Introduction

Can Children Communicate with the Dead?

Have you ever wondered if your child was really seeing and talking to the spirit of your deceased mother, father, grandparent, aunt, uncle, sibling, children, pet, angels, or other holy beings, and if so, is this a rare phenomenon?

Have you noticed that your child’s ability to see and hear spirits is strongly continuing on through his or her teenage years, and have you been wondering why?

Have you been yearning to guide your child’s spiritual gift properly, but didn’t know where to even begin? Or have you anxiously wondered if what you’ve been doing was correct?

Have you been unsure about how to distinguish the difference between a good spirit and a bad spirit, correctly, and how to protect your child safely?

Have you questioned whether your child’s supernatural abilities are compatible with your religion? Have you been searching for a book that gives you positive scriptural backup for pursuing spiritual gifts—but have come up empty-handed?

Have you wished that you could find a basic reference guide to explain easily to your younger or older child the mysterious and complex concepts of afterlife contacts, spiritual gifts, death, spirits, angels, Heaven, God, and our life’s purpose? Have you been looking for practical advice on how to help your child express and recover from his or her grief?

Congratulations! You have finally found that all-inclusive book on all those many topics in Heaven Talks to Children. I believe that you were spiritually led to this book to guide you in finding the answers that your mind and heart have been seeking. This book is that comprehensive, easy-to-understand, basic reference guide. The information included in these chapters will assist you in safely navigating through those uncharted, supernatural, spiritual waters when it comes to afterlife contacts and spiritual gifts. It will be an invaluable blueprint for you better to understand your child’s ability to communicate with the spirits. It gives instructions on how to differentiate between good and bad spirits. It gives you simple but powerful protective prayers for you and your children to call upon. It cites specific locations where you can find positive scriptural support to help you feel at peace about using those God-given spiritual gifts. It provides answers to your children’s questions on the mystifying topics of death, Heaven, God, angels, spirits, and afterlife visits, and it provides answers to why we are here. It gives thoughtful suggestions on how to assist your grieving child express his or her sad feelings and other emotions and how to recover from the pain of grief.

Most of the world’s major religions believe in the existence of God and an afterlife. There are differing beliefs as to what exactly happens after we die and what actually gets us into that wonderful and desired place we call Heaven to be with God for all eternity. Since this is not a book about comparative religions, I have not covered what the major religions’ beliefs of the world are on how one can attain Heaven or what other ethereal experiences await us if we do not. There are many books on the market on those topics by very learned and scholarly people.

Although for the purposes of full disclosure, I am an open- minded Catholic with traditional beliefs in the Bible. I also respect those of other faiths and beliefs. However, this book is not going to concentrate on my personal Catholic beliefs, nor is it going to try to convert your own personal belief system to mine. When it comes to the topics of Heaven and our life’s purpose, I will be using widespread information gleaned from notable and credible near-death experiences (NDEs), to give you the benefit of fascinating insights into those mysterious topics.

While reading this book, you may come across some spiritual concepts that you do not readily agree with. That is perfectly understandable, of course, and to be expected. If you have been intrigued by these spiritual topics and have done a lot of prior reading on these subjects, you would have probably noticed that not every authority on these matters has identical beliefs. Some very credible authorities on spirituality or religion or both disagree and contradict each other at times, which can be quite confusing to you, the spiritual seeker. Therefore, if you come across some information in this book that you do not agree with, for whatever reason, I respectfully ask that you keep an open mind.

Perhaps you could briefly pray about it, asking God to reveal to you the truth about what you are reading. I also ask that if you do not agree with some of the information in this book, take with you what does feel right to you and store in the back of your mind that which you do not presently agree with. At a later time in your personal spiritual journey, you may be pleasantly surprised to find that the information you questioned may suddenly ring true to you after all. It may be the missing piece of the spiritual puzzle you discover fits in perfectly, giving you that elated aha moment of enlightenment and satisfaction!

