One of the most popular angel experiences is when small children see them. Of course not every “imaginary companion” is indeed an angel, but preschoolers are still so close to heaven (and, of course, sinless) that perhaps they can interact with both worlds in ways we can’t understand. Kathleen Fidler has observed this phenomenon several times, and it has led to an interesting question, one which echoes a similar topic here a few weeks ago when we wondered if priests, ministers, nuns and others who devote their lives to God, are given an extra angel…. We didn’t solve the mystery, but here’s another to ponder:

“When my daughter, Mary Kate, was almost three years old,” Kathleen says, “I was tucking her into bed one night and we had just finished our prayers, and I began talking with her about angels. I told her how much God loves her and that she is never alone, because she has a special angel who is with her all the time and who will never leave her.”

Mary Kate responded immediately. “We have TWO angels, Mommy,” she said, “not one.”
Kathleen was a bit startled. “That could be,” she acknowledged. “I know for sure that everyone has ONE angel, but maybe sometimes we have more.”

But little Mary Kate was adamant. There were two angels for everyone. “Her conviction was so strong that I did not forget it,” Kathleen says; “however I did not mention it to her again.”

In 1993 Kathleen had her fourth child, Jonathan, and one day when he was about 2 ½, she was playing with him, and talking to him about Jesus, and how much Jesus loved him. “Jonathan was completely disinterested in the conversation until I ask if he knew that he had an angel who watched over him everyday,” Kathleen recalls. “Then he said, with an annoyed tone in his little voice, that of course everyone knew there were TWO angels.”

Kathleen immediately remembered the conversation she had had with her daughter about three years before---when Mary Kay was about the same age. This time Kathleen probed a little further by simply asking Jonathan if he remembered anything else from his time in heaven. “He very matter-of-factly told me that God and Jesus looked exactly the same except God had silver hair and Jesus's was brown. Then he was done talking and wanted to play.”

The kids were too young to remember these conversations, Kathleen says, but when they got older she told them about it. Mary Kay was very interested and one Christmas Eve while at a relative’s house, she was looking at the Christmas tree with her little cousin, Thea, who was at the time about 2 1/2 years old. Mary Kate noticed an angel ornament on the tree and remembered the story her mother had told her (although she no longer remembered the sightings themselves---and this is typically what happens as children get older.) Mary Kate asked her little cousin if she knew what the ornament was and Thea told her it was an angel. Then Mary Kate asked her cousin how many angels she had. "I have two," Thea replied matter-of-factly.

Three preschoolers, three different times and situations, but the same answer. Kathleen knows that I circulate stories of children who seem to be genuinely in touch with heaven, involved with either angels or saints, because I think we can learn much from their early experiences and their innocence. I have heard small children describe great congregations of angels, but not a specific number. “I have never read anything that might support the opinion of these three beautiful babies who seemed so confident God has assigned two angels to accompany us,” Kathleen wrote. Have you? It would be interesting to share such things. Just email me at joan@joanwanderson.com.


© 2007 Joan Wester Anderson