“Be prepared for the worst,” the fire chief warned us that January night last year. “There’s been a lot of damage.”

A little after midnight my neighbors and I had been forced out into the cold by a blaze in our apartment building. Now, hours later, the fire extinguished, it was finally safe for us to reenter our homes—what was left of them, anyway—and collect a few essential belongings.

Accompanied by a firefighter and a Red Cross volunteer, I opened the door to my apartment, feeling sick with anxiety. I didn’t have renter’s insurance. What if I had lost everything? My furniture, my clothes, my books and—I didn’t even want to think about it—my collection. No amount of money could begin to replace that.

Hurriedly I swept a flashlight about the rooms. Did I dare hope? In the hallway, the bedrooms, nothing was amiss. The dining room was untouched. A little water from the firefighters hoses had seeped into the kitchen, and there was a small puddle on the floor in the front bathroom.

That, miraculously, was the extent of the damage to my apartment. Yes, it was the unit farthest from the source of the fire. But it was also the only unit in the building that was home to more than 200 angels.

I moved the flashlight, slowly now, over the figurines filling the shelves and covering the walls of my living room. Watching the beam pick up glints of gold and silver off their wings, I knew: My angels had protected me once again.

Not that I’d understood their power when I bought my first figurine at a roadside flea market one weekend seven years earlier. I am an avid collector, and over the years, I’d amassed quite a few collections, including coins, stamps and newspaper memorabilia. At the flea market, though, I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I walked among the booths, my gaze skimming over the different items on display.

I lingered, however, over a small, beautifully rendered porcelain angel, struck by the face in particular, which seemed so lifelike I could imagine the angel speaking to me. And in a way, she was. I bought that one and another, and took them home. That’s how my most treasured collection began—by accident. Or so I thought.

When people asked me why I was taken with angels, I was at a loss for an explanation. I wasn’t sure myself why I was suddenly spending nearly all my free time searching for them or why I was driving around with a tiny plastic cherub perched on my dashboard; I only knew I felt compelled to do so.

Oddly I never had any thought of selling this collection, as I had others. Odder still, I began doing things no hard-nosed collector would, such as buying figurines that were in less-than-perfect condition.

Once I was in a gift shop looking at a group of angels when I noticed one had a cracked wing. “Isn’t that too bad,” I murmured to myself, tracing the jagged fissure in the ceramic with my finger. The salesperson, overhearing me, said quickly, “I’ll give you that one for free.” She looked relieved to be getting rid of damaged merchandise. I, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to get home to mend that fractured wing.

My angels came to mean so much to me that when I noticed the cherub in my car was missing, I felt like I had lost a friend. Its disappearance made the rough patch I was going through in my life seem even worse. Eventually I found the figure under the driver’s seat, its wings broken off. Apparently it had fallen off the ledge by the speedometer, and I had unwittingly stepped on it.

I carried the pieces inside. As I washed the grime off the plastic, I began to feel better, lighter, as if I were being cleansed of my troubles as well. When I glued the wings back into place, for the first time in months I felt confident that things would fall back into place for me too.

And they did. I found a job I love, working as a publications editor at Harvard University. Still an explanation for my strong, almost instinctual response to angels eluded me.

In 1995, my parents asked me to come back home to Missouri to clean out the belongings I had left in their basement. I spent days going through boxes full of things from my childhood. I was astonished to find a number of angels that I had crafted long ago in grade school.

There was one made of scraps of cloth, another decoupaged onto a wooden plaque, still another of papier-mâché, with yellow yarn for hair. Why had I chosen to make angels while my classmates were more interested in animals and cars? Perhaps it was no accident I had started collecting angels 20 years later.

Some months after my trip home, my brother and his wife gave me a book about angels. One night I settled into my easy chair and opened up the volume. Though I know a lot about words, I did not know the definition of angel. But there it was right in the book: The word is derived from the Greek angelos, or messenger.

All at once powerful memories came surging back, memories from college, a difficult time I had no inclination to revisit. Until now.

In college I was homesick, depressed, miserably confused about my direction in life. I loved writing but I had deep misgivings as to whether I was cut out for the competitive field of journalism. The anxiety of not knowing where I was headed grew until it was almost unbearable.

During the last semester of my senior year I became physically ill. A doctor diagnosed the flu, and I was sent back to my off-campus apartment to rest and recover. But I only got worse. Soon I was hyperventilating and throwing up constantly.