I would like to move on and share with you what prompted me to write about children’s afterlife encounters by starting off with a strange spiritual occurrence from my own childhood. When I was around six or seven years old, there were a few times when I feared I was going blind. A sudden and unexpected brilliant, white light, shaped in a sphere about one inch in diameter would manifest itself in my mind’s eye. This white ball of light would transform itself slowly into a neon purplish color and continue to change into a glowing lime green color. The colors were breathtakingly beautiful. This luminous sphere would be superimposed over physical objects in my direct field of vision. This phenomenon would last for about thirty seconds and then completely dissipate into the same nothingness it mysteriously materialized from. Those thirty seconds, though, felt like an eternity to a scared little kid who thought this episode could possibly mean that she was going to go blind.

The strange light’s appearance only happened a few times when I was a child. And I didn’t tell my parents or anyone else about it. I was just so relieved that it would always disappear and that my eyesight wasn’t affected. So I was happy to put it out of my mind and to continue playing. From my own childhood experiences, I can now identify with those children who have experienced unusual spiritual phenomena and who have never given it a second thought. Children seem to accept things that happen easily, even when they are out of the ordinary. Many times they just keep it close to the vest.

I do not believe in coincidences. So while writing this book in .... when two different women contacted me within a few weeks of each other about a similar ball of light, I felt I was meant to share their circumstances with you here. There may be others who have been experiencing this same phenomenon. These two women (who do not know each other) contacted me separately for guidance. They both were experiencing a manifestation of a similar brilliant purple and lime green ball of light. In one woman’s case, immediately after the ball of light would materialize, she would start to see visions of future events with precise details concerning the people involved. Some of these future events have since come true. The other woman said she saw a purple and green colored light appear to her in her room. While she was observing it, she felt a sense of her loved one’s spiritual presence.

In my particular case, I had forgotten all about the mysterious and colorful brilliant sphere of light that I had occasionally experienced as a child. It was not until a few decades later in .... that it would return, and then it was only after an unexpected amazing super natural visit I received from the afterlife from my in-laws. Although I am neither a psychic nor a medium, on March …my “dead” mother-in-law and father-in-law spontaneously appeared to me in my bedroom during the night, and they stayed for about an hour. This otherworldly visit rocked my world. I had never had an afterlife visit prior to my dead in-laws’ appearance on that extraordinary night. This was to be the first of many frequent visits from them.

After the first miraculous appearance of my in-laws in ...., I started to see a familiar brilliant white sphere of light in my mind’s eye that would transform itself into glowing colors of purple and lime green. The appearance of this luminous sphere jogged my memory back in time to my childhood experiences with the same glowing light. It now dawned on me that when I was a young child, the extraordinary light appearing to me was some type of spiritual contact from the other side. I had no way of knowing this at the time.

Now, as an adult, when the luminous ball of light started to appear again, something new had been added to it. I could actually see into the light, and I could see a few people standing in the middle of it. They looked like floating silhouetted people who were wearing fedora hats. It was like a portal into the other side. I had a knowingness that these silhouetted figures were my loved ones who were visiting me from Heaven. My heart was overwhelmed with awe, appreciation, and love whenever this would happen.

After the initial apparition of my dead in-laws on March .., ...., they continued to appear to me a few times a week. I had no idea why, nor did I know what these frequent afterlife visits could possibly mean. Although my in-laws’ apparitions gave me a great deal of peace, I noticed at other times there were other opaque-looking spirits in my bedroom too. I didn’t know who they were or why they were there. They made me feel a bit unnerved and vulnerable, and I wasn’t in control of my situation. I started dreading going to bed at night, even though my husband was sleeping right beside me.

I contacted the pastor of my church seeking answers and assistance about these apparitions. He was very kind and caring; however, he was not able to shed any new light on what was happening to me spiritually. All he was able to offer was that when he was in the seminary, one of the priests mentioned something about his experiencing a friendly poltergeist. Unfortunately, that was mainly the extent of his knowledge about spirits and apparitions. So I was forced to go outside of my church and my comfort zone to find meaningful answers. I went on an unrelenting quest to learn everything I could about afterlife contacts. I searched the Internet. I watched shows on TV about spirits visiting from the afterlife. I read many books on the subject, anything that I could get my hands on that would educate me and help me feel at ease when those unidentified spirits would show up when I went to bed at night.

