Once upon a time I awoke one winter morning with an overwhelming desire to travel to Latin America. At the time I was 20 years old and a sophomore in college. I knew with all of my heart that I needed to take this journey, so I followed my inner prompting and prepared for the journey.
Several months later, I took a leave from the University, donned my backpack and enrolled in a summer college program in Guadalajara, Mexico to learn Spanish. Then, traveling south to Guatemala, I worked in a medical clinic with a nutritionist caring for mothers and children in the jungles near Lake Panajachel. I fell in love with the land of violet bougainvillea, crystal blue lakes, colorful tapestries and the indigenous people. For part of my sojourn, my own mother joined me as we explored the beauties of Guatemalan markets and villages, artwork and the brilliant green terrain.
I now know many years later that my soul was gathering the images and vision to be a mother for my future family with the support of my own mother. Yet at the time I only sensed this inner need to immerse myself in Latin America. (Throughout my life I have learned time and time again that following your intuition, soul wisdom, inner voice or whatever name you give that inner guidance is of utmost importance in life)
Years later I married and, due to health issues, could not have children. My husband and I started our amazing adoption journey. One of the sweetest stories occurred several years before our little girl arrived. I had an unforgettable dream about an adoption angel. In this dream, I saw an image of a couple connected by a rainbow to a baby. I remember sensing that the couple was in North America and the baby was in Latin America. The image faded and suddenly a magnificent angel appeared. She had a most compassionate face and was smilng sweetly. Above the angel was a light blue banner with big words "Adoption Angel" written on it. While this may sound unique, many adopting parents have similar experiences.
In Over the Moon: An Adoption Tale, a child’s book about adoption, the parents have a dream:
That night a woman far away had a dream. She dreamed she saw.the baby in a basket surrounded by beautiful violet flowers and birds of many colors. Her husband dreamed of the same child. He saw her beside the sea and mountains, smiling a little smile, and he knew she was the child they had been longing for. [1]
When our b process was started and we were waiting for our baby, my mother-in-law had a precious vision of our little girl. She appeared very similar to how she looks with shining, dark eyes full of love, chubby cheeks and the sweetest smile. Her soul was communicating with her grandmother too!
Even without dreams, parents so often know when they first meet their child and gaze upon his or her eyes - yes, this child is ours!
What is this knowing? It is soul knowing the soul-to-soul connection between parent and child. Yes, families are more than meet the eye. Families fulfill a crucial spiritual purpose because they create the crucible for souls to work out karmic relationships and fulfill their mission.
There are a number of reasons why souls are assigned to specific families. Sometimes a child is assigned to a family because one or both parents have good karma with the soul of that child. Sometimes it's because something needs to be resolved between the parents and the child or between the child and his siblings from relationships in past lives. And sometimes it's a little of both, a little good karma and a little nonresolution. [2]
Imagine if a soul is unable to fulfill a certain mission or connect with a specific family. How does a soul feel in this situation? As a child psychologist, I have worked with children who carry deep anger for no known reason. Yet, they have loving, supportive parents, families and friends, and no difficult life experiences. After reflecting on these puzzling situations, I now believe that some of these feelings originate from past lives when their souls have been denied the opportunity to balance certain karma or complete a special assignment in a family. And they are unresolved, and even angry, about it.
Families truly are part of a spiritual drama of souls coming together for many reasons. When the drama is not played out, it can be very difficult to duplicate all that is needed for a soul to progress spiritually.
By God's grace, our family's drama did unfold. Our adoption process moved rather quickly and, to our delight, our little girl was born and arrived home soon after. Amazingly she was born not more than about 30 miles from the very area where I worked in the mountains of Guatemala!
Now our child is a curious, happy preschooler. Yet moments occur in our busy days when our eyes connect and soul-to-soul we remember our story that began long before we physically came together as a family. Yes, I am reminded of the miracle of our family's soul journey together over the rainbow. Elizabeth, USA
Not long ago, I overheard my college-age daughter complaining that her first speech was due the next week, but she still couldn’t think of a topic. Speech101 is required of all students at her university, just as it is almost everywhere else in the US. Public speaking is an equalizer—when 3 minutes of undivided attention focused on one individual can leave aspiring engineers, teachers, mathematicians, historians and police officers sweating bullets. Choosing a speech topic can be pretty tough—do you go for something safe and reliable, or get on the internet and search for new ideas?