I had just crawled into the bathroom one night and was trying to muster the strength to sit up, when suddenly I found myself looking down at my own body on the floor, curled up like a comma. Somehow I no longer felt the cold tile against my cheek or the terrible nausea that had racked me for days.

Instead, I felt myself being pulled upward. It seemed as if I no longer had a physical body, and I went through the apartment ceiling and the roof of the building itself just as easily as walking through an open door. As I soared over the parking lot, I noticed my roommate’s car was not there.

I shot straight up into the sky, flying through space so fast I was moving past what I took to be stars as if they were no farther apart than streetlights. The stars were singing to me, not a melody or even a language I recognized, yet it was, without question, the most beautiful music I had ever heard. It suffused me with a joy I had never known.

Then, out of this magnificent swirl of sound, individual voices emerged. I didn’t hear what they were saying so much as feel it. Some were pitched high, others low, all of them telling me there had been a mistake, and I must go back. But why? I didn’t want to let go of this incredible feeling! As if in answer, one voice, deep and authoritative, rose above the rest: “All will be explained in time. You are a messenger, and now you must go back.” Reluctantly I obeyed.

The next thing I knew I was lying in a hospital bed, woozy but awake. “Your roommate found you in the last stages of a diabetic coma,” a doctor told me. “You are very fortunate to be here.”

You are very fortunate, I repeated to myself. And then, in my mind, I again heard the otherworldly voices. You are a messenger.

Years later, sitting in my easy chair, with my new book in my lap, I finally made the connection. I write for a number of publications, I edit other people’s work and I also teach writing at Harvard. I’ve discovered the joy of helping to bring ideas to others. Is that why I’m so drawn to angels? Because I am a messenger too?

And what of the stars that sang to me as I went on my strange journey? Could they have been angels? I think they were.

In fact, I have come to believe that in our moments of need, these celestial messengers intercede on our behalf.

How can I be so sure?

Well, there was that fire last year. Though my apartment itself was in good condition, the building was so badly damaged that all the residents were forced to move immediately. It’s not easy to find housing in the Boston area, especially on short notice, but with the help of a rental agent, I found a new apartment I liked right away.

The prospective landlady wasn’t convinced about me though. “I’ve had previous tenants—single guys—who were irresponsible,” she said, giving me the once-over. “Besides, why do you need so much space for just one person?”

I hesitated. Finally I answered, “I have quite a large collection.”

“Oh yeah? What do you collect?”

I told her.

“You collect angels?” she exclaimed with a smile. “So do I!”

Right then and there we signed the lease, and I started moving in that afternoon. The first thing I brought into my new apartment was a box containing some of my angels—though I knew that, really, they had preceded me there.

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It seemed that everyone in Texas who owned a horse competed in Play Days, but I had never tried. In our 22 years together, my horse, Wrangler, and I had participated in plenty of trail rides and parades. We’d even ridden in the Grand Entry at the Fort Worth Stock Show.

But we’d never competed in skill and speed competitions, which was what Play Days were all about.

“Have you ever considered joining the Wagon Wheel Saddle Club?” the veterinarian’s assistant asked one day after giving Wrangler a checkup.

“A club that competes,” I said, looking at the flyer up on her wall. “I don’t know about that.”

“It’s not too late to start,” she said. “Your horse would love it.”

I mentioned the idea to my husband, Lloyd, that night. Our son, Colton, was getting older and more independent, and I had more time on my hands. “The problem is, people in those clubs have been practicing for years,” I said. “I’d never be able to catch up.”

“Why not give it a try?” said Lloyd. “I bet Wrangler would enjoy showing off.”

“That’s what the vet said, too.”

So there I was with Wrangler on the first day of Play Days season, watching a young girl weave her horse in and out of a line of barrels at top speed. A man plucked a flag out of a barrel full of sand, galloped to the other end of the ring and jammed the flag into another barrel. Talk about precision timing!

“What was I thinking?” I said, leaning on the fence with other folks who were watching. “I’m 42. How can I expect to compete with the likes of these people?”

“Don’t you worry,” the woman next to me said. She pointed to a white-haired man riding his horse through the iron posts in the L-shaped entry gate. “That fella’s a champion–in his seventies! This is one sport where age doesn’t matter.”

