ASCENSION TOWARD HEAVEN IS NOT A ONE-TIME HAPPENING.Each footstep on our spiritual journey moves us forward, Spiritward. Every step in the right direction, however inconsequential it may seem, is of consequence, for every step toward Spirit, God, is a step upward and away from the downward pull of mortality.

And in our ongoing spiritual journey, God gives us angels—His spiritual messages—to inspire and guide us. Angels (who actually are not beings with wings as we’ve so often seen them represented, but are thoughts or messages from divine Mind, God) are always present at every moment to uplift us. They can be recognized, as Mary Baker Eddy described them, “by the love they create in our hearts” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 306).

Often I can tell when an angel has touched my heart with a loving message by the tears of relief that well up in me. “Love is expressing you,” an angel message whispered in my thought one day, and I felt a sigh of relief. To me, that meant that instead of striving so hard to express God and His love, I could understand that God, who is divine Love itself, is and always has been expressing me. This angel thought enabled me to ascend that day above the fear that I didn’t love enough to help and heal anyone, especially a dear friend struggling with pain. This divine message from God, assuring me and giving me confidence, lifted me above the limitations of a personal sense of love to glimpse divine Love’s universal active presence. And as I realized this truth, in turn, my friend for whom I’d been praying experienced healing.

But this angel message didn’t just come out of the blue. For a long time I had been thinking about this statement in Science and Health: “God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis” (Science and Health, p. 258).

Like a tripod, as an idea from God develops and goes up higher, its base broadens to rightly support this ascending idea. We need never be afraid of following God’s thoughts, even if they take us into new territories. With angel messages leading the way, we can expect to be sure-footed as we climb our ascending path.

In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy defines angels, in part, as “God’s thoughts passing to man” (Science and Health, p. 581). These ascending thoughts, when daily entertained, move us farther and farther away from lack and inharmony of any kind, and closer to the understanding and demonstration of eternal life. And for God’s thoughts to come and lift up thought is not an unusual experience for anyone of any age. It is never too early—and never too late!—to hear these angel messages. And they do not always have to come to us directly from God. We can even hear them from the inspired sharing of another person.

One time while driving through heavy city traffic with our two children, I worried about being on time for an appointment and was concerned about finding a parking place. I hadn’t voiced my concerns and had no idea that the children were aware of them. Our son, then a preschooler, suddenly said, “You have what you need.” Immediately I felt relief and peace. I knew I had heard an angel message. My son had received an inspired message from God of assurance and love, which he shared with me. And all of our needs were met that day.

While our son didn’t know the definition of angels, like children everywhere he had the ability to hear and share an angel message, taking a step forward on his own ascending path heavenward. As surely as children learn to walk physically, they learn to take spiritual steps of ascension. Adults can be mindful of this, valuing children and childlikeness as our Master did.

So age does not play a part in being able to receive inspiration—angels—from God. Mrs. Eddy wrote: “Men and women of riper years and larger lessons ought to ripen into health and immortality, instead of lapsing into darkness or gloom. Immortal Mind feeds the body with supernal freshness and fairness, supplying it with beautiful images of thought and destroying the woes of sense which each day brings to a nearer tomb” (Science and Health, p. 248).

At any age, we can accept “freshness and fairness” as apt descriptions of our mental condition. And we can treasure those “beautiful images of thought,” those angel messages impelling us to drop “the woes of sense.” If we look at the human experience simply from a material viewpoint, each day brings all of us nearer to death. However, by holding daily to the spiritual view of existence as ageless and eternal, we will move farther and farther above matter and death. We then ascend day by day toward Life, God, instead of descending toward death. If we know that we ought to be rising above some disappointment or failure, we can insist that in our true selfhood we are already above it, and get on with our spiritual journey. No human circumstance can hold us back.

The ultimate of ascending steps is translation from material existence to the spiritual realm without ever going through the transition called death. For example, in the Bible we read of Enoch’s translation: “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (Gen 5:24). Commenting on this event, the author of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament wrote: “Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God” (Heb. 11:5). “That he pleased God” indicates to me that Enoch continually obeyed God’s directives. He listened for God’s messages enabling him to walk—to know his oneness—with God each ascending step of the way.

The New Testament also tells us of Jesus’ final days on earth after his resurrection from the dead. After Jesus had given final instructions to the disciples, we read that “while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9).

