There Forever, Here and Now

By Anita Turner-Ayres

These are the stories of a life impacted by the spirit world and forever changed. Heaven and hell collided, good and evil clash, and life and death are weighed in the balance. In these pages I share the ghosts of my past, including Abigail Cooper who was the first to be born here and the first to die here. Join me on the journey of a lifetime, or three.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9780359192984

Book preview

2018

COPYRIGHT

Copyright ©; 2018 by Anita Turner-Ayres

All rights reserved.  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Edition: 2018

ISBN: 978-0-359-19298-4

Anita Turner-Ayres

Webpage:  All Things 4 Good – Living Hope in Chaos

420 Gardner’s Circle

Bluffton, SC 29910

Ordering Information:

Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, educators, and others.  For details, contact the publisher at the above listed address.

U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers: Please contact Anita Turner-Ayres Tel: [phone]; or [e-mail].

DEDICATION

To my wonderful, loving, crazy and unique family.

Thank you for the fuel you each contributed to fire my imagination.  This book would not be possible without you.  I love you.

FORWARD: The Veil Between

Look around you for a moment.  What can you see?  What aromas are filling the air around you?  How do the pages of this book feel to your fingers?  What sounds are echoing in your ears?  Take a moment to drink it all in and savor all the messages your mind is receiving from the physical world around you.

Would it surprise you to learn that everything you experience in this physical world, comes from an unseen world?  Well, it does.

Science continues to pull back the curtain and look deeper and deeper into the microscopic world of atoms, molecules and cellular structures.  When I was in school, we were taught that the cell was the smallest building block of life.  Now we know that the cell is made up of possibly millions of parts – each cell is like a self-contained metropolis.

But, the world of cells and atomic structure is only a tiny part of what I mean when I say everything you experience in the physical world comes from an unseen world.  There is also a very real spirit world that exists.  Most of the time it is just beyond our view.  If we could pull back the veil and see what is happening there – in that unseen world, it might change the way we interact with the physical world and with one another.

In this book, I will attempt to take you on an excursion beyond the veil.  It is my hope that the journey will be both entertaining and enlightening as you are given a glimpse of the unseen world and its influence on our experience in this seen world.  I have divided this book into three main sections.

Part One: Stories from Beyond the Veil, includes one Biblical story, The Raging War.  This is a re-telling of the creation story, which many young people do not know these days.

Part One also includes two fictional stories that are based on circumstances from my own life.  Yes, I know this seems like a contradiction.  Let me explain.  Some of the events that I write about in these stories did occur, others are imagined.  I will leave it to you to figure out what is what.

In Matthew and Alissa’s Garden, we get a glimpse of what is happening in the life of a newly married couple – on both sides of the veil.

A Ghost and A Girl is the story of Abigail and Marian, two girls from different eras who share a house in St. Louis, MO.

Part Two: True Short Stories, includes many short and micro stories from my family history as they were passed down to me.  I have grouped these stories in a way that seemed to make sense to me as I was telling them.

Part Three: Gaining an Understanding, is a distilled look at my understanding of all things supernatural.

I hope you enjoy these glimpses into the realm beyond our five senses.

PART ONE: Stories from Beyond the Veil

Story One: The Raging War

There is an epic raging war just beyond the veil that separates the physical and spiritual realms.  The spiritual realm exists beyond our five physical senses.  We all have a sixth sense that allows us to experience the spiritual realm to varying degrees.  The degree to which we are aware of the spiritual realm depends on the degree to which we have developed that sixth sense.

Over the centuries many stories have been told of that spiritual realm by men and women of every culture on the planet who had seen into the world ‘beyond’.  They have tried to share their visions of that world with us in an attempt to raise our awareness of its existence.  Make no mistake about it, whether we are aware of and acknowledge its existence, or not, is totally irrelevant.  The spiritual realm continues to exist and exert an influence on the physical realm.

Some call the result of that influence ‘manifesting’, some call it ‘faith’ and ‘miracles’, others call it ‘chakra’.  There are people who have a highly developed sixth sense.  Others are not even aware of the battles that are happening all around us.  Of course, there are people who exist on the wide spectrum between those two extremes.  The war is a battle between good and evil, right and wrong, life and death – both physical and spiritual.  To the victor goes the spoils…and we, dear friend, are the spoils of that war.  It is a worthwhile endeavor, to develop an awareness of the spiritual realm.

There are principle players in this raging war on both sides.  And, there are tactics they each employee to win.  They both want to win, of course.  After all, no one goes to war with the intent to lose.  Do they?