The man galloped out and expertly wove his horse through a cloverleaf pattern. I didn’t have youth or experience on my side. Lord, am I gonna just make a fool of myself? If so, I guessed I might as well get it over with.

I saddled Wrangler up and mounted her. We headed into the entry gate and waited our turn. My legs bumped against the iron posts as she moved toward the circular arena. Each little jolt made me more nervous.

How can I maneuver around the ring, I thought, if I can’t even get through the gate without knocking into things?

The judge gave us the go-ahead. I took a deep breath, leaned forward in the saddle and urged Wrangler into the ring. We trotted up to the first barrel and I pulled out the flag. So far so good. Now if I could just put the flag back into the second barrel without dropping it and getting disqualified.

I squeezed my legs against Wrangler’s sides, giving her the signal to speed up. Wrangler trotted faster. I leaned over and stuck the flag into the sand. I did it! I was nowhere near the pace of a champion at full gallop, but I thought I could hear Lloyd and Colton cheering in the stands.

Wrangler and I neared the exit gate. I tugged the reins gently. “Good girl,” I said, patting her neck. We turned the sharp corner of the gate, and my leg bumped against the iron posts.

I guessed there was just no way I was going to learn to clear those posts. At least we didn’t lose points for it, though. That wasn’t part of the competition.

Wrangler and I became regulars at the Saddle Club Play Days, and little by little our times improved. Still, I felt like we had catching up to do.

One day Wrangler seemed especially eager to get into the ring. I walked her through the L-gate to do a practice run on the barrels. As usual, my leg bumped against the iron posts. Still haven’t gotten around that! I thought.

We galloped up to the barrels–our trotting days were behind us. I leaned forward as we reached the first one and kept my eyes on the second barrel I planned to lead Wrangler around.

But Wrangler had other ideas. She headed into a cloverleaf pattern, curving around the first barrel. She zigged, I zagged–and slid halfway off the right side of the saddle. My feet popped clean out of the stirrups!

Instinctively I gripped the saddle horn until my knuckles were white and held on with my legs. C’mon, Amber. Get yourself upright!

Wrangler spooked. She ran at full gallop around the north side of the arena. I squeezed my legs around her sides to hang on. Wrangler felt the familiar signal to go faster. “No, Wrangler!”

She rounded the east side of the arena at top speed. Lord, how do I stop her? I gripped the saddle horn with all my might. Suddenly I was sitting square in the seat again. How on earth?

I tugged the reins to slow Wrangler down. Nothing happened. The curb chain that attached to Wrangler’s bridle had broken. She couldn’t feel my signal to ease up. My feet pressed against her sides. I couldn’t find the stirrups at this speed, much less slip my feet into them.

Like a runaway car with no brakes, Wrangler ran around the south side. I reached blindly with my feet and they slipped snugly into the stirrups as if someone had guided them in.

The gate was coming up fast with its iron posts that I never failed to knock into no matter how slowly Wrangler and I walked through. At this speed the posts could break my legs! I could get knocked off the horse from the blow.

I braced for the impact. Wrangler rushed into the gate, past every post, turned a sharp right at the L and continued on to a clearing. Once she was out of the ring she slowed to a stop. Not one post so much as brushed my legs!

A man from the club hurried up to me. “Are you all right?” he asked.

I slid off the saddle, nodding slowly. “Just a little dazed,” I told him.

The man whistled. “Guess you found out what a good rider you were today!”

I didn’t know about that. I still didn’t have youth or much experience on my side. What I did have were angels, guiding me through one hairy adventure. Lloyd and Colton thought that was better than any catching up I could do.

Among my many blessings I count long-lasting friendships—two women especially, who are like angels in my life. On an October day in France, I was with them both in a wonderful way, something I could have never anticipated.

Mireille has been my French pen pal since high school, 60 years ago. In 1989 I visited her in the seaside resort of Croix de Vie. “Would you like to see our lovely church of St. Croix?” she asked as we wandered through the village. It had been a long time since I’d gone into a church for something other than a wedding or a christening. “I can’t find God in churches these days,” I said.

Mireille knew that the hardships in my life had gradually come between me and my faith. Then one morning, strolling on my own, I felt a strong urge to step inside St. Croix.

