Inspiring tales of near-encounters with celestial beings are collected here, with plentiful anecdotes from ordinary people who believe that their lives have been touched by an angel. Reissue. Rosemary Ellen Guiley is a renowned expert on spirituality, mystical and visionary experience, and the paranormal. She is a frequent and popular lecturer on such topics as angels, prayer, healing, dreams, spiritual awakenings, and mysteries of the unknown. She serves on the board of directors of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Among her previous books are Wellness: Prayers for Comfort and Healing; Blessings: Prayers for the Home and Family; The Miracle of Prayer; and Angels of Mercy, all published by Pocket Books. She lives with her husband near Annapolis, Maryland. The Sleeping Angel Every day, our paths cross with the paths of strangers. Some meetings are fleeting. Some are of momentous significance, great turning points of mind and heart. A seemingly chance encounter is not an accident or coincidence at all, but a purposeful weaving of God's tapestry of souls. Angels play a role in this weaving of destinies. They give us a nudge here, a prompt there. One Christmas in upstate New York, angels brought strangers together, and lives were changed. Yvonne Warner never expected, nor intended, to become the "Angel Lady." Yet she was gifted with otherworldly sight from birth, and from infancy was aware of great spiritual beings she came to call angels and masters. As she grew older, she communicated with them, was visited by them, and traveled into wondrous realms with them. As a trance channel, she received messages from the dead, which were of great comfort to the living. She understood these gifts of hers to be gifts of the Spirit, as described in the Bible. Young Yvonne's sense of destiny was that she would be guided in what she should do in life, and that everything was to be done out of love. "I work with and for the Father," she said. She believed in miracles. "A miracle is the expression of love from God," she told others. "It is up to us to make miracles happen every day by expressing that love." Life handed Yvonne a full plate. By the time she was in her mid-thirties, she had been married twice, a mother, rich, poor, and briefly homeless. All of her work had been to protect or help and heal others. She had worked as a police officer and an undercover officer. She had been an acupuncturist, a primary caregiver for AIDS patients, an HIV counselor, a substance abuse counselor, a children's education counselor, an art therapist, and a caregiver to the dying. People had died in her arms and been healed in her arms. Yvonne always felt humble that she could be of help to others. "Whatever I have to give you has been given by the Father and the Father within," she would say. She received daily counsel from the angels. They told her never to worry, that her needs would always be met. She followed their guidance, not always knowing where it would lead, but having complete faith and trust that it would always be right and true. She learned that her purpose concerned uplifting her brothers and sisters of humanity to know and understand that God does always watch over them, and is always available. She learned that in return for giving, her own cup was always filled. When Yvonne was thirty-six, two benign tumors were discovered on her coccyx at the end of her spine. She was between jobs -- she had lost one when a counseling center closed, and found another, but had not yet started it. Two surgeries to remove the tumors left Yvonne in excruciating pain and temporarily unable to walk. She had to give up the new job. She lay in bed wondering how she was going to survive -- how she was going to put food on the table and pay the bills. One day as she slept in bed an angel visited her in her dreams. "You are going to make angels," the great being said. Yvonne awakened perplexed as to how these instructions would be executed. The angel had not told her how to go about it, but simply to do it. Yvonne knew that she, like every human being, had to find her own way. Guidance is given, but if we are told precisely what to do, then we do not grow. We do not learn. It is our experience that refreshes the soul and advances our wisdom. Yvonne had purchased some exquisite ceramic angels. She felt uplifted every time she looked at them. They reminded her that there was a presence greater than she that was with her all the time. As the Bible indicated, every time someone needed guidance or an answer, God sent an angel. And God's angels looked in on her often. Yvonne thought everyone should have an angel figurine to remind them of the divine presence around them, to lift them in the same way, and to act as a messenger from God. An "awesome unfolding" was the only way Yvonne could describe how events led her to make angels. At the end of her street lived a woman who had a ceramics shop. Yvonne could barely walk, but