The curly haired girl, with strong long legs and freckled cheeks was going home on her bicycle.

Distracted, she was thinking about what her mother must have made for dinner.

When she turned a corner, a car with two young boys inside it stopped next to her.

She thought that they were her brother’s friends. The one sitting next to the driver put his head outside the window, looking at her.

He had long hair, just like her brother Michael.

He smiled and asked her if she wanted a lift back home.

No, thanks - she answered - I live just there, on the corner. I am almost home.

He insisted: Come on. It is going to be fun. Come and have a ride with us.

She looked around. There was nobody about, the street was empty, and there were no cars to be seen.

She started to feel dizzy, and she could not move. She felt as hypnotized.

On that exact moment, she heard a voice inside her head. Or at least, she thought it was inside her head.

Run! Run away.

Images of the eleven-years-old girl’s house started flashing in her head.

She woke up from the paralysis that fear had provoked on her and pedalled as fast as she could towards her house.

The car went the other way.

When she got home, she had pedalled with so much strength that she was out of breath, feeling a pain in her chest.

Still shaking, she ran into her mother’s arms, telling her what had just happened.

Unfortunately, as many parents do, her mother did not pay much attention to the attempt of infant kidnapping her daughter had just suffered.

However, the young girl knew that the voice inside her head had saved her.

The episode touched the girl deeply. Twenty years later, she still remembers the scene with all its details.

On that day, she remembers to have promised herself that when she grew up, she would do something to protect children from their aggressors.

She did not know exactly how, but she was sure one day she would dedicate herself to that cause.

She thought about becoming a lawyer and a judge, to give severe sentences to people who harm children.

When she grew up, she helped create an alert system of children’s kidnapping in the State of Arizona, where she lives.

The big conviction she has from that episode is that on that horrifying day, when she was eleven years old, there was an angel next to her.

Not only did he protect her on that afternoon, but he put her on the path which she followed; as she tells us herself.

Tracing the profiles of criminals for the police, helping on the capture of kidnappers, she feels gratified.

She feels even more pleased when her words bring comfort to the parents of the victims, helping to take away the pain from their hearts.                                 

*   *   *

Not many of us realize how we are protected, because it is a very subtle protection.

Ideas arrive as an intuition, and most of the time we believe them to be our own.

Cross the road. Go that way. Look behind.

Many times, help is provided through the happy interference of a relative, a friend or maybe even a stranger.

Someone who arrives and suggests something. Someone who goes by and helps us.

Think about it and be attentive to the help which comes from heavens every single day, learning to hear with lucidity, and being grateful.

Text written by the Spiritist Moment Team based on chapter 3 from the book “Não é preciso dizer adeus,” by Allison Dubois, publishing house: Sextante