The ancient steeple towered over the village, pointing the way to the church nestled behind the marketplace. I simply couldn’t resist its pull. Why am I doing this? I wondered, opening the heavy wooden door. My eyes adjusted to the darkness as soft sunlight filtered through stained-glass windows. Instantly I was at ease.

I walked slowly up the aisle, enveloped in a mantle of silence. I was alone in the church. Childhood memories stirred, and I slipped into a pew. Most of my life I had been devoted to Jesus. Why have I stayed away for so long? I thought. I had so much to be thankful for. Children. Grandchildren. Mireille and the other angel in my life, my dear friend Bev back in New York.

Bev and I had married brothers, and our families grew up together. I loved her like a sister. She was dying of cancer.

“Dear Bev…” I whispered. I’d been reluctant to leave her for my trip to France, but she’d insisted I go. That was so like her. She was always loving and generous. I’d hugged her good-bye and said, “Wait for me. I want to be with you at the end.” Now my words seemed selfish. “Oh, Lord,” I said, “that really wasn’t fair of me, was it? Asking Bev to wait.”

There was only silence in the empty church, but I was in conversation with God again after all these years. Just like I’d never left him. “I want to be with Bev with all my heart, but if she’s ready, please take her home.” I love you, Bev, I thought. My prayers are with you.

I sighed with genuine relief. Somehow I felt that Bev and I had never been closer. Maybe because now God and his angels were between us again.

It was about 11:30 a.m. in Croix de Vie when I left the church. On my way back to Mireille’s, I picked up a phone card so I could check in with my children.

Later that day I reached my daughter. Her voice was choked when she told me she had been trying to get me, but the call wouldn’t go through. I had given her the wrong number. “What’s happened?” I asked.

“Bev died early this morning.”

Bev. I hadn’t been with her! Guilt fell on me like a lead weight. Why hadn’t I canceled my trip? How could I live with myself now? “You are a good friend,” Mirielle said, trying to comfort me, but I was inconsolable.

The next morning I hurried to the church of St. Croix. “I want to remember the happy times, Bev,” I whispered. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. Our children’s birthdays. Our weekend talks. I felt a smile on my face. “Good times, Bev,” I said. “Now that’s all you’ll have ahead.”

I lit a vigil light, a symbol of my prayers to heaven for my friend. I often thought of the candle’s flickering flame when I returned home to the States. Weeks later I learned that Bev had died at about 5:30 in the morning on that October day. For a second it was just a number to me, and then I realized. With the time difference between New York and France, I had been talking to Bev in the church of St. Croix at exactly that moment, telling her goodbye.

I was with her! Close to home, with God and his angels between us.

Download your free ebook, Angel Sightings: 7 Inspirational Stories About Heavenly Angels and Everyday Angels on Earth.

People often ask me to tell them my story. Maybe that’s because they see the difference between where I am now and where I used to be.

Today I’m a professional artist, a father of four and a substance abuse counselor at a gang intervention program. Growing up? I was a gang member myself, a drug addict, a prison inmate. You might think it’s miraculous how I got here from there. I prefer to think of my story as evidence that there really are angels watching over us. Looking back, I see God guiding me every step of my way. Of course it sure didn’t feel like that at the time. But isn’t that always how it is? We see God only when we’re truly ready to find him.

I was raised in East L.A., which, if you’re not familiar with it, is one of Los Angeles’ oldest and poorest neighborhoods. There are lots of good things about my neighborhood. Great food, big families, strong churches. But East L.A. is also home to many of L.A.’s most violent street gangs.

My parents came to America from Mexico with high hopes for a better life. The only place they could afford to live was Aliso Village, a public housing project with L.A.’s highest gang-related murder rate. My dad started working in construction. Soon he was tempted to make more money selling drugs. He became a dealer then an addict. He took out his anger on my mom and my siblings and me. Our house became a place of fear.

My refuge was art. I loved to draw and people told me I was good at it. At Delores Mission Catholic School I was always asked to draw pictures of the Virgin Mary for school posters on her feast day. With a pencil in my hand all my troubles seemed to vanish. Until one day in eighth grade a teacher caught me drawing in class. He took my picture away and ripped it up. I flew into a rage and hurled my desk at him. I was expelled that day and sent to see the priest at Delores Mission Parish. Father Gregory Boyle told me he couldn’t do anything about my expulsion but he encouraged me to stick with art. “You have talent, Fabian,” he said. “Don’t waste it.”

