Do you believe in Angels?

I prefer to think of myself as Spiritual rather than Religious.

I have my own set of beliefs that keep me on the right path in life and sustain me through difficult times.

One thing I do believe in, is Angels.

There are many times in my life where I have felt the hand of my Guardian Angel.

There was the time that our gas hot water system leaked and I succumbed to the fumes in our downstairs bathroom, when the rest of my family were upstairs. I would have died if it weren't for one of my brothers deciding he had an urgent toilet mission, and having thumped on the door for entry into the bathroom to complete said mission, and got no response, raised the alarm.

There was another incident were I was so ill I could barely raise my head from my pillow. I believe now that I had a Meningoccal virus. I certainly had all of those symptoms but as a single mother of three sons, all of whom were too young to drive, I had no way of finding my way to the doctors surgery. Some who contract this virus never recover, and simply pass away in their sleep. I arose from my sickbed in the dead of night to visit the bathroom. It was a three level pole home and it took me ages to find my way from my bedroom on the lower level, to the bathroom on the uppermost level. I was washing my hands in the basin, when I simply blacked out and collapsed. I'd like to say I had a storybook near death experience, but I did not. Some time later, I awoke to find myself on the floor, and negotiated my way back to bed. The next morning, I was fit and healthy. How is it, that I survived, having exhibited all of the symtoms of this illness and perhaps even visiting if not deaths door, certainly it's doorstep? I believe my Angel intervened, knowing that I had work to do for my disabled son.

There are many other incidents. Not catching the subway to Waterloo station to connect with the Eurostar on the day of the London bombings, looking to the right (when I wouldn't normally) at an intersection controlled by traffic lights before pulling away, only to narrowly miss being collected by a speeding semi-trailer going through the red light coming from that direction (I would normally just trust 'my' lights and accelerate on the green), and missing the bus into town, on the day that a construction site collapses on a busy main street in the centre of our fair city. Had I caught my scheduled bus, I would have been walking along that section of footpath right at that time.

Then there's cancelling a trip to Christchurch which would have placed us at the epicentre of their earthquake earlier this year, which tragically claimed hundreds of lives, refusing a lift from a very persistent and persuasive man and woman at my school when I was just five years old, and tragically seeing another child disappear that week. She and her kidnappers were never found.  There was the decision to not pursue a man who was the object of my dreams for a little while, who soon after, was killed in a car accident. Had I been with him, as I longed to be, I too would have been killed.

Even at the earliest part of my existence, my Angel intervened. I was born 10 weeks prematurely, at a time when humidicribs were not much more that an aquarium with a lid and an oxygen tank. I survived, frail though I was, and have gone on to live a productive life.

Contrast this with my son, born 12 weeks prematurely in an era where all should have been rosy for him, but who is left with Cerebral Palsy and is completely physically dependent. It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Some would say that even there, my Angel intervened and that I am meant to learn something from my journey with my son, and perhaps they are right. Indeed my son survived, when others like him have not, so who can say for sure what my Guardian Angel has in store for me there.

Sometimes, just before I wake, I feel a gentle hand on my brow, arm or leg. I awake with a start, expecting to see my 11 year old daughter there, but there is no-one. I believe it's my Angel stirring me to face a new day.

What's on your Tray of Bliss today?