Free Angelic Pathways by Chantel Lysette

my health drew me down into misery. It was like treading quicksand, and there was no help in sight.
    I could go as long as eight weeks upstairs without a single word from anyone. No one called. No one cared if I lived or not. And during the summers, I sat in the darkness of that room cursing all of humanity. A walking miracle? Me? Sure, if you counted the fact that I have congestive heart failure and asthma and yet somehow survived a room that reached upwards of 103 degrees during the summer. My health and my life were of no consideration to anyone but me, and the more pressing the circumstances became, the less I cared.
    I would sit upstairs with a single can of cold beans or ravioli as the scents of baked turkey and ham wafted through the house holiday after holiday, year after year. And as I listened to the hearty cheers and laughter of the merrymakers below, I scoffed at the very archangels who would sit by my side and whisper, “You are loved.”
    If love came by way of scorn and solitude, then I had it in spades.
    “I’m not a walking miracle,” I finally clipped in response to Michael’s words. “I’m a living, breathing disaster. I’m a statistic waiting to happen.” After all, if I had died, the only thing to alert anyone of my passing would have been the stench of my corpse. And though I prayed for death every hour of every day, I dreaded dying with so little dignity. Still, I pondered if it really mattered. Would dignity really concern me if I no longer lived on the earth plane among those who knew of me? Knowing my luck, that answer would be yes. Countless days I imagined a hell of being forced to sit in front of some television screen to watch the same world that mocked me in life now mock me in death.
    When I looked in the mirror every day, I saw nothing, not a slip of a miracle that Michael spoke of. I only saw raw, unmitigated misery. Still, I held on to the visions that Gabriel had given me, visions of us sitting on a plush, green lawn discussing what this life would be. Every time the archangel pointed to a difficult challenge on the timeline, I would dismissively wave my hand with, “Pshaw, I can handle it.”
    As I stared at the small confines of my room, those words echoed in my mind and haunted me to the point that I knew I would go insane from it. Yet, here I am. I survived. Despite the burdensome circumstances, I am still here. It is only by God and his messengers that I live and still maintain somewhat of a modicum of dignity. If nothing else in this life, I can hold my head up and say that I have survived a hell that battered me to a bloody pulp.
    But it did not … it could not break me. And I’m praying it never does.
    Had such a trial come before I had established connections with God’s messengers, I would have considered it either a punishment from God or an attack by the Devil. Too often in church during my youth did pastors attribute money problems to the evil machinations of Satan. Too many times had I watched faith healers “heal” by casting out devils that apparently were the cause of an affliction. But now, with clarity and a better understanding of how our reality works, I would be foolish to concur.
    Throughout history, religions around the globe have taught humankind of their place in the cosmos. More often than not, adherents have been warned that they have a target on their backs. Their very souls are in the crosshairs as diabolical powers seek to tempt them away from the benevolence of their creator.
    Tales of spiritual warfare have followed humanity since the beginning of time, it seems, and have served as explanations for why things happen as they do. If famine strikes a village, then of course a trickster spirit is among them, seeking to torment them. Or worse yet, perhaps the gods of rain and earth have not been appeased. If someone is prosperous, then of course it is only because the person is righteous and has found favor in the eyes of Heaven.
    From superstitions