Yes, I believe in angels. I think they're a lot like Max, whom I wrote about in an earlier blog http://goodolthisanthat.blogspot.com/2010/12/bestest-christmas-movies-ever.html . I think they're a touch crafty, using their imagination in order to get the job done. They have to be, as if they showed up in robes and wings, people would be thinking, "I thought I took my medication, not acid!" and run the other way.
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| Henry Travers as Clarence in It's A Wonderful Life |
Some might be like It's A Wonderful Life's Clarence in that they might appear to be absent-minded and bumbling, but come up with the most brilliant of ideas. We laugh at them, thinking they are incompetent, and they go along with us. Yet they get the job done.
We use the term 'angel' quite a bit in our lives. We see a baby girl and "Oh, she's such an angel." "Your mother had the job of raising you? She must have been an angel."
I have been in the presence of actual angels twice in my life that I know of. If I have any other times, I haven't been aware of it. But then, they don't blow trumpets and say, "Look at me! I'm an angel!" They just do their jobs and go on . . . like Max.
The first time I was too young to know about. My family has told me this story. It was December of 1964. I was ten months old and spending my first Christmas in the hospital. Mom and Dad were rotating twelve hour shifts watching over me. I was in one of the wards, and children were dying all around me. I had a heckuva fever, was dehydrated (All the kids were) and convulsions. Mom and Dad wondering if I'd be next. One particular night, everyone knew it was this little girl's turn. She was too far gone. Dad was sitting up with me, and in the middle of the night, that little girl's father approached Dad and told him, "I just want you to know I'm praying for your little boy."
If you think that didn't affect Dad, you're mistaken. Think about it. That man's daughter was dying that night - and he was praying for me? Makes not one iota of sense, does it? It had Dad thoroughly confused, to say the least. But that man's unselfish comment got Dad to thinking, and it led to a change that wound up affecting not only my father, but my family. And my parents have wound up ministering to thousands of people over the years. So think about how many people that one comment affected.
That little girl left the hospital with a clean bill of health before I did. You cannot tell me she and her father were not angels sent there to change our family's lives. I do not know their names, what they looked like, but don't tell me they weren't angels.
Flash forward forty-two years. I was working in retail at Academy Sports. This particular store was built on a hill. (Please remember this. It's essential to the story.) We had been robbed several months before shortly after closing and were preparing to shut down for the night. It was a week before Christmas, and business had been brisk. I was rounding up the last of the shopping carts. I noticed a man sitting in his car. He'd been there for a while and had never come in to shop. I was worried he was going to rob us and let my boss know about him.
As I finished getting the carts lo and behold, out comes another. This one had a baby in it. Okay. I'll come back for it. Behind me, I heard yet a second cart . Strange. No one else left the store that I saw. Oh well. I went back out to get the woman's cart and saw the man getting into his car, then drive away. The woman told me what had happened:
For the first time ever, she put her merchandise in her car first, instead of her child. The cart started rolling down the hill, and would have gone all the way to the Northwest Expressway, which of course had a ton of traffic. Without a word, the man got out of the car, stopped the cart, and pushed it back to her. Then he got back to his car and simply drove away. I let her know that he'd never come into the store. He'd been there only to save her child. "Ma'am," I said, "That man was an angel." She agreed, and said her child would come to know this story. I hope (and would wager) she's kept that promise.
When I got into the store, I told my boss and co-workers what had happened. Our supposed 'suspicious character' was not what he was supposed to be. (Oh, the apology I owed that man.) When I said I thought he was an angel, I expected some snide remarks, as retail is a skeptical business. Instead, I was told by everyone there, "You might be right." I know I was.
These experiences come to mind this time of year, as they were my Christmas Angels. They were my Clarences, my Maxes. They let me know not to get skeptical, not to forget the small miracles as letting someone knowing you're praying for them or pushing a shopping cart can affect lives.
Merry Christmas.
Loved reading this, Mick ... :)
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