This was new for me, and I wasn’t very happy about it. For the first time in my life, I would not spend my birthday (December 21), Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day with my family. Although very cautious and following all recommended medical guidelines, my daughter and her youngest contracted covid. The thoughts of Cassie and Shalane being sick added fuel to those holiday blues that creep in my direction this time of year.
Unable to be with my daughter and her family, the highlight of my quiet birthday was going to bed early. The next day, I helped Cassie by making stops at the grocery and buying last-minute gifts from several department stores. I unloaded the bags and carefully placed them on Cassie’s front porch, then dutifully waited in my car to get a glimpse of Cassie, Dan, and the girls. I kept my fingers crossed that Dan and Lorelai would not get sick.
Once again, I went to bed early and fell into a deep sleep. My dreams sent me into my past as a school psychologist. I looked around. The hilly road told me I was no longer in Florida, but I did not recognize my surroundings. I pulled my car to the shoulder of the narrow lane, locked my doors, and began walking the steep incline toward a large school. As I topped the hill and looked to my left, I saw the area for cars to park.
Realizing I’d left my car in the wrong area, I quickly returned and drove up the hill and into the designated area. Now, I thought, I’ve reached my destination.
I entered the school and sat behind a desk in a busy hallway. Several people passed me, and some made small talk, but I didn’t recognize anyone until someone burst through a closed doorway. Memories flooded into my awareness from thirty years before; I knew this man; it was George. He ran to me, looked me in the eyes, and frantically repeated, “I’m okay! I’m okay! I’m okay!”
I had not seen George in almost thirty years. We both worked as administrators in a school district in another state. Although I knew who he was, for some reason, George spelled his last name out loud. As he enunciated each letter, he said the first and last syllables of his name were identical. Then he faded into the background of my dreamscape.
Why had he spelled his name? Was he giving me details that would ensure I would remember the dream? I had no idea.
When I woke the next morning, December 23, I journaled my dream. Next step: verify what I intuitively knew would be true: George had passed. I entered his name in a search engine and found his obituary. He had transitioned almost four months before, on August 28, 2021. August 28 is forever etched in my memory; that late August date in 2013, was the day of that fateful early-morning commute when the world of spirit opened to me. I changed from psychologist to psychic and transformed from skeptic to believer during that ten-minute drive to work.
What do we do when we’re presented with information from beyond? That has been my dilemma since day one—hence the “reluctant” part of The Reluctant Messenger. I thought about last night’s interactions with this man. I realized he, perhaps with the help of his angels, had orchestrated the dream: a school setting in an environment with hills for me to ascend—a perfect common ground to meet.
I thought about how ecstatic George was to see me and how determined he was for me to remember him. I knew he wasn’t eager for me to hear his message; his words were meant for his family.
I’ve traveled far beyond the what if they don’t believe me phase. I would share the message with George’s family. Whether they rejected or accepted the information was out of my hands, after all, I’m just the messenger.
After a little sleuthing, I was able to connect with his family over social media. I sent a direct message to his wife, Becky, telling her who I was and that I had worked with George years before. I explained I had seen George in a dream and how I learned the next morning of his passing. I presented her a few details from the dream, held my breath, and clicked send.
On Christmas Eve, I posted an e-card on my home page on one of my social media platforms. It was a beautiful picture of a tiny bird warming itself in the mane of a snow-dappled horse. In response to the image, Becky replied with these words: “You are one of my most special Christmas Blessings!”
Her response warmed my heart; I realized Becky’s words were a Christmas gift for me. I may be separated from my family during this holiday season, but the recognition that we continue once our physical form drops—that’s priceless. Becky had understood the deeper meaning behind George’s message.
This morning, Christmas Day, I connected with Cassie and the family through FaceTime. After several days of high fever and compromised lungs, thankfully, all are improving. That, too, is a gift for me. It’s the best present I could hope for: my loved ones returning to a state of good health.
After the FaceTime call, I sat at my computer to write this blog. As I entered the details about George spelling his name out loud and describing how the first and last syllables are identical, I picked up a pen and printed his last name on a piece of paper.
Instinctively, my hand clasped my mouth in an unsuccessful attempt to stifle my gasp. My eyes sparkled with tears as I realized what George said was true. What was it about this pattern? Had he told others of this? I have no idea, but this discovery offered another layer of validation of his message.
An understanding greater than words slipped into my awareness, and I began to recognize the significance of meeting George in my dream. It was more than a communication from a former coworker who asked me to be a messenger. There was a much larger picture. George’s words are for everyone, not just his family.
We are spiritual beings temporarily living in these physical shells. When our bodies no longer serve us, our true essence continues. Our loved ones in spirit live on, often watching over us. Listening to the wisdom found within your dreams can be priceless. Don’t be afraid to share; that’s when validations occur.
“If distance or health prevents you from being with family or friends, let your memories bring you back to times of joy and happiness.” As my words from the e-card entered my awareness, I thought of George’s frantic message to communicate he was okay; it was a vivid reminder of the promise of never-ending life. Sharing my memories of my dream with George offered some solace for his family.
