Recently I had a reader ask me how real were the situations I wrote about in Where Angels Dwell, my newest novel. The first two chapters, up until the time the main character is released from the hospital, are about ninety percent real. I changed a few things, like the names of characters, and what I said to ‘Father Kevin’ during my confession, but other than that, the events, and most of the conversations, actually happened.

Don’t worry, other than revealing the fictitious name of the priest in the book, I won’t be revealing any secrets. You can read on without worry.

I’m a firm believer in the philosophy that everything happens for a reason. Yes – everything. Some of the reasons are small, while others are life changing. But everything, every new encounter, every relationship that ends, every experience we have, is all there for a purpose. What is the purpose of these events? Simply, to help us find ours.

We are all born for a reason. We have to be. If we weren’t, then there would be no reason for life to exist at all. To believe that we are here now due to nothing more than a series of random events, to me, doesn’t make sense. For one, when you look at it from the perspective of randomness, the odds against humanity existing far exceed the chance that we did.

There are hundreds of factors that had to all be exactly as they are now, not only for life to have begun in the first place, but for intelligent life to have evolved. Change even just one of those factors by a fraction of a percentage, and, well, *poof*, no more humans. Not intelligent ones anyway.

Now, if everything happened for a reason, then there has to be a defining cause that created the reason for all that is. You can’t have a universe where everything happens for a reason, and yet not believe that there is a higher purpose to direct all the little purposes.

What does all this mean? That there was a purpose for me to have had the experience of near death in September of last year. What the purpose was, exactly, I’m still discovering. Part of it was the creation of the Where Angels book series. Part of it was to provide me the opportunity to engage in thoughts about the end of life. And part of it was to bring about a transformation in my daily mindset. All of which are leading me to even greater and more powerful changes down the road.

We know life is cyclical. The seasons come and go, new lives are born while others die. The same holds true for us. There are times when we are learning and growing, and times when we are at rest – at least spiritually. Our life cycles are all centered on one thing – helping us find our purpose. The phases are; Experiencing, Understanding, Applying, and Change.

For example, the time I spent in the hospital was in the Experiencing phase. I wasn’t meant to learn or understand at the time, but simply to experience what was happening. Later on I began to understand and discover the purpose behind what I experienced. Now, I’m in the phase where I am beginning to apply what I’ve learned to my life. When I have applied everything that I learned, I will reach a new way of being, a new way of perceiving. I will have changed.

When we break this cycle, we never obtain the change that God wants us to have. This is the reason why some people go through the same or very similar situations over and over again. They never reach the point of understanding what they were meant to learn, or they learn, but they fail to apply the lesson to their life. Or they try to hold on to the way things used to be, the way they already know, what is comfortable.

Life isn’t meant for comfort though. Life is meant to be lived in the cycles. Happiness one moment, sorrow the next, anger, joy, frustration…they are all part of the process of being alive. To deny ourselves any of these, is to deny ourselves life.