Angels Unawares

Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Hebrew 13:2 

Insight is better than eyesight when it comes to seeing an angel. ~ Eileen Freeman

The wings of angels are often found on the backs of the least likely people. 
~Eric Honeycutt
Once I traveled across the state with a friend, driving on icy roads most of the way. I told him he was a fortunate man because I had some powerful guardian angels looking after me. 

This blog post is about a couple of angel encounters.  Once I stumbled and fell sideways landing on my hip, and I swear it felt like I  landed on a pile of pillows--I felt sorry for the angel I squished, though. I like to think that when I'm driving, angels are perched on the car riding with the wind blowing though their hair and robes.  

Once many years ago I drove an Audi, which I loved. My husband hated working on foreign cars so I had trouble getting him to look at it and my son and I learned to work on it ourselves.  There was one thing we couldn't figure out--the car would die for no reason, leaving me stranded forcing me to find a pay phone to call Hub to rescue me and of course it would always start for him when he got there; he thought I was just too dumb to drive the car and refused to do more than to scold me for not putting gas in it.  


One day I was on my way to an important meeting driving on the freeway approaching  a major interchange when the car died in heavy traffic; I managed to pull it over to the shoulder. To the left of me beyond six lanes of traffic and a fence I could see  a convenience store; to the right was a fence and open field and in front of me the interchange loomed.  I started to cry and pound on the steering wheel, telling God that He knew how important it was for me to attend this event.  Suddenly I saw a car pull up behind me. It was a white late model car but I can't tell you what kind it was and the driver, who approached me was an ordinary looking guy with dark hair and beard wearing casual summer clothes.  He was very no-nonsense. He asked me what the trouble was and when I told him he opened the hood and poked around. He asked me if I had any tools and I said "No." He went back to his car and returned with a screw driver and explained to me that the front hose clamp on the fuel line was broken allowing air into the gas.  He also said that the rear clamp wasn't as critical so he was going to take it off and put it on the front and I needed to get the rear one replaced as soon as I could. He quickly fixed it and walked back to his car.  I was so excited to get the car running that I didn't thank him properly and after I got back into the car I saw that the white car was gone.  Just like that.  He wasn't behind me or ahead of me.  Other things were out of the ordinary.  The quick diagnosis, speedy repair and the guy was clean.  Mechanic's hands I usually stained but his was not.  When I got home I told my husband, that he wouldn't fix my car so God sent an angel. He didn't believe me.  But he replaced the rear fuel line.

Angel number two. Actually there were at least 4 angels involved in this episode which happened when my husband was in Sacred Heart hospital in Spokane after a heart attack.  When he was moved from ICU to a regular room I went home for a rest and decided a couple of days later to visit him.  My old Ford Taurus had a similar issue as the Audi, but only in hot weather, but it was a lovely day so I thought it would be safe to drive the car 70 miles to Spokane.  By the time I got into the city I knew I was in trouble because the temperature was in the 90's; however I pushed on praying that the car wouldn't die.  I managed to drive all the way across town in heavy traffic and made it to the medical center.  I was headed for the main entrance of the hospital to have concierge park the car for me as I was walking with a cane at that time.  The main entrance to the hospital is on the same circle drive as a medical clinic and a parking garage, and the traffic in the circle is always congested. I entered the drive and got as far as the parking garage and the car died--blocking the entrance.  The car was on an upward slope and already traffic was piled up behind me preventing the car from rolling backwards out of the way.  I knew it would be at least 20 minutes before the Ford would start again-- a bad situation.  I only freaked out for about a minute, though, before a young man approached my window to tell me that he and his friends were willing to push my car out of the way.  I was so relieved; they pushed it up the slope to a spot that was opened in front of the clinic next to a sign that said, "Patient Pick Up Only;" I figured that I could pretend that I was waiting for someone, but I didn't have to fake it for long because soon the young man was back to tell me that there was a parking space available on the other side of the circle and they would be willing to push me over there. A  young pregnant woman stood in the parking spot to make sure no one would take it while the guys pushed my car around.  After I thanked them profusely and assured them that the car would start when it cooled off, they went the center of the circle where there was a patch of grass and sat down under a tree. Why a group of college age folks were hanging in that strange patch of grass, I cannot imagine except for one reason-- God sent them there to help me.  I told my husband about the angels but he wasn't any more impressed by that story than the first one I told him years before.  Instead he scolded me for taking off in that car in the first place.

One day when I move on to the other life, I'm sure I'll hear more stories of how angels intervened in ways I am not aware of now, but for now I'll will just continue to believe that angels are active in my life.

#Angels #BrokeDownCars