I will tell you two experiences I had. If anyone wants to argue about them, sorry, this is not a debate forum. Before I begin, I certainly believe that we should not try to contact the dead, most especially through any kind of mediums. The Bible forbids that. Of course demons love to deceive us. But in my experiences, below, I was not trying to contact anyone and in fact had declared myself to be an agonistic at those times.
The first experience had to do with someone I had a major crush on. He was gorgeous. He was charming and intellectual. Shortly before our first date to be I felt that a kindly step aunt, who had passed on not too long before then, was telling me, inaudibly, not to get involved with him. Now, again, I was declaring myself to be an agnostic. Yet I paid attention. I was already concerned that he might be an alcoholic, so for a reality check, when he came to my home I had some liquor out that I had never touched and watched to see how he would react to it. Well, he didn't get falling down drunk or anything, but that was our one and only date.
Within just a few months he committed suicide. On reflection it was obvious that he was a very troubled man.
The next experience I had, again still declaring myself to be an agnostic, was about 2 years later. I had been fired from my job, which I deserved as I had a bad temper and awful social skills. My unemployment was running out and I was having a hard time finding another job. Then I totaled my car! Police brought me back to my sister's home, where my daughter and I were living. Naturally I was sorta stunned.
Well, I was standing in the kitchen, with the phone behind me. Suddenly I had this experience where in my mind's eye I saw an older man behind me putting his arm around my shoulders, and in my mind's ear he said "Everything is going to be alright." Well! I started to argue with him! Mentally. "How can you say that? I've lost my job, my unemployment is running out and I just totaled my car." I never heard from him (or my step aunt) another time. But suddenly the phone rang behind me.
A woman had seen my name on sme register where I took tests for state jobs. She asked if I wanted to go for an interview, but seemed somewhat doubtful that I would, as the job would be in an institution for extremely physically handicapped, and generally mentally handicapped, people. All those deformed bodies had made other job interviewees turn away. But to me it was a job. Finally.
I took it. Things turned out way better than "alright" in my estimation. Within a few months I made up a non verbal picture based communication system for one of my students, who seemed to have a mind, but could not communicate. He eventually got out of the institution into assisted living, learned to read and so on. And btw he told me later that not too long before I showed up "I was praying that someone would come along and show that I have a mind."
Other residents there were found who could communicate with non verbal systems. Since I had a liberal arts degree, and the state needed people with accreditation in communication skills to work in places where most professionals did not want to work, I (along with 2 others) was given a complete stipend for 2 years to go and get a masters degree such as they wanted. The only stipulation was that I give them 3 years of service after I got my degree.
Now the fruit of that experience, with the man behind me, from Heaven I believe, had more than practical good fruit. I reflected that there must be a Heaven, as I just somehow felt sure that's where he came from, and therefore there must be a God. So I began to pray and believe and eventually became a Christian.
As for that man I am not sure, but I suspect he was my daughter's great grandfather on her father's side. He died before I could have met him, but what I saw in my mind's eye seemed to conform to what he looked like in this life. He was a Christian and reportedly a very righteous person.
Now, there is a man, Dean Braxton, who is very well documented as having been dead for 1 3/4 hours. No respiration. No heart beat. All that time. You can see his emergency care doctor on a CBN vid saying "It is a miracle...a miracle...that he is alive and has no brain damage" and in fact is now normal in every way. He has a book and many vids on You Tube. I know many NDEs are fakes, but I listen to those with heavy medical documentation, and to those, like Braxton, who back up what they saw in Heaven, with Scriptures.
He definitely says that the dear departed are looking after us if they are in Heaven! And oh yeal, in some NDEs I have heard about others being told exactly what I was told, "Everything is going to be alright."
Some say we go into a soul sleep when we die. I don't believe that. In Revelation we see saints in Heaven, under the Altar, for example, who ask when their deaths will be avenged. They are very aware of what is going on down on earth.
Anyway, in short, yes, I do believe that saved departed relatives do watch over us. How that all works out, well, I don't really know.
Another interesting tidbit from Braxton... He says that your, saved, DNA family will be with you throughout eternity, in an even more special way than with others in Heaven. We were created to be together forever.