Unfortunately I did waste it—at first. I transferred to the local junior high school and fell in with a bad crowd. I began spray painting graffiti and joined a gang. Soon I was in and out of juvenile hall. Father Boyle tried to help again. He convinced my probation officer to let me apprentice with a local artist named Wayne Healy.

Wayne was a famous muralist whose work has been exhibited all over the world. He agreed to take me on as a favor to Father Boyle. In his studio a new world opened up to me. Wayne taught me to paint and I met other artists and students my age who, instead of joining gangs, had gone to prestigious art schools. I won an art competition sponsored by a local congresswoman and attended a reception in Washington, D.C. I participated in another competition in Rome. I even helped Wayne paint a mural inside Eastlake Juvenile Hall, where I’d once done time. Soon I was getting mural commissions.

I couldn’t handle the pressure. I tried to leave the gang, but here’s the thing about gangs. They’re violent but they’re also like family for kids with nowhere else to go. Outside the gang I felt alone. I didn’t believe I could really become a successful artist. I was sure I would mess up one of my commissions and I started drinking and doing drugs.

Sure enough I fell behind on assignments and the jobs dried up. I was too embarrassed to go back to Wayne’s studio. I couldn’t beg another favor from Father Boyle. I moved back in with my mom, who lived on her own after the death of my father. I was in my early thirties. I felt like a total failure.

Mom told me she would kick me out if she ever caught me getting high in her house. That didn’t stop me. One day I was hiding in her attic smoking methamphetamine when Mom came home. My mind was distorted by drugs and I became paranoid. I bashed a hole in the floor of the attic and suddenly I fell into the living room, scaring Mom. Before she could stop me I fled from the house and began running blindly through the neighborhood. I was consumed by fear and shame. I found myself at a park alongside the freeway. A horrible idea began to form. My life was worthless. I’d blown every chance. Why not end it all?

I ran through the park, sloshed across a shallow lake and climbed an embankment leading to the freeway. I shimmied atop a retaining wall and dropped down onto the pavement. Cars whizzed past. In a strange trance I walked out into the traffic. I waited for a car to hit me. I crossed one lane, a second lane, a third lane. Just as I was about to reach the center divider I saw a turquoise Chevy Suburban racing toward me. I knew it would hit me. I closed my eyes. Everything became silent.

I opened my eyes. I was standing on the center divider. The Suburban whooshed past. I was alive! I looked around. I saw clouds in the sky. I heard birds. I felt a sense of total peace descend over me. What had happened? I had no idea. All I knew was that the despair that had driven me to run onto the freeway was suddenly gone. In its place was a realization that what I’d been calling missed chances throughout my life were actually moments when God was most encouraging me. Father Boyle, Wayne Healy, even my eighth grade teacher—each of these people, in their own way, had helped me to see who I was and what I was good at. My life wasn’t a waste. It was a journey and I was slowly getting closer to my goal. God was my guide. He wouldn’t let me down.

By this point the Highway Patrol had arrived and stopped traffic. Enough of my gang member instincts remained to make me want to avoid the police at all costs. I ran back across the freeway and disappeared into the neighborhood. I called my mom from a pay phone. “Mom, I almost got killed today!” I cried. “Where are you, my son?” she asked. I told her. “Stay right there,” she said. “I’m coming to get you.”

A few days later I enrolled in a Salvation Army drug rehab program. The program lasted six months. Many addicts come out of rehab and go straight back to drugs. Not me, not after what happened on that freeway. I went to Homeboy Industries, the gang intervention program Father Boyle had started. Father Boyle gave me a job answering phones. I worked my way up to become a substance abuse counselor. I returned to painting and soon had my first mural commission. An L.A. real estate developer who saw some of my work hanging in a cafe at Homeboy Industries offered me studio space at one of his downtown lofts.

These days I paint both murals and oil canvases. You can recognize my work by something I try to include in almost everything I paint: that moment in life when God’s presence becomes unexpectedly apparent. Many of my paintings depict gang members or scenes from my former life. But they’re not scenes of violence. They’re scenes of transformation, that moment when someone on the wrong path suddenly sees the right road and decides to take it. That’s what happened to me and I want to share the news that change is possible with as many people as I can.

