everywhere in that amazing experience. So I just thought, “Well, I’ll ask ordinary people for their angel experiences.”
Well, I got the most incredible stories! And I’m just going to start by sharing a few quickly.
I have a friend named Trisha Barker. And when she was 21 years old, she was a college student; very depressed. She considered herself an atheist then. And she was in a tragic car accident and broke her back. And as they rushed her to the hospital, they had to go into surgery, and they couldn’t promise her … She couldn’t feel most of her legs. And so they said, “Well, we can’t promise how this will go.” And during surgery, she actually hemorrhaged and left her body.
And this was later validated by the surgeons, because when they do surgery on your back, you’re on your stomach. So, there’s no way you could be aware of what’s happening, even if you woke up from anesthesia. But she was instantly lifted up, and she saw the blood and she saw the surgeons. And then she saw this team of radiant angels in the operating room. And they were putting their arms around the surgeons and working with their hands and helping them stop the bleeding. And then she saw them picking bone fragments out of her spine and very delicate procedures.
And the angels were saying, “Don’t worry, this is not your point of exit, so we’re going to get you back in there because you have work to do.” And at this point, she was 21 and very lost. And they told her … They gave her career advice. [Congregants laugh] They said … I love that personally!
And they said to her, “We want you to go back and become a teacher.”
Now that was not on her Bingo card: to be a teacher. [Congregants laugh] But she woke up from this experience and her life was changed forever. And as she validated with the surgeons, “Hey, did you guys pick bone fragments out of my spine?” And they were very shocked to have this conversation. The doctors usually don’t like these kinds of conversations. So she got pegged as the “weird” patient. [Congregants laugh] Weird is good; trust me. So that’s her story.
And then a beloved friend of ours who’s very much a part of Helping Parents Heal. His name is Jacob Cooper. So sweet. This is a really good story if you’ve ever had a child go through a trauma and you worry about what it was like for them, or if it was their exit point, were they alone? Well, Jacob was three years old and he had undiagnosed pertussis or whooping cough, whatever you call that word. It’s not in my play guide either for pronunciation. But he didn’t know he had it.
And he was climbing up the ladder to the slide and he started coughing and he couldn’t breathe. Then he started to suffocate; fell off the ladder. And his parents, of course, you know, rushed, got an ambulance, got him to the hospital, and he eventually recovered.
But in his telling of it, he was instantly lifted into this realm of glorious, beautiful, colorful angels with beautiful songs and music that he’d never heard on earth. Instantly comforted and instantly given so much guidance about what his life was going to be like later on. (A lot of this guidance that we get, we can’t process it for a while; it takes us a while.)
So, when Jacob went back into his body and recovered, he tells the story of being depressed for a while. And his parents tried to figure out why, and he said, “Because I want to be with those angels.” But today, I want you to know he’s a therapist and an author of a book called The Wisdom of Jacob’s Ladder, and he knows now that the angels are still with us.
Because that is my point: that the angels are always with us in this human realm. We are never alone here. If I can promise you one truth that I’ve learned in my seven decades, it is that the angels are our first responders here on earth. We have the beautiful God Source of unconditional love that we’re always aligned with. And we have departed loved ones who hold on to their personality so that we can recognize them when they come to talk to us. And we have these beloved angel spirits whose only job is to love you, to support you in your moment of pain. And that is what they are here to do.
So, one more story, then I’ll get on with my actual talk.
So, this came from a friend; again, another person connected with Helping Parents Heal. Someone who’s a beautiful medium, and also she has a daughter in spirit. Her name is Isabella Johnson. And she reached out to me and she said, “Sue, my husband died tragically nine years ago.” And she said, “Paramedics came to my house to tell me, and I fainted when they told me.” And she said that, “When I woke up, the paramedics had moved me to the couch, and I had a male paramedic to my right; a female paramedic in front of me; and another male paramedic to my left. And they were all trying to make sure I was okay, trying to get me to respond.”
And she said she was really out of it; just the news had devastated her. But there was this one male paramedic to her left that kept going, “Isabella, look at me. I need you to promise me something.” And so, she finally turned and looked. And this man said to her, “This is going to be the hardest year of your life, and there are going to be moments when you want to die; when you want to give up. And I need you to promise me that you’re going to stay here; that you’re going to live; that you’re going to get better. Because the world needs what you’re going to be doing.”
And Isabella, at the time, like, couldn’t even process what that meant. But she just went, “Okay; sure; whatever.” [Laughs] And so, then a year went by. And she was recovering and feeling better. And she decided she wanted to call those paramedics and thank them. And she especially wanted to thank the man who had made her promise that she would live.
