GROWING IN THE SPIRIT; AN INTERVIEW WITH JOAN
WESTER ANDERSON
Published by AngelWatch magazine,
founder and publisher Eileen E. Freeman September 1995
Readers of AngelWatch all know of
Joan Wester Anderson, author of such bestsellers as Where
Angels Walk and An Angel to Watch Over Me. Joan is
also the author of Where Miracles Happen. A charter subscriber
to AngelWatch, Joan has appeared on virtually all the
major talk shows, and has been part of a number of specials as
well. But the shows we watch rarely have the time to find out
more about their guests than the basics. Joan has graciously
agreed to talk about her own spiritual quest, and how the
presence of angels has helped her grow closer to God.
We may think we know how a book is written---the idea,
the outline, finding the publisher, etc. But this interview with
Joan will give you some very different insights on how Where
Angels Walk came to be written, and how it has shaped Joan’s
life.
AW: Joan, you’ve always been a writer. But when you began
your career, did you really think you’d be writing about angels?
JWA: Absolutely not! I actually got serious as a writer after my
family moved into a house that needed lots of improvements, and
I began to write articles and books out of my own experience as
a wife and mother. I wrote about raising teenagers, potty
training, etc.
AW: What did you believe about angels before the subject
became so popular?
JWA: I grew up with the traditional Catholic beliefs about
angels---you know, make room in the pew for your angel, things
like that. It’s funny. I was a mystical child. I really liked
the saints, and Jesus the Lord was very real. But I never got
“into” angels. I think it was because I’ve always been so
practical. The saints had lived on earth, I knew, they had the
same problems as me. They were the aunts and uncles of the
church family. The angels were too perfect for me.
AW: Did you still feel this way about angels after you had
grown up?
JWA: Yes, I did. Even after my son Tim’s experience [with an
angel who came as a tow-truck driver to rescue him when his car
was stuck in a blizzard], for a long time I still didn’t accept
the possibility of angelic intervention. I kept thinking, What
if one day I actually meet the man who had rescued Tim? Tim said
he’d still have seen it as a miracle. But what if it was still a
false premise? After all, this store was at the core of Where
Angels Walk. I checked every towing company I could find [in
Fort Wayne, Indiana, where Tim was rescued]. I became almost
obsessive trying to determine if Tim’s guardian angel might have
been simply another human being.
AW: What changed your mind about believing in angelic
intervention?
JWA: After the book came out, I began to feel a kind of
reassurance deep in the core of my being. It was partly a
physical thing, a tiny, trembly thing. But it must have been
centered in my faith, because I came to the conclusion it had to
have been an angel who helped Tim. I was ready to be a fool for
Chris. I said to myself, Well, I’ll spend a year of my life
promoting this book that no one will read.
AW: You really believed that no one was going to read
Where Angels Walk?
JWA: Absolutely! I had written a number of other books [on other
topics], and although their sales were respectable, they were
very tiny in comparison with bestsellers.
AW: So you finished writing Where Angels Walk, which
was published by a very small press, and then you started going
around to promote it? How did you decide what to do?
JWA I prayed a lot! I did sense Christ was telling me to do
this. I listened to see if He gave me any leadings or if He was
pulling me back. The more I let go of outcomes and
responsibilities, the more that little core of faith firmed up.
I still had butterflies talking about angels; I wasn’t a
theologian. But it didn’t matter. All God wants is a willing
heart. I was being shaped---if I could just get out of the way
long enough for God to work.
AW: How did you learn to “get out of God’s way,” as you put
it?
It was hard at first, especially finding time to pray and ask
God about the book. Private prayer time isn’t easy to come by
when you have five kids. You pray in the shower, in the car, but
it’s difficult.
Anyway, one night a few months before the book was released, I
went to a prayer meeting. We had a deacon, a traveling
missionary from Florida, who was there with his family, all of
whom were deeply involved in the Charismatic Renewal. So I went
to his children for prayer, I said I had a project I was
concerned about, and I guess every other word out of my mouth
was I, I, I, because the children told me to get out of the way
and make God first in my life. Talk about “out of the mouths of
babes!”
