God, angels and these witnesses

The first time I (knowingly) beheld an angel was in the spring of 1981. I had been ordained an elder the year before and would soon receive my endowment in the temple thereafter.

I was lying in bed, meditating, when the earth shook! I rolled out of my bed onto my knees and, in that attitude, heard these words: “Repent ye! Repent ye! For the day of my glory is come and ye are not yet saved!” I saw in my mind’s eye (yes, I imagined it) an angel flying several hundred feet over my house, moving from east to west across the valley. His words shook the earth below! I wondered if it was Alma! (Alma 29:1.)

I also wondered, afterward, if I had, in fact, seen and heard an angel. (Wasn’t that just my imagination?) But I couldn’t deny the shaking of the earth. (My roommates felt it, too, though they “heard” nothing.) I flattered myself thinking that, if I had seen and heard an angel, he was crying repentance unto everyone else, certainly not to me! (But I soon learned I was mistaken about that, too.)

While attending youth camp at Big Bear Lake in early May that same year, I read Doctrine and Covenants 43:25. Its import struck me with great force:

25 How oft have I called upon you by the mouth of my servants, and by the ministering of angels, and by mine own voice, and by the voice of thunderings, and by the voice of lightnings, and by the voice of tempests, and by the voice of earthquakes, and great hailstorms, and by the voice of famines and pestilences of every kind, and by the great sound of a trump, and by the voice of judgment, and by the voice of mercy all the day long, and by the voice of glory and honor and the riches of eternal life, and would have saved you with an everlasting salvation, but ye would not!

I testified during that camp’s fast and testimony meeting of seeing and hearing an angel. (I recited his warning.) My testimony was not well received (especially by the leadership, who denounced and dismissed what I said as nothing but foolishness on my part).

As I prepared to serve a mission, the Lord told me (by His Holy Spirit, as I prayed in the desert) that He would shake the earth as I preached the gospel, as a sign that I was a true representative of Jesus Christ. (He fulfilled His promise twice during my mission. Each time I testified that the earth would shake at our word, the earth shook that very day!)

Days after I “beheld” and “heard” this angel, I saw another angel, gloriously white in appearance, standing before me as I prayed, this time, in my bathroom. (I know. What a place to pray! But privacy was in short supply back then.) This angel stood above the tank of the toilet! He demanded that I worship him! I felt a terrible spirit come over me and discerned that this spiritual being was not of God. I was instructed, rather, of the awful truth that those who seek for spiritual manifestations, angelic and otherwise – merely to be “entertained” or to satisfy their own pride or vain ambition or curiosity – can be deceived. I “backed off” on desiring to see angels after that!

I also learned that whenever and wherever the Lord or His angels appear, the adversary and his minions are likewise permitted to tarry (either to precede or to follow). There must be opposition in all things! (2 Nephi 2:15-16.) The faith that allows one to pierce the veil of heaven also permits the adversary to make his subtle appeals and present his perverse proposals. (Matthew 4:1.) One who sees God is also given to gape into the very jaws of hell. (Doctrine & Covenants 76:44-48.) There is no light without darkness. (Moses 2:4.)

This knowledge ought to cheer one up! For when times get tough and difficult and dark, heaven is nigh at hand to those who seek God’s face and who desire that He be glorified above all things.

One of the most recent times I saw an angel was in a dream I had seven years ago. This messenger foretold the birth of our daughter, Anibel, and introduced her to me. (I got to see her golden curly hair and her beautiful smile!) My wife and I rejoiced in the knowledge that she would be joining us!

Five years later, when I read in my journal my account of that dream and my daughter’s subsequent birth, the Holy Spirit fell upon me and I prophesied that another daughter was destined to enter our home! This was the daughter spoken of by the angel!

For in that dream, I saw my daughter riding her bicycle. I called her to me, but she would not come! This puzzled me. I turned to the man dressed in gleaming white, standing beside me, and asked him why my daughter -- who I clearly recognized and “remembered” as being my daughter -- wouldn’t come to me. He said: “When you were having difficulty, she stayed behind to help you. But when it was her turn to be born, you cut off the stream of life…and she was given to another family.”

Five years before, I hadn’t understood these words. But now I did. This very day I had just returned from the doctor’s office where I had just scheduled to do that very thing.

I cancelled that appointment.

This dream had been a warning. This warning was the Lord telling me what not to do! In my dream, I was running an obstacle course of sorts, stumbling over the same things again and again, going around in circles, never getting anywhere. (Such was my activity in the Church!) Then this child appeared and my course was made straight before me. I finally succeeded! Her debut was a sign! (Coincidentally, Adel’s birth coincided with my own discovery that same month of Denver Snuffer’s blog.)

I was reminded of my angelic dream when I saw Sister Risenmay this morning at Church. I asked her how old her son was and she told me he was older than Adel by several months.

I knew that…or should have known it...because I remembered my conversation with Bishop Risenmay two years ago:

“We’re going to have another baby.”

“Congratulations! You know we’re having our sixth?”

“Yes…but we’re not pregnant…yet. I only know that we’re going to have another baby. A girl.”

I explained to him my dream and all the reasons why we didn’t want another child: it was too expensive; we already had an even number of children (three boys, three girls); any child of either sex would mess that up; we had given away all of our girls' baby clothes; our van didn't hold seven children; we were too old and too tired to have kids; too sick of changing diapers, breastfeeding, lifting them into and out of cars (and car seats!), etc.

But none of that really mattered. Because I knew the Lord wanted me to have another child. A daughter. This daughter. She had been shown to me in a dream.

The bishop said he couldn’t comment on the propriety of having another child, but he could tell me, he said, the church’s policy about having that “operation” I alluded to earlier. (He consulted the Church handbook. It said the Church is against it.)

I knew, by revelation and the spirit of prophecy, that my daughter would be born. An angel had foretold it! And, as it happened, Adel was conceived shortly thereafter. She is a child of promise.

How many can say their birth was foretold by an angel?

Not many.

Amazingly, even after all this -- even after the shaking of the earth and the prophesying and the bearing of children (twice!) according to the words of an angel -- one still has to have faith in order to believe. (Many don’t believe! And won’t!)

But the work of the Lord continues. Even by the ministry of angels.

So be of good cheer.