Everyone has angels watching over them. Look closely and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

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In my studio on New York City’s Upper West Side, I train professional opera, cabaret and Broadway singers right alongside talented amateurs from every occupation you could imagine. When I look out of my eighth-floor window onto Broadway, I know Frank Sinatra was right: If you can make it here…

Competition is fierce. But often it’s that competition that forges strong bonds between people. All different types of people. And it seems that every type of person has come through my studio. One February afternoon about three years ago, I received my most unexpected visitor ever.

I was giving a lesson to a young woman preparing for a Broadway audition. We ran through some exercises to warm up her voice, then I flipped to the show tune we’d been working on. I transposed the music into her best range as I played. She sang clearly and confidently. She just might get the part, I thought.

Halfway through the song, though, I became distracted. Something was different. I felt disconnected from the piano keys under my fingers, from the stool I was sitting on. I could hear the music so I knew I was playing the piano, but suddenly I was a member of the audience instead of part of the performance myself, watching my own fingers on the keys.

I wasn’t frightened by this, and before I could wonder how it had happened, my attention was caught by a small white light in the corner of the room, behind my student.

The light grew brighter as she continued to sing, blocking out the pale winter sun coming through the dusty window until it was so intense it was all I could see. Even my student was swallowed up in its glow, although I could still hear her singing.

Across the room, the figure of a man appeared. I couldn’t make out any distinct features in the brightness, but I immediately knew he had come here on business. And his business was with me.

By now the room was completely bathed in the pure white light. I could not only see it, but I felt it moving through me, filling me up like an empty cup, completely saturating me. Baffled, I looked more closely at my visitor. His face was still hidden, but I didn’t have to see it to know that he knew everything about me, and I wasn’t at all embarrassed. As I basked in the warmth of the white light, the man gave me a message.

Tell Stephanie that God always wants to listen to her, the man instructed me.

I knew the Stephanie he meant: She wasn’t currently taking lessons with me, but we’d worked together for years. Now we kept in touch as friends. Over time we’d had more than a few discussions about faith. Stephanie’s was very strong. “I just can’t be sure of something I’ve never seen for myself,” I would tell her.

Stephanie didn’t need proof to believe in God. He was as real to her as I was. So why had this messenger come to me?

His message delivered, the figure began to disappear with the beautiful white light. I was again aware of the stool under me, and played the last notes as my student finished her song. I took my hands off the keys and smiled uncertainly. Had she seen the light too? “Thanks, Bill,” she said, packing up her music. “See you next week.”

She didn’t notice anything at all! Had I imagined everything? Impossible!

All day while I taught I wondered why God would need me to get a message to Stephanie, who prayed often and regularly. “There’s only one thing to do,” I told myself as I shut the door behind my last student of the day. “I’ll just have to call Stephanie and see what happens.”

It had been too long since I’d spoken to my friend, and I was looking forward to hearing her voice. But as I dialed her number I couldn’t help thinking how crazy this was all going to sound. “Hello?” Stephanie said.

“Hi,” I said hesitantly. “It’s Bill Reed.”

“Bill?” she said. She sounded shocked to hear from me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She took a shaky breath. “Well, Bill, I have a lot going on….Frankly, I’m going through some problems I have to work out for myself. But this morning I started thinking about you. And here you are calling me this very evening after we haven’t spoken in ages.”

If I had any doubts about giving her the message I had received, this coincidence dispelled them. I plunged right into my story and told her what had happened in my studio that afternoon. “I can’t pretend to know what it was I saw or why I saw it, but I have a message for you: God always wants to listen.”

Stephanie said nothing. “I’m sorry,” I jumped in. “Of course you know that already, don’t you.”

“Yes, Bill. I’ve always known that,” Stephanie answered. “My whole life, whenever I’ve had a problem, I’ve always turned to God for help. But this time, for some reason, I didn’t feel like I could go to God. I thought I had to solve this problem on my own. Now I know I don’t. Thank you, Bill, so much.”

“I’m glad I could help,” I said, “but I simply delivered a message.”

“You know, I might not have believed this story coming from anyone but you,” Stephanie said. “But if my old friend Bill Reed says he was visited by an angel, I know he was visited by an angel.”

“Wait a minute, Stephanie, that’s not exactly what I said.”

“What other explanation is there?”

“A week ago I didn’t even think things like this happened,” I said. “If God had a message for you, Stephanie, why didn’t he just give it to you himself?”

“Maybe I’m not the only one who was getting a message,” Stephanie offered.