The realization that Christ Jesus is the Way-shower and that we can and must follow him in all his ways has led me to query, How can we leave the human scene as the Master did—that is, by total ascension—without the experience of material death? Asked a similar question, Mrs. Eddy answered, in part: “I believe in this removal being possible after all the footsteps requisite have been taken up to the very throne, up to the spiritual sense and fact of divine substance, intelligence, Life, and Love. This translation is not the work of moments; it requires both time and eternity. It means more than mere disappearance to the human sense; it must include also man’s changed appearance and diviner form visible to those beholding him here” (Mis., pp. 67–68).

That statement explained something precious that had happened at my mother’s passing. During her last hour, I continued to quote to her some of her favorite Bible verses, including the 23rd Psalm. Whether or not my mother heard what I quoted from the Bible, there’s no doubt in my mind she was receiving comforting angel messages from God. She had always striven to live a good life and be guided by God’s word. I could clearly see her become more and more beautiful, which confirmed for me that she was hearing God’s loving messages. I called my sister, and she saw the change, too. This stopped my sister’s tears. We definitely saw a “changed appearance and diviner form.”

This beautiful appearance of my mother at her passing made me realize even more acutely that death isn’t the fearsome last enemy it claims to be. It is simply the “last” enemy we meet on our spiritual climb. This last enemy to be overcome cannot cut short our ascending steps, nor can it forward them. Angelic messages of love and life simply continue to lift us upward.

We sometimes see this changed visage in others just in everyday life as their appearances record their spiritual advancement. How glorious that our daily experience can move us, not toward ugliness and death, but toward beauty and life everlasting. This possibility gives both meaning and purpose to each day. It lifts human experience above the downward pull of materiality. Our ascending thought enables us to change the human scene for the better. It makes us healers, revealers of God’s kingdom on earth. The requisite footsteps of ascending thought lift earthly experience into the harmony where we get a glimpse of heaven now.

Another angel message I received at one time came in words similar to lines in a hymn. I heard: “This day has need of you.” (The actual line of the hymn reads, “Behold, today hath need of thee” [William H. Burleigh, adapted, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 6].) I had been giving in to the temptation to go back to sleep instead of meeting the day and attending to my healing practice. But when I heard His angel message, I was inspired to go into my office to pray instead of continuing in bed.

This day, each day, has need of our ascending thought. What we think today, what we accept each moment as eternally true, makes a difference in our lives and in the world. Footsteps we take in the light of spiritual truth bring us and our world nearer to the eternal truth of being and farther away from human inequities and all that takes away the joy of living.

Often I find our days have many little hills to climb. Fear, lack of inspiration, and vivid impressions of evil demand our attention. As we face these incursions of error, we can open ourselves to receiving God’s thoughts. We can view the challenges of daily life as opportunities for elevating our world above matter, sin, and death. What a glorious adventure to be ascending each day above the mundane and material.

No matter how rugged our path may be, or how ungodlike our actions have been, we can find the ladder of ascension such as Jacob experienced. The Bible tells us that as Jacob fled the danger his own sin had created, one night alone in the dark, “he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it” (Gen. 28:12).

I have often wondered about angels, God’s thoughts, both ascending and descending. One way to look at this is that no matter how far they must descend to get to us, angels can reach us where we are. When some inspired intuition has touched our thought and rescued us from the depths of despair, we then ascend to some degree.

“Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?” the Psalmist asked, and then answered, “He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully” (Ps. 24:3, 4). These are good guidelines to measure our footsteps, but they must not be used to imply that some reach heaven, harmony, while others are not good enough to ascend. Actually, the universal and unending possibility of each one ascending is based on the fact that the man of God’s creating has never been separated from heaven and does not need to take footsteps toward it.

Jesus said, “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven” (John 3:13). Commenting on this, Mrs. Eddy explained: “Jesus’ true and conscious being never left heaven for earth. It abode forever above, even while mortals believed it was here. He once spoke of himself (John iii. 13) as ‘the Son of man which is in heaven,’—remarkable words, as wholly opposed to the popular view of Jesus’ nature” (No and Yes, p. 36).

Understanding the fact that our true Christly nature has “never left heaven for earth” impels our human footsteps Godward. Listening to and obeying God’s thoughts, we cannot fail to rise above arguments of mortality. The popular opinion that man is separated from God and must go through the process called death to get to heaven yields to the recognition that in reality we have never left our place in the heavenly kingdom. With this understanding, we needn’t count our footsteps or those of others, but rejoice in today’s opportunities to ascend to the realm of Mind, God, where all true consciousness dwells.

Today’s need for all humanity to experience more of God’s kingdom on earth is supplied by the love God creates in our hearts, and this love propels us, and all, upward on angel wings.