And so she called. She lived in Surprise, Arizona: a pretty small town. She called the police. They connected her to the paramedics. And she got the female paramedic on the phone who had been with her at the house. And she said, “Yeah, we remember you, because you fainted.” And that’s always dramatic when they have to deliver hard news. And so, she was happy to hear that Isabella was doing good.
And Isabella said, “I want to thank that man who told me I had to promise that I would live.” And the woman said, “Honey, we only travel in teams of two. There were only two of us paramedics there that day.” And she said, “We saw this man on the couch to your other side that you were talking to, but we don’t know who he was. We thought he was your friend. And he was there when we got there. And he was there when we left.”
And Isabella’s mind was blown. And the woman on the phone said, “That was your angel.”
And Isabella said to me … She said, “Sue, I want you to tell everybody that angels are real and many of us are here today because of it.”
Raise your hand if an angel has helped you. Oh, you beautiful souls! Yes! Yes, yes, yes! I have more stories, but I’m going to hold them for the end here.
So, the main thing I wanted to share is that the angels have these two important messages for all of us. And one is to make use of them; they are our first responders. So, when you feel any pain, any confusion, so easily you can say, “Angels, lift me; love me. Angels, hold me in the light.” That sweetness just comes and wraps around you.
You know, when you think of little Jacob being three years old and the team of beautiful angels, you get a sense of how sweet and loving these angelic beings are. Not threatening at all! And they are always there to help us. And they take human form, as we talked about in those stories.
But whatever form they take, say “Yes,” because they can’t interfere with our free will. We do have free will here. But when you feel a choice point, always check in and say, “Angels, show me the way with the light. Show me the way forward, whatever I have to walk through.”
The other message they’re giving us now that’s very important is … the first words that came to me as I started to write my Angel Up! book was, “Things have changed here on earth and we need humans to understand.”
And I was like, “What? What are you talking about?”
And the angels said, “Things now are so intense, and we all feel it. There’s conflict; there’s fear; there’s global concerns. And in the old way, humans would argue or disagree or have conflict about their ideas. But the new way,” the angels say, “the only way through this time period is for each of you and us to step up to our own angelic higher self.”
And, yes; you all have a part of you — your higher soul — that’s always enmeshed in that beautiful angelic love. Always kindness, compassion, wisdom. And when you have conflict in your life that we all have — pain and challenge — you get a choice. Do I respond in the old, hard, heavy human way, which we know doesn’t really work well and it hurts to go that path? Who’s gone that path? Yeah.
And then we have the “Angel Up” way that says, “I’m going to follow the love. I’m going to find a way to bring compassion to this. I’m going to find a way to see those souls as beautiful souls, because in spirit we are all gorgeous, loving beings of light, just like the angels.”
There’s not one of us here who is less than an angel. And so, when we get our choice to step up to it, the angels are right there to help you.
So, in the Bible there’s many wonderful stories of angels. And I was going through them and I picked out one of my favorites. It kind of makes me cry. I’m going to say it without crying. Sorry, you guys. I’m on some kind of spectrum. I don’t know what; I just cry easily. [Congregants laugh] Maybe call it the cry spectrum; that’s what it is. [Congregants laugh]
So, in Luke 22, it tells the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. And the reason this scene is so heartfelt to me is that here’s this enlightened teacher who came down to teach us love and all the important lessons. And he knows he’s about to walk through his true dark night of the soul. He knows — he feels — what’s coming. And he goes alone to be in the Garden.
And here’s what it says: “Jesus withdrew from the apostles and knelt down and prayed, saying, ‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.’ And there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him.”
What that says to me is that: if our enlightened teacher, Jesus, can be here about to go through something very hard, and feel an angel coming to give him strength and love, and say “Yes” to that, we can all accept that help. We can all realize that, whenever we’re in our personal Garden of Gethsemane, that there’s an angel there trying to help us through it.
I saw this personally. My slide is up. So, can you put my angel slide up there for me? Thank you, Roger.
So, I saw this personally many times in my life, but most recently in 2023. I was working with a client on Zoom, as I do. And in my same room that I always work in — there was no difference in the lighting or anything. And this angel appeared on my wall so vividly that it was glowing; it was pulsing, And it took my breath away.
And I started communicating with this angel. And the angel said [Beeping noise] Oh, angel; wow! [Congregants laugh and applaud] Thank you! [Laughs] That is very cool, whatever that was.
So, you got our attention. You want to finish this here!