How it All Began

Perhaps you want to know how this war started?  To answer that we must go back to the beginning of everything.

In the very beginning there was only God.  It was God who created everything on both sides of the veil – both the unseen world and the seen world.  It was even God who created time itself.  Since God tells us that the seen world comes from the unseen world, we can assume the unseen world came first.  For ease, let’s call the unseen world the spirit world and the seen world the physical world.

God set the laws of spirit and nature into place and created many marvelous creatures to inhabit both realms.  In the spirit realm, it seemed good to God to create a race of beings that could do the works they were created to do, but who had no need to reproduce – so they were created without gender.  These angels were neither male, nor female but they embodied the best characteristics of both genders – courage and compassion.  God created the number of angels that seemed correct to him.  Some were given more authority than others and each had a unique purpose.  They were happy to fulfill their purpose.

There was a deep and resonating harmony that flowed throughout the spirit world.  It was totally satisfying like the early morning bird song accompanied by the rising sun and the fresh, clean smell of a meadow in bloom after the rain.  To say that it was lovely beyond compare, does not even begin to describe the orderly humming of the spirit world God had made.

One of the creatures God created was named Lucifer, and he was beautiful.  Lucifer was created to lead the other angels in praise and worship to God.  Lucifer was given the tools he needed to do his job well.  Every type of musical instrument was sewn into his very being and his voice was, well, it was the voice of an angel.  When Lucifer lifted that voice in praise to God, all the spirit world joined him.  Harmony continued to flow throughout the realm.

The trouble began when Lucifer began to be jealous of God.  He began to ask himself, why?  Why should God be the focus of everyone’s praise?  Lucifer knew he was more beautiful and it was he who set the praise and worship into motion throughout the spirit world.  So, he decided that everyone should sing his praise and worship him.  After all, he was just as good, if not better than, God.

That is when the discord began.  In the end, Lucifer convinced about one-third of the angels to join him in his rebellion.  Now, rather than living in the harmony that God had created, the songs clashed.  It wasn’t long before swords clashed as well.

I cannot tell you how long that first battle raged, because it was fought before time began.  I can tell you that God, the Creator of all, won that battle and cast Lucifer and his followers out.  They were banished and denied the joy of fellowship.  Some might say they had been shunned.  They were even given new names.

What happened to Lucifer and his followers after they were shunned by God for their rebellion?  How can I paint that picture for you?  Have you ever seen a red-hot coal after it was removed from the fire?  If you have, then you know it doesn’t take long for that coal to lose its glow and heat.  OR, have you ever witnessed what happens to a starfish when it is removed from the sea?  Then, you know it grows hard and brittle without the nourishing waters of the ocean.  Here’s another picture, a plum that is ripe and juicy on the tree shrivels and turns into a dark prune when removed from the tree.  All of those things, and more, happened to Lucifer and his followers:  they lost their glow, they shriveled and they became hard and brittle.

For now, the war continues to rage.  Lucifer is fighting to gain more support for his cause and God is fighting to restore the harmony He intended for His creation.

Creating the Physical Realm

When God decided to create a physical realm He also made, with it, time.  The first thing that happened was that God shone His light over the darkness and watery nothingness.  Then He separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light day and the darkness night.  This is when time began and it was the first day.

The second thing God did was to create a separation between the spiritual and physical realms.  That separation was also reflected in the physical realm itself.  God gathered some of the water above into a sort of bubble of water above that surrounded the water that was left below.  This layer of water was called heaven.  Perhaps you have heard of the ‘heavens.’  That refers to both the spirit realm and what we call the ‘sky’ or ‘outer space’.  That was the second day.

On the third day, God separated the dry land from the water and filled the land with plants of all kinds.  He also gave the plants the ability to reproduce other plants like themselves.  The flowers, trees and grasses made the ‘earth’ colorfully beautiful, especially when set against the bright, deep, blues of the waters.  God said, it’s good.

On the fourth day, God turned His attention to the outer space.  He placed lights there, to show the passage of time and changing of the seasons.  The ‘sun’ ruled over the day and the ‘moon’ and ‘stars’ ruled over the night.

The fifth day was quite busy.  God filled the sea with creatures of all sorts and the sky with flying creatures.  He gave them all the ability to reproduce other creatures like themselves.  God took the time to create a wide variety of creatures.  Consider the humble ladybug for instance.  God created over 5000 variant species of that one creature.  He certainly loves variety and His creation shows it everywhere.

The sixth day of creation was another very busy day.  God created all the animals and creeping crawling creatures.