Open your hearts to receive these divine messages. Thank your angels, guides, and loved ones. Honor their presence by keeping their memories alive in your hearts. Although I was unable to be with my children and grandchildren during this holiday season, George’s message helped fill the void. It was a priceless gift. His frantic message to tell me he was okay is a vivid reminder that we never die. Our true essence, our spirit, our soul, lives on.
Sometimes when we pause long enough to take a deep breath, we slip into a space of divinity, allowing the hustle and bustle of our world to drop away. Whether it’s in a dream, in the whisper of a distant songbird, or embedded in a gentle breeze that carries fragrant memories to our hearts, when the conditions are just right, our loved ones just might visit. Be open, give thanks, and welcome their words.
- Biography
- Books
In ten minutes, my life changed forever. My comfortable six decades of living became unrecognizable. Change brings different perspectives, and I soon discovered I questioned everything I knew, or thought I knew, about life.
In ten minutes, my life changed forever. My comfortable six decades of living became unrecognizable. Change brings different perspectives, and I soon discovered I questioned everything I knew, or thought I knew, about life.
Before that August morning, I epitomized normalcy—others might have called my life boring. I went to work each day, came home, read a book, and talked on the phone or sat in front of some sort of electronic screen. My life revolved around my work and my children. In 1987, at the age of thirty-five, my husband died, and I was left to raise my son and daughter by myself. Both are now married with children of their own. Phillip works in the music industry and lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and Cassie lives just a few miles away from me in Naples, Florida. As I look back on my life then, nothing appeared out of the ordinary—not in the way I dressed and spoke, or in my habits, work, friendships, or thoughts. As a psychologist, I differentiated normal from abnormal, and my life represented nothing but the commonplace.
On August 28, 2013, a brief experience changed everything. The foundation of my belief system cracked. I had to suspend my assumptions about the world to make room for different truths. As a result, I careened off life’s comfortable, and perhaps mundane, path. I now view the universe quite differently. Looking back, my life before that ten-minute experience seems as if it belonged to someone else.
● The Reluctant Messenger: Tales from Beyond Belief – Order Now
● The Reluctant Messenger Returns: An Unexpected Adventure Into the Angelic Realm – Order Now
The Reluctant Messenger book series leads the reader through a doorway into another dimension that exists simultaneously with what most people would describe as reality. Author Candice Sanderson is a psychologist whose training taught her to engage her world by the physical senses, but that all changed on morning when she began to receive messages from other realms of existence. Follow this ordinary person’s extraordinary journey into the unknown through her books, The Reluctant Messenger: Tales from Beyond Belief and The Reluctant Messenger Returns: An Unexpected Adventure Into the Angelic Realm.
The Reluctant Messenger: Tales from Beyond Belief
The Reluctant Messenger chronicles the spiritual journey of Candice M. Sanderson, a psychologist who inadvertently veered off of life’s comfortable path when she began to receive messages from other realms of existence. Her extraordinary journey into the unknown began early one morning on her commute to work.
As a psychologist, her training had taught her to measure her surroundings by the five physical senses. It something could not be heard, seen, felt, smelled, or tasted, it did not exit. This early-morning commute changed everything. These communications were too strong to ignore, and the clinically-trained psychologist had to work through doubt, fear, and her own professional judgment to acknowledge these messages.
Though reluctant, Candice became a messenger, bringing news of a verifiable spiritual dimension. She learned truths about the fluid nature of time and how near-death experiences could alter timelines. Ascended masters and beings from the angelic realms shared both universal and personal messages of love and hope. Messages from star beings and other galactic entities communicated to her about energy grids that protected our Earth. She learned of the very nature of our existence.
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This experience had me in tears thinking about losing someone deeply loved and so recently lost.
Those “firsts” are the most difficult: that first Christmas, that first birthday, that first anniversary. But knowing they are trying to communicate with us to ease our pain—priceless. 💜
That’s a nice one, thanks for sharing. Also seeing the white horse on the postcard yesterday, has carried a message for me as well. Especially in spirit of what the article is about.
That’s great to hear, Adrian. I love how synchronistic messages weave their way into our hearts.
They really do!
Thanks for posting this,, Candie. As you usually do, you’ve triggered all kinds of thoughts and images in my mind. This is what I so enjoy about your spiritual gift AND it’s one of several things that makes you stand out amongst all the other authors in this discipline.
Hope you don’t mind, but this is going to be a long post. There are several points I think deserve extra attention and some different perspectives.
1. Though none of us wants to see those we love go through what Cassie and Shalane did, there are times that their experiences generate or trigger systemic events that would otherwise not have occurred.
In some instances, you would not be able to know about those events because they would be in the lives of others that you had never met and would likely never know about. Or would you……
Think about that last comment….”Would You”.
Do you remember our discussion about the download I received while attending a class at TMI in 2011 that focused on the complicated topic of “Ordered Effect Theory”? It’s entirely possible, in my opinion, that the other side needed you to do something important, but they also needed the support of Cassie and Shalane to make it very, very real in several ways.