For protection, I tried using all the methods that were advised in the numerous books I had read on the subject: I tried visualizing white light around me, and I tried forcefully and firmly talking to the spirits and establishing boundaries with them. However, not all those suggested methods worked for me. Those unidentified spirits just would not leave, although I really wanted them to. I continued to feel so vulnerable. It was so spooky going to bed at night and seeing that I was not alone.

Finally a few different people suggested that I contact Judith Guggen heim, coauthor of Hello from Heaven and one of the original researchers in the field of after-death communications (ADCs) in America and Canada. So I did. She recommended that I get in touch with a good friend of hers, Sunni Welles. Welles is an internationally renowned and highly gifted Christian spiritual conduit and prophet.

I followed Guggenheim’s prudent advice and had a private session with Welles. In that comforting and life-changing session, it was explained to me that I was not a psychic or a medium, but rather that my in-laws were just visiting to say hello and to help guide me along a certain path in my life. Some of the ways mentioned that I would be helping others would be spiritually, emotionally, and physically, using the gift of touch healing.

Welles also gave me specific prayers to say to protect myself from unwanted spirits that were not of God. The protective prayers she shared with me proved to be the most powerful and effective means of protection that I have ever come across. This was the missing link that finally gave me the peace and empowerment that I had longed and prayed for at night when all types of spirits would show up uninvited. I will be sharing those specific powerful protective prayers with you later on in chapter ..

The repeated nightly apparitions from my beloved in-laws combined with the information given to me in my session with Welles turned out to be powerful catalysts for my life’s new direction. I eventually went into the field of spiritual bereavement support and became a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist. During my bereavement support work, very surprisingly, I was finding that countless numbers of the bereaved, from diverse belief systems, were also receiving ADCs through contacts and signs from their departed loved ones. To my amazement, I discovered that many people actually expected to receive an afterlife contact or a sign and were quite distressed when one was not forthcoming. I would frequently hear anguished and desperate pleas for help from the bereaved. They would say that they would never know for certain whether their loved ones were okay unless they received an afterlife sign from them. They would say that without an afterlife sign they would never be able to feel at peace with their passing.

There was one woman in particular named Winnie, whose son Roy had passed. Her profound longing for an afterlife sign especially touched my heart. I found her deep pain and sorrow to be especially gut wrenching, and it prompted me to do something proactive I had never considered doing before.

By now it was the year ...., and my own beloved father had passed. I felt greatly blessed by God to be receiving many types of comforting afterlife signs from my dad. Receiving those signs turned my own personal sorrow into joy. I was so very grateful to God for allowing my dad to come and visit me in so many beautiful ways and for healing my heart’s sorrow that I wanted to pay this feeling forward to help Winnie and the others who were grieving and pleading for an ADC sign.

So in order to assist them, I founded a nondenominational Internet grief support and prayer group called Prayer Wave for After-Death Communication. In ....our large and diverse prayer group included close to six hundred members from twenty-one countries around the world. We take prayer requests from those who long to receive an after life sign from their loved ones. My website www.christineduminiak.com also offers a safe haven and message board where the bereaved can learn, discuss, and celebrate their afterlife contacts without the fear of ridicule or disbelief that so many encounter when they try to talk to nonbelievers about afterlife contacts. Many grieving hearts have been healed over the years because of God’s tender love and mercy by His answering the prayers of this wonderful, compassionate group.

As a result of our Prayer Wave for After-Death Communication group’s prayers, an astounding number of bereaved people were finally receiving comforting afterlife contacts from their loved ones. So much so that I believe I was spiritually led to write about their afterlife contacts in a book to share with others. In .... I published God’s Gift of Love: After-Death Communications, which is a compilation of one hundred twenty-three true stories of comforting afterlife contacts from loved ones and which categorizes and describes in detail twenty common types of afterlife contacts and signs.