So, this angel said, “I am your mother in the angelic realm, and I am here to love on you and just tell you that all is well.”
And at the time, you know, I thought, “Wow! That’s beautiful. I love that!” But I didn’t really understand. Sometimes angels come to us before we’re about to go through a challenge. But they don’t come and go,
“Oh, you’d better watch out; there’s something scary coming!” Because what would we do? We would just go, “Oh, my God!” We would go into our fear, and that never serves us.
So, the angels just come and they go, “Hey, we’re here; we love you. Remember that we’re here if things get hard.”
So, a few months go by. Sudden diagnosis with colon cancer; dark night of my soul. Garden of Gethsemane for me. And that angel walked me through every moment of that step so that my prayer became, “Whatever I have to go through, let it unfold. But angel, lift me above the fear. Show me my way through with love.” That is our prayer. That is how the angels help us.
So, another quote that I love in the book of Hebrews — Hebrews 13 — says, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that, some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
Now, that story I told you about Isabella; that’s just one story of an angel taking a human form. But we have all had those experiences where a stranger just shows up, says something to us or does something for us, and disappears. The kindness of strangers can often mean the recognition of an angel when they appear.
And, in Matthew 28, there’s the beautiful story of an angel moving the stone from Jesus’ grave. And the metaphysics of that beautiful story … you know, the women had gone to tend to Jesus’ body after the crucifixion. And they arrived and there was a stone in front of the tomb and an angel on the stone. And the angel said, “Don’t worry; he’s not in there.” And the angel moved the stone to show them there was no body in the tomb.
Metaphysically, that’s an angel showing us that there is no death; that the spirit is eternal. And that the angels are the ones who can come and move that heavy stone of grief from our hearts and help us remember that we are all souls, spirits, beings of light … and that that is eternal.
So, Charles Fillmore, the Unity founder, wrote, “Angels are thoughts of God in universal mind. They are always bringing messages of truth to those who have ears to hear.”
Well, how do we have ears to hear? We meditate; pray; do spiritual practice. (We talked about this Wednesday night.) And that gives us the openness to hear how the angels are trying to help us.
Now I’m going to close with one of my favorite stories here.
So, many of you might know somebody who works here at Unity of Phoenix named Ken Akers, the sweetest guy in the world. So, he reached out and told me this story. He said it was 1974, and it was spring break, and he lived in Missouri in a small town. He said, “I wanted to go out with my friends in Joplin, Missouri. So, I had to drive 20 miles of desolate highway to get to Joplin.” And he hung out with his friends.
And then he’s driving home, and it’s 2 a.m. in the morning. I mean, this is every parent’s worst nightmare, right? That their kid is driving 20 miles of desolate highway, 2 a.m. in the morning, after partying with friends in Joplin.
So, of course, the worst thing happens: the dashboard lights up; the car breaks down. He pulls over to the side of the road. And he’s sitting there going, “Boy, am I in trouble now!” [Laughs]
And he looks, and there’s this deserted — there had always been — this abandoned, shut down truck repair shop that had just been sitting on the side of the road all boarded up for years. And this night, he looked at it, and there was a light on. And then as he got closer, he saw — oh, there’s a man in there working on a truck. At 2 a .m. in the morning? But he was happy about this.
So, he walked in there. And the man had his back to Ken, and he was working on a truck. So, Ken said, “Excuse me, my car broke down.” And the man didn’t say anything; just kept his back to Ken.
And Ken thought, “Okay, well, maybe he could help me make a phone call,” because there was a pay phone. 1974, people — we had these things called pay phones. [Laughs] I know this is hard for some of you to understand, but you had to put a dime into it. So, there was one of those there.
And so he said, “I need to make a phone call. Here’s a dollar. Do you have any change for a dollar?”
And the man went, “Hmmm,” and he dug in his pockets and he pulled out a dime; without turning around, handed it to Ken. And Ken tried to give him the dollar; he wouldn’t take it.
And so, Ken said, “Okay; thank you.” And he called his friend, and his friends from Joplin came and got him and took care of him. And then the next day they came and fixed the car.
And so, then a few days later, Ken’s driving that way again and he says, “I’m going to go in there and thank that man.” So, he pulls into the shop: totally boarded up; no sign of life; no pay phone like there had been the night before.
And he said — I want to use his words. He said, “Years later, I realized that that man was my dad who died when I was just a baby. And he had taken angel form to help me.”
So, I just want to leave you all on these notes: that you’re never alone. That whether it’s your exit point or your moment of being here and getting through, the angels are always helping, healing, loving, and lifting you.
And so it is. Thank you.