In America, an entire generation of future leaders has grown up listening to the polarized political and religious arguments that surround one of the most emotionally charged issues in our society: abortion. With over three decades worth of media coverage, picket lines and impassioned pleas from pulpits and activists behind us, could there possibly be a perspective that hasn’t been thoroughly considered? Yes—that of the soul.
In a typical college speech or debate class, a number of students focus on the issue of abortion. With the initial battles over the legalization of abortion fought by their parents’ generation, many 18-25 year old students across the nation are now demonstrating their own thought leadership by posing new questions on the topic. Among them:
......• What if every new life has a particular mission to accomplish here on earth?
......• How is America as a country impacted by the loss of an individual’s particular talents?
......• How is our future altered when key souls are denied entrance?
......• How might reincarnation impact the argument on abortion?
Have you ever thought about reincarnation? It’s not unlike the perennial Jimmy Stewart film, It’s a Wonderful Life, that comes around on television every December. His character gets to watch what happened to everyone in the town of Bedford when his unique contributions were pulled out of the equation. And he saw how much of a profound impact even one person has on the world around him.
Reincarnation is a spiritual belief held by over half the world’s population including Hindus, Tibetan Buddhists and an increasing number of Christians and Jews. In a recent Gallup Poll, 25% of adults 18 years and older said that they believed in “the rebirth of the soul in a new body after death.” In a 1998 Harris Poll, 22% of Christians said that they believed in reincarnation.
Many students on campus aren’t just discussing the topic of abortion; they’re sharing some of their own experiences and choices. In my daughter’s class at a large mid-western university, two students gave pro-life speeches—one more memorable than the other. The first was a man who was passionately pro-life because of his religious beliefs and intellectual understanding of it. The other was a woman in her second year of studies who was also passionately pro-life, based on her first-hand experience. She had taken the previous year off—to have a baby. She was only 18 when she got pregnant during freshman year and it was a unplanned, life-altering event. With the support of her family and friends, she chose to keep the baby and raise him herself. Her conviction in the unquestioned value of that one new life caused her to rearrange her whole life as a result.
The fact that the student in the class chose to have her baby may have been because she tuned into some kind of special tie with her child from a previous lifetime. An awareness that, in spite of the inconvenience to her and the absence of the father, now was the right time for this baby to be born. Who knows? One thing is for sure, there is an emerging trend of young adults who are looking at life before birth in a whole new way. The old black and white polarity on the topic of abortion is being shifted by a new viewpoint that is gaining momentum across campuses worldwide.
This academic session, students will be searching their libraries and the Internet for “new takes on old debates” as they work their way through their philosophy, religion and speech and debate class assignments. If you’re looking for an interesting and somewhat controversial research or debate topic, you might consider taking a poll of your classmates to find out who believes they’ve lived before and what their thoughts are on life before birth. Then give a speech that no one will forget!
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When I was in college I wanted to volunteer to help women ...
I saw a notice asking for women who wanted to do just that. It turned out that the notice came from YWCA near the university I was attending. Since I loved to volunteer for good causes, I signed up to help.
They told us that we were helping women by getting rid of unwanted tissue and avoiding a pregnancy they didn't want. I was completely nieve about babies and really did not really understand that we were helping girls kill their own. I let girls stay at my home who were in town for abortions. When I insenistively asked one girl if she felt better after she returned from her abortion, she looked at me like I was crzy and said, "I know abortions are wrong. I don't feel better." I was shocked. I was so amazed that she would do something so consciously that she knew to be wrong.
I started investigating the whole thing a bit more and was finally educated about life in the womb through my new church several years later. When I joined the prolife team some years later, and was picketing an abortion clinic in my current city, a young women stopped in support to tell us her story. She then proceeded to share with us that she had seen her twin babies by accident after they were aborted. The shock and horror she experienced were unspeakable. She had great remorse and explained to us that, like myself, she had no idea that she really had real babies inside of her womb. She regretted her experience so, and wanted so much to share her story with everyone so that others could choose life instead.
- Anonymous