While writing God’s Gift of Love, I came across many amazing accounts of children who had seen and heard from the spirits of deceased loved ones, pets, Jesus, and angels. I was fascinated by their innocent accounts of talking to the dead. As time went by, I received spiritual guidance to write another book devoted just to children’s spiritual experiences. I followed that heavenly guidance, and I began to delve into this spiritual phenomenon further. I was fascinated to find that children routinely seemed to be naturally inclined to see and hear spirits, much more so than adults. It seems adults were receiving contacts generally through more subtle ways such as dreams, touches, scents, audio, coins, and so on, whereas many children were actually seeing and talking to spirits while they were awake. Sometimes on a regular basis! It was as if there was no veil or barrier separating their natural and supernatural worlds. Since little children are too young to comprehend our cultural and religious views on death and the afterlife and do not have those adult filters, they innocently “tell it like it is” when they see and hear from a “dead” person.

I was captivated by the nonchalant way young children would often spontaneously blurt out about seeing a dead person, without even knowing that person had died or even understanding the meaning of death. The children fully expected that everyone around them could see that spirit too and would become quite exasperated when others couldn’t understand what they were talking about. Children were communicating with spirits and didn’t even know they were talking to the dead. It all seemed very ordinary to them. It’s become obvious to me that many times those imaginary friends we used to attribute automatically to being make-believe playmates can be more than just make-believe; they can actually be spirits.

I was finding that if a young child’s natural God-given spiritual ability to communicate with Heaven is believed, nurtured, encouraged, and accepted and that if taught how to call on God for his or her protection and feelings of safety, then this special gift may continue through the rest of the child’s life. This gift could be used for a higher purpose (God’s purpose) to bring comfort and greater good. However, if the child was frightened, not believed, ridiculed, made to feel ashamed or odd, then the child could develop certain fears and apprehensions and may decide to turn off to his or her spiritual gift. In that case, my studies reveal that the gift will most probably leave the child around eight to ten years old, if not sooner.

Dr. Lisa Miller, a psychotherapist and also a professor of psychology at Columbia University Teacher’s College, advises that some children with spiritual gifts are discriminated against. Miller has met children who were pulled out of their classrooms and isolated from other children after the children told others the spirits of their grand parents had contacted them. Miller has learned that in some countries around the world, for example, India, China, and Mexico, being contacted by one’s grandparents is something to be welcomed. The notion that our ancestors would be in touch with us and would do things for us is not only welcomed but crucial, according to Miller’s findings.

Although in the United States we have not yet reached that same easy openness and welcoming acceptance as other countries have, I am hopeful that the stories in this book will help change that. The stories in Heaven Talks to Children are from people of the following religions: Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Also, others who consider themselves to be metaphysical or spiritual people and say they are not part of any organized religion. Some names have been changed to protect the contributors’ privacy, but the facts they reported have not been altered.

There are over one hundred delightful testimonials about children who innocently and excitedly told their parents or their grandparents that they saw and heard from their dead grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters, friends, pets, Jesus, and angels. The stories are grouped into three age groups, one to four, five to nine, and ten to seventeen years old. In some cases, the child was born after the death of the family member who appeared to them, so he or she never knew that person! In other cases, the very young child had never been told that the person had died, and yet the child was still communicating with the family member as if he or she was still physically here. There are instances where someone who had committed suicide showed the child that he or she was happy and okay now, which helped to deliver a great deal of relief and peace to the suffering surviving family members.

These spiritual experiences were therapeutic and healing for their families. They helped their families know that their loved ones do live on, and that those who are in Heaven continue to see and hear us and try to let us know this by their comforting afterlife visits.

Sometimes God will bless us by sending our departed loved ones to us as a gift of love and compassion, even though we have not prayed or asked for a visit. Many of the children’s experiences in this book, however, were as a direct result of prayer from another grieving family member hoping to receive an afterlife sign. It is my learned belief that spirits in Heaven are under the direct and holy authority of God and, like His angels, are loving servants of God. So I believe those spirits, who visit us to console us, have been given license to do so by God, and we shouldn’t be afraid of the visit. If you or your child has been comforted by a spiritual visit from a loved one, then the thanks goes to God, who, I believe, is trying to reassure and console you with this gift of love bestowed upon you in your time of mourning.

Children are pure and innocent messengers between Heaven and Earth. Their extraordinary connection is meant to bring us love, comfort, and healing from grief by sharing the wonderful news that our loved ones in Heaven are okay and do drop by for a visit from time to time.

Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

—MARK ..:..