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Q: I have always enjoyed your God wink stories so I decided to share mine. When my daughter was very little, maybe 4, while in her room one morning she said out of the blue, “That’s when the angels come and get me and take me.”

I was a little concerned thinking, is this a sign from above letting me know she may be taken from me? I asked her, “When does this happen?” She said, “Oh, it happened a few times. They come down and take me to heaven.” She said, “There are many old people there, but not a lot of young ones. Also, all the angels are different colors.” Then she says, “And your angel, who came to see you when you were little, was there. He was the biggest and the brightest.”

I honestly don’t remember telling her my story. I didn’t tell anyone about my angel encounter until I was in my late 20s mostly because I wasn’t sure anyone would believe me. When I was 10 my father died. That night while I was in bed crying and afraid, my room started to glow, and an angel appeared. He was a golden color. I don’t remember seeing wings. He floated at the end of my bed. He told me not to be afraid and that my father was OK and in heaven. He then took his right hand and pointed to my little sister’s bed, she was 6 at the time, and said, “Take care of her.” And then the room went dim and he was gone.

Another time when I was dating my husband I went to see him on a Saturday morning at his house. I walked into his house and heard the lawn mower going. I walked over to the blinds and was peeking out. As I was watching him cut the grass, I said to myself I wonder if he’s the one I’m going to marry. The next thing I felt was someone pushing my head into the blinds. I heard a voice say, “Are you crazy? That man is going to love you till the day you die!” That was 36 years ago, and we are still together. I have no idea who or what it was, maybe another angel?

Sincerely, angel believer. – (From B)

A: Beautiful winks! In this season of angels and lights, let us consider what the flood of God winks that has captured and tutored this column has taught us:

We have learned that death is not the end of us. When the bodies of our dearly departed are dead and decomposing and yet we still hear from them in verbal and nonverbal communications, there is only one rational thing to conclude. Our material bodies are not the only part of us that is real. There is another part, a spiritual part, a soul that lives on precisely because it is not material. Knowing this is a clear gift of every single God wink.

God winks may not be the only way God communicates with us. The purpose of God winks is not just to give us proof that heaven is real. The purpose is to convey a message to us from God. In fact, the Hebrew word for angel is malach, which means “messenger.” God can use spiritual beings like angels to deliver messages to us or God can use ordinary people who have no idea that they are acting as God’s messenger. Most of us can recall being told something by a family member, a friend or even a stranger that changed our life by sending us down another path or into a lifetime passion, career or marriage. These messengers are angels and deserve our thanks when we finally realize the truth of their divinely inspired interventions. Let me ask you to think back into the recesses of your life for those moments when you “entertained angels unaware.”

Every God wink requires a winking God, but it also requires an attentive listener. We cannot allow ourselves to go through life with an attitude of spiritual inattention. We must be open to the intervention of sudden brilliant flashes of hope and meaning from the source of all hope and all meaning. Being open to a God wink does not guarantee that you will be winked at, but not being open to them does guarantee that you will only see mud under your feet and not the two walls of water rising on each side of you and marking your exodus on dry land through the sea of despair and ahead of the pursuing armies of the Pharaoh.

So here is a holiday prayer that at least one of the holiday cards you receive this year will have the same return address for us all.

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including “Religion for Dummies,” co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman. Also, the new God Squad podcast is now available.)

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