I remembered all the times I’d told her that I couldn’t completely believe something until I’d seen it with my own eyes. “You are a good woman, Stephanie, and a wise woman,” I said. “Call soon.”

When my first student arrived the next morning, excited over an audition that had gone well, I realized just how important it was to have people to support us, look out for us and care about us. And angels too, I supposed, no matter who we are or what we’re doing. I had seen it with my own eyes, up in my eighth-floor studio overlooking Broadway.

We were minutes away from the house when my mother-in-law called my cell. I gave my husband, Chad, the bad news. “Your father has to bow out on playing Santa,” I said. “Your mom says he’s just too sick.”

We had driven all the way out to Sandpoint, Idaho, to stage our Christmas photos. A Santa Claus with a real belly and beard. A neighboring Christmas-tree farm for the perfect background. I paid attention to every detail, having documented our holidays since the kids were born.

I glanced at them in the rearview mirror. Big brother Ryan and my toddler, Raven, were both napping. Ryder, my middle child, was looking idly out the window. He was the one I worried about most. I reached over and patted his knee. Did I really think the perfect photograph would fix everything? How could Christmas ever seem magical again?

Our last Christmas had been tragic. My ex-husband, the children’s father, passed away from a genetic heart condition just a week before. He’d been ill for so long, but he always dressed up for the kids, donning red pants, a red jacket, and a beard and hat. The elastic on his fake beard showed and he made for a skinny Santa, but the children appreciated it. Even though Ryder considered himself too old for make-believe, he still loved to sit on his father’s lap and tell him what he wanted for Christmas. Was I wrong to try to continue the tradition, even in their father’s memory?

I sunk deeper into the passenger seat. Chad reached over and squeezed my hand. “It’s okay,” he assured me. “I can play Santa if you want me to.” He had been so good to all of us, patient and understanding while the kids and I settled into our new life. It was Chad’s idea to come to the Christmas-tree farm in the first place. He volunteered my father-in-law to step into the Santa role because he had a real beard. Maybe I was trying too hard to make things seem real for our pictures. What was the use?

We stopped at a lonely red light, and the back seat seemed to come alive. “Look, Mom!” Ryder said, pointing out the window. “Quick! Ryan, Raven, wake up!” I turned my head toward the sound of an engine. We hadn’t seen a soul on the road for over an hour. But now, right outside my window, was a man on an ATV four-wheeler. I nudged Chad, and he laughed out loud when he saw him. The big man had a full white beard. A dog sat on his lap. If he had been wearing red and had a sack of toys on his shoulder…

The light changed and Santa sped off, kicking up a cloud of dust behind him. Then he was gone. “Like magic,” Ryder said. The car was full of excitement, and the kids were still chattering about it when we got to my in-laws. “We just saw Santa Claus,” I explained to Chad’s mom. “On an ATV.”

“I know him,” she said. “He works on the farm. He lives there and tends to the trees all year long. He seems to have a magic touch.” What were the chances? I took the Santa suit out of the trunk and handed it to her. “Do you think he would?” I asked.

“There’s only one way to find out,” she said.

Twenty minutes later, we were on our way to the farm. My mother-in-law drove ahead with the outfit. We followed with the kids and my camera equipment. The man’s house was more perfect than I had imagined. He lived in a small shack surrounded by the Christmas trees he tended. Smoke billowed from his chimney, and his dog ran happily around the yard. “I’d be much obliged,” he said when my mother-in-law made our proposal.

Chad helped me set up my equipment. Our Santa kept on his blue hoodie and burgundy vest and wore the red pants and hat we’d brought. He didn’t need the full getup to look like the real thing. He had a twinkle in his eyes and a natural smile. He sat on a stump so the children could sit on his lap. Raven fed him a cookie, and Ryan and Ryder took turns telling him what they wanted for Christmas. Ryder sat for his picture, but I figured he was just playing along to be nice. I was grateful for that.

Looking through the camera lens, I thanked God for pulling this off. How else could I explain it? Our ATV Santa was a good sport while I styled several setups. At least we had our photos. We piled back into the car when I had taken more than enough shots. Ryder leaned forward in his seat while we all waved goodbye. “Mom, that could have been the real Santa,” he said. He sat back and laughed with his brother and sister. Christmas wasn’t about to give up on us until we all felt its magic.