A Favored Child You Are.

They said their prayers before meals, and their Papa usually led those prayers in his everyday gravelly voice that demanded much respect from all his brood. The children prayed with their eyes closed to better concentrate… Well… or else.

On occasions, their Mama insisted on saying the prayers, for there would be something on her mind. Those were the times their seven children would watch Papa from the corners of their eyes, as he flinched when she stated her case.
“Dear Little Lord…” her prayers would begin. It was a term of endearment in her people’s ancient dialect.
Though many would believe she might never visualize Joshua Ben Joseph as any taller than a six-year-old, but such was hardly the case. She knew Him well. They were the best of friends. They were in business together, somehow.
“Dear Little Lord, for the excellent meal set before us, we are truly grateful. We also thank Jehanne for her cooking.” And at this point the only girl in the family would simply glow with pride—a well-deserved compliment coming Jéjé’s way.
“But whilst we have Your attention,” and this would be the point at which Papa would begin to flinch, and frequently cover his eyes, “there is Mrs. Dordrecht across the way. We think she has suffered from her terrible asthma for long enough. A… men!”
She was a true daughter of the Ancients—the blue-eyed, blond-haired people of the coast—boat builders and fishermen, who never minced their words. She was a psychic at her people’s beck and call. She was a contributor.
“One of these days,” her fun-loving children often remarked in private, “Mama will tell the Dear Little Lord He had better, for He owes her plenty, and then some.”
But she never did. She stated her case in the ways of the Ancients. She got results.

This would be her final trip to a land far away. She was in her eighties now, and she was in pain, dying. But they were relaxing on the sun-drenched patio, laughing, talking about the past, and waiting for the children to come home from their high schools.
It seemed, there was a need for her to “offload” much of what was saved up over the years—a favored life she called it—of poverty and depravation, enemy occupation of her ancestor’s lands, the loss of a child and her man.
Talking to a therapist seemed to make her task a little easier. Another glass of wine helped her along.
“Do you still talk to the Angels and the Saints?” she wanted to know.
“They were due here this evening for dinner,” he answered her. “Told them all, ‘Sorry Guys, an overseas visitor. Grab yourselves some fast food.’”
She was laughing again, hurting, but laughing. “George, you’ll never change!”
“They were the people who brought me up. Savages, I think. Heathens.”
There was an important story coming, it seemed. She was ready now, still smiling.
“I never told anyone about this. People might not have believed me. But I want to tell you now, for you know I wouldn’t fib when I’m old and on my way… All those years, it has meant so much to me, George, but I kept it to myself.”
He only nodded for her to go on.
“Your grandma died when she was still very young… in childbirth, but not really… some days after. Then there were eleven of us, including the new baby. And I was not yet twelve, the third eldest, and I looked after everything in the house, cooking, washing, the little one, and sometimes even the store. All the bigger kids were on the land, and the sea. There was so much land, and so many different crops. Peas and beans, and… Well, you know all that. And one day, they were all home from school and from the acres, and the girls were skipping their ropes in the yard, and I wanted to go out there, too.”
She paused. Some tears had come to her eyes, and it seemed she was somewhat embarrassed about that. Long-repressed needs still bothered her.
“Go on,” he told her. “Don’t go all soggy on me now, eh?”
“I wanted, too, to skip my rope! But I was so-o-o tired. Day after day, all that work, George, and no school for me any more. I had my rope with me in the kitchen, but the potatoes were just about on the boil. That… happened so many times! And you know what children are like, don’t you? They need to play sometimes. I was no different. But for me there was never time to play. And St. Christopher came along, and he lifted me up, and I skipped my rope in our kitchen. And I didn’t have to hop up and down even.”
It was the therapist’s time to laugh. “He’s got to be the most overworked Saint in the galaxy! Eh! Mom! He’s got an office job now! Too old for that kind of caper.”
She wasn’t giving in too quickly. “He loves us sea-faring people, always did, and kept us safe from storms!”
Barnard shook his head. “You were most favored by one of my Friends, les Mille-Cent-et-Onze, the One, One, One, One, the Eleven-Eleven. Ask your own grandchildren. They’ll soon tell you. I’m not pulling your leg, but I just love… your… story.”
She still doubted his words. “How do they do that then? How do they get their feet out of the way? He was holding me up, but the rope never hit his feet, and I’ve been wondering about that for years. How does he do that?”
“Easy! They all have little wings on their shoes!”
“Now you are pulling my leg!”
“Yeah. And I don’t know how they do it, but they can do it. They are very clever. And it might not have been a He. It could have been one of the Girls.”
“Girls?”
“Yes. Ladies. And they are very pretty… beautiful! Can you tell me when it was? When it happened?”
“Late in the afternoon. Going onto sevens, I suppose.”
“No. I mean what year, Mom, roughly?”
“When I was thirteen, I think.”
“That makes it nineteen-sixteen. Around that time?”
“Or a bit sooner.”
She seemed to suddenly relax. That “secret” had inexplicably weighed heavily on her mind, and since her arrival almost a week prior to that sunny afternoon. The Spirit Guardian’s student knew who had pressed her into telling him. He needed to know. It was part of his education. There would soon be another advance announcement of that kind.
From her teen years onwards, she had known she would have a rather big family. Quite inexplicably, to her mind, she had also known that one of her children would converse with St. Christopher, “the Big Man in the town.” Now she also knew who had lifted her high to skip her rope, but she was doubtful, still. It was to be read on her face all evening.

“Ask the children,” he told her gruffly. “The kids all know.”
“What do you think of it, George?”
“Une mémoire bien gardée. Secretly kept spiritual gold. A carefully hidden psychic gem, lady. A favored child of His you are.”
“The Dear Little Lord is keeping me here for too long,” she complained later that evening. “And I still miss your dad, you know? After all those years. I’m ready to go now, actually.”
“He needs you here! Haven’t you woken up to that yet?”
She eyed him with suspicion, smilingly, but knowingly. “How’s that then?”
“If you go, there will be no one left on Earth to tell Him what to do!”

She left for the Mansion Worlds just two months later, with “wings on her shoes.” She is a true daughter of the Ancients.

From the Publication “In the Service of 11:11.”

11:11 Angels