I realized on the way home there was no
reason why I couldn’t pray in the morning. I promised to give
God time before I got to my computer. And I’ve tried very hard
to be faithful to that ever since.
Putting God at the center of my life in this particular way
freed up everything. I found I was no longer afraid or uneasy at
what was going to happen with my book. I would ask the angels to
be with me, to help me make God first in my life and not to slip
back. And I really think they did.
As I continued in prayer, God gave me
answers that astonished me. One of the stories I didn’t use in
my book was something that happened before I got all my
material. I had gone to California to give a talk, and had to
stay over. My hostess took me out to dinner and told me a story
about her deceased husband. He had been a daily Communicant at
their Catholic parish. When they retired, he joined a fishing
club that met on Sundays. In his enthusiasm for fishing, he
began to neglect Sunday mass, and in fact he died a few months
later while fishing. His grieving widow couldn’t rest because
she worried about whether he was in heaven.
One day she went to morning mass, still
grieving. The day was gloomy, her spirit cried out for help and
she asked for a sign. All of a sudden, as the priest held up the
host, she saw a little ball of fire. It went through the host,
bounced through the light and through her, and filled her with
joy. Somehow she felt that God had told her that her husband was
fine.
But some days later, she talked about the
experience and was advised that she had to have been mistaken,
and she became confused. I really didn’t know what to say to her
as she shared this with me, but the Spirit gave me the words. I
said boldly that of course it was a sign from God, and that the
person who had told her otherwise was mistaken. And she was much
comforted because I had validated her experience.
But now it was my turn to doubt. I wondered
if I had said the wrong thing. I mean, I really hadn’t much
experience saying those kinds of things to people. Then the
woman called me a few days later. The reading for the day from
Scripture had so applied to her situation that she knew it was a
sign. [The reading from Wisdom 3 says in part: “The souls of the
just are in the hands of God, and no torment shall touch them.
They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their
passing away was thought an affliction, and their going forth
from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace…(and) at the
time of their visitation they shall shine, and shall dart about
as sparks through stubble”.]
I knew from all this that God would give me the
words to say in the future, no matter where I might go to speak,
no matter what I might need to say, about angels or any other
subject.
AW: Well, you have given hundreds of talks about angels now,
so it certainly seems clear that God indeed empowered you to
speak. How has this changed you?
JWA: I’ve found that my talks have been healing for my own
spirit, opening me to the gifts of the Spirit as well as, I
hope, helpful for those to whom I’ve spoken. I’ve learned that
things only come together as they should when they come together
His way.
Before, I depended a lot on myself. Now I
ask the angels to take care of everything. I know they will
because thy serve God, and God wants me to accomplish the
purposes he put me on earth for. Before I began this odyssey, I
was so tentative. I would ask: Am I holy enough? Am I smart
enough? I go to Mass more often now and a long for the prayer
meeting. I used to go the Mass just to ask for help. Now I go to
Mass in Thanksgiving.
I also have confidence that no matter what
God asks me to do, it will be fine. I think that my involvement
in the Catholic charismatic renewal happened so that many things
inside me could be purified so I could write the books.
I quit smoking too. I was really addicted
to nicotine, and loved my cigarettes. I have a great compassion
for alcoholics now… I remember being upset with God for not
freeing me from smoking in some miraculous way. Instead I had to
slog it out, fighting that craving for months. Then God reminded
me that he has always sent me people, “secret angels” to be the
help I needed when I needed it. And I realized that was so true.
AW: Where do you think God is taking us insofar as the angels
are concerned?
JWA: I think Reverend Billy Graham was correct when he pointed
out that dark times are coming and that angels will be a light
for us. Good is becoming better, and evil is becoming worse. The
lines are being drawn between the two caps. You can’t straddle
the fence anymore. God tells us we have a choice: life or death.
The angels are God’s messengers to help us choose life.
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