When you had the dream about George and then decided to contact his wife, Becky, you were doing exactly what they needed you to do. YOU were their instrument of “Love” and they needed you just as much as George needed you in that moment.
What you don’t know is how the experience that Becky had with your sharing of George’s message affected her or how she reacted to that moment with others around her….or, for that matter, what she did as a result.
You had a response from her that gave you a hint, but the full detail was not available to you.
These are all part of a Second and Third Order Effect. The Second Order Effect is Becky’s response to you. The Third Order Effect is something that you wouldn’t know unless someone shared it with you. But, given her response, I’d be willing to bet that she shared that message with others and that likely caused a positive reaction amongst her audience.
2. Do you remember a movie that was popular years ago called, “The Sixth Sense”? Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osmet were the leading actors. Bruce, as I recall, was a psychologist and Joel was a little boy growing up in a single parent household.
The audience likely didn’t realize at the time they were watching the movie that Bruce’s character had been murdered by his patient. But, Bruce, as a loving spirit, then became tied to Haley who was suffering a variety of psychological challenges including being visited by spirits who, at times, seemed dark or intensely troubled.
Bruce stuck with him and helped him understand and grow through all of those difficult spiritual lessons. At one point, they both went to a home of a mother who had lost a child. That child had visited Haley and asked for his help and he gave it.
The First Order Effect of his decision was Haley’s realization that he could do this and there was a very good reason for him to follow through…..delivering a kind of love….a truth….to the child’s mother.
The Second Order Effect was to see how everyone reacted to that truth AND how Haley grew spiritually from his experience.
But then what happened after that? Bruce realized, suddenly, that he was a spirit guiding Haley and his love for him was the bond that kept them together. But then another door opened in his spiritual growth and that’s when he realized he was in spirit form and his new role was more than just guiding Haley….he had grown himself and he needed ALL of this to make sure that growth happened.
Okay, so think about that for moment. Here’s how this relates to you.
A. You were Becky’s Haley delivering a message of love from George.
B. You were also Bruce in the sense that your Spirit Guides knew they could trust you to do this despite the fact you had to accept the risks associated with Cassie and Shalane’s illness. This was the tool that needed to be in place for that door to open for George to deliver the message, give it strength, and energy when it was delivered to Becky.
C. This is preparing you for more important activity that is now about to happen in your life because you have proven that you will set aside your EGO, lose your sense of bringing attention to yourself, and focusing your open heart on others that you intend to at least try and help.
There’s one more important element to this that I think is worth mentioning. As long as I’ve known you (and that’s like several years now), I have never known you to draw attention to yourself in a way that makes you the center of attention. You go out of your way to ensure that people do not, in fact, compare themselves to you in a way that makes them feel like they’re inferior and you’re superior spiritually or in any other way.
You have always played Bruce’s role in real life as a loving, caring, open person who is here to act as a tool for others so that if they choose to, they can learn and become more than what they are. It’s all up to them.
That last part, I believe, is something your Spirit Guides knew before they contacted you in 2013 and began this evolving process with you and you continue to do that to this date.
Okay, I’m done now……
Keith, thank you for your thorough reply. It’s interesting, I had just been thinking about Sixth Sense the other day, and here’s your post, using the movie to bring home some of the points you are making about Second and Third Ordered Effects.
In the movie, Bruce Willis, like me, was a psychologist. That’s another comparison that makes me smile. You’re perceptive to recognize the growth Willis had as a spiritual
being. He had evolved while in spirit form.
It’s interesting that you picked up on that. An hour before you posted this comment,
I uploaded another YTube video from my Throwback Series. I reviewed a message
from October 24, 2013, just 7 weeks after I began spontaneously channeling.
The first paragraph of the message reads: “When observing those who have crossed over, the essence of that person’s energy body is different, it has changed. That is all that has changed. At some point in time, everyone from the Earth plane will evolve—yes, we say “evolve” to an energy body that is of a finer nature. Remaining in the Earth plane keeps the human body at a denser level.”
The first message endorses your comment by stating those who have crossed over are the same; only their energy body has changed—that was obvious about Willis’ character. He thought he was still in human form and acted as if he were still in 3-D.
The second part of the message talks about how we “evolve” when we transition—something you just pointed out about Willis’ character. His spiritual growth began after his transition. When we’re in higher vibrational states, the picture clears. We see Truth in places that may have been too murky to perceive before.
Now, I’m the one getting too wordy. I’ll stop for now, but I wanted you to know the interesting hits that I had received about your post before you posted. 💜
“Wordiness”…..I’m guilty, but it’s how I learn and I enjoy sharing these things as they occur to me because it’s yet another way for me to learn.
I still feel like I’m in Kindergarten with all of this stuff. But, when “students” choose to set aside their ego, their tendency to judge others, and focus on the subject “What am I beginning to see” then the quality of the discussion is allowed to grow….expand.
This was one of the first things I learned while attending a TMI course taught by Francine King. And boy, has that lesson been driven home many, many times.