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‘The Star Thrower’ and the Difference You Can Make

In 1978, author Loren Eiseley published an essay called “The Star Thrower.” It recounts a beach walk by a narrator...

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Her Brother’s Forgiveness Was the Best Christmas Present

Posted on by Emily Marszalek

Joe and I no longer lived in the same state, so we weren’t together for the holidays, but I made sure to give my little brother a call on Christmas Day. “The kids must be having a ball with their presents,” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” said Joe. “Santa really came through.”

At the ages of four, three and one, Joe’s kids had no doubt it was Santa who’d brought those gifts. Joe and I had been that young once. In fact, I would never forget a certain Christmas when I was seven and Joe was five. I’d kept a secret about that Christmas for 20 years, and hearing Joe’s voice made me feel guilty about it all over again. He probably doesn’t even remember, I thought.

I heard my nieces’ voices in the background. “Sounds like you’ve got a little trouble,” I said.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. The girls have gotten old enough to start fighting with each other. Like we used to do.”

“We sure did.”

When we were kids, Joe and I loved nothing more than getting under each other’s skin. My little brother drove me nuts! If Mom brought home my favorite yogurt, Joe would make sure to eat it before I got a chance. When our parents gave us each our own basketball, Joe insisted on playing with mine instead of his own.

Then there was his behavior in the car. I would be sitting next to him in the back seat, minding my own business. Joe would wait until my parents weren’t paying attention, then he would lean over and smack me. The sound would make Mom or Dad turn around, and then Joe would start crying. “She hit me! She hit me!” And he always got away with it.

As an adult I could admit I gave as good as I got in our battles, but that one Christmas when I was seven, I was determined to get back at him—and that year, I had a secret weapon. I no longer believed in Santa, but I knew Joe did. I couldn’t abide him thinking Santa had put him on the “nice” list when I knew he’d been naughty all year, even if my parents had somehow missed it.

While Joe told me a funny story about his daughters’ latest squabble, I remembered slipping on my winter jacket all those years ago and sneaking over to our neighbor’s driveway. It was filled with rocks made from some kind of lava. To me they looked like coal. Surely they’d look like coal to Joe too. I stuffed handfuls into the pockets of my winter jacket, smuggled them up to my room and hid them under my bed. Then I waited.

Over the phone I could hear that Joe’s girls were now playing together happily in the background. “I guess all siblings fight,” said Joe. “It’s never really serious, right?”

“Right,” I said, but in my heart I wondered. God, should I finally come clean with my brother?

That long-ago Christmas morning when Joe and I looked in our stockings, I had been rewarded greatly. And rightfully so, I’d thought. My own angelic demeanor had been appropriately compensated with candy bars, bubble gum, flavored lip balms and an array of other glorious treats. But I could barely concentrate on them. That morning, unbeknownst to anyone, I’d woken up early, crept downstairs and stuffed the lava rocks into the red stocking with Joe’s name written in glue and sparkles. I watched Joe take down his bulging stocking, lay it on the living room floor and squint at what was inside. Joe’s smile froze, then faded. His cheeks turned candy cane red. He didn’t cry or complain. He stayed completely silent. He wouldn’t even look at anyone else in the room. As I watched, my own anticipation turning to something like regret, Joe set his whole stocking aside, hiding it so our parents wouldn’t see how “Santa” had judged him.

I’d never told anyone what I’d done. But my transgression nagged at me still, even all these years later.

“Hey, Joe,” I said. “Do you remember that Christmas morning when you were five and you got…in your stocking…I put…”

“Coal!” Joe said. “Of course I remember! Wow, you really got me that time, didn’t you.”

To my relief, my brother burst out laughing. “I was mortified!” he said. “I waited until everyone had left the room. Then I took the rocks outside. I didn’t want Mom and Dad to know I was naughty!”

“I guess if either of us deserved coal in a Christmas stocking that year it was me,” I said. It felt so good to say it, even if Joe never mentioned it after he’d put two and two together. I’d told myself a silly childhood prank wasn’t important enough to confess. But it turned out Joe’s forgiveness—even all these years later—was the best stocking present I could have wished for.

For more angelic stories, subscribe to Angels on Earth magazine.

He Learned a Valuable Lesson About Tithing and Faith

Posted on by Warner Davis

Yet another door slammed in my face. My shoulders slumped in defeat. I hadn’t expected door-to-door sales to be easy, but I certainly hadn’t expected it to be this hard. Monday, my first day on the job, was a bust, and if my luck didn’t improve before the end of the week, I was in trouble.

We were in an economic slump in 1968, and I was a broke graduate student at the Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. I needed $200 to cover next semester’s tuition. That was a lot of money. So, instead of spending my week of spring break relaxing with friends, I was stuck pounding the pavement, hawking cookware. With the few sales I’d managed to make thus far, I had no idea how I’d reach my goal.

Before setting out on this endeavor, I’d ended my daily devotions with a desperate plea. “Lord, if you bless me financially this week, I promise I’ll give 10 percent of my income to the church.” Since I was a boy, I’d been schooled in the concept of the biblical tithe. My father, who worked as a missionary, had talked about it. So did my Sunday school teachers. Not that I’d ever practiced it myself. The way I saw it, giving away 10 percent of my earnings was driving a hard bargain. But at this point, I would have tried anything to complete my religious studies.

By mid-week I wondered if my prayer had finally given me confidence in my sales pitch. For whatever reason, I saw some success. I made sale after sale. I guessed I’d really honed my skills. By Saturday, I had $250 in my pocket—and zero memory of my promise to tithe.

I was a student pastor at Lamberts Chapel, in a rural area in central Kentucky. I woke early on Sunday mornings so I could complete my devotional before the day’s services. First, I thanked God for a successful week of door-to-door sales. Then I read the scripture for the day, Malachi 3:6-12, in which the Lord chastises the Israelites for not keeping the tithe. The words hit me right between the eyes! It couldn’t be a coincidence! I scrambled for my checkbook, writing out a donation of $10. I ripped it up. I wrote another check for $15. It took me three tries to commit to the full 10 percent. I got to church and dropped it in the offering plate. It did hurt a little, but at least my conscience was clear.

Sunday services began as usual, until “unusual” happened. We had two visitors to our rural gathering place, which was rare. The older couple stole into the sanctuary and took a seat.

At the end of the service, I stood to the side, shaking hands with the worshippers filing out. The visiting couple approached, and the woman handed me an envelope, which I passed on to our treasurer, thinking it was a donation for the chapel.

A few hours later, before the evening service began, the treasurer approached me, the same envelope in her hand.

“No,” she said. “This is for you, young man.”

I opened the envelope and found a check for $25. It was made out to me.

I didn’t understand. I’d never met that couple before. Why would they give this gift to me? Only angels would know how conflicted I’d been about tithing this very amount on that very morning. But of course, angels didn’t write checks…

Two Sundays later, when I feared I wouldn’t see the couple again, I used the names on the check to look up their address. I knocked on their door, and they invited me inside. I thanked them for their generous gift. But I was still confused. “Why me?” I asked. “Why that Sunday? And how did you know who I was?”

“We know about your father’s work,” the woman explained. “We wanted to show our appreciation by giving a little something to his son. And that Sunday seemed as good a day as any.” As good a day as any for a blossoming young seminarian to see a simple theological principle put into action—that God will always provide. I did manage to graduate, and in the years since I’ve written out my tithe check correctly and thankfully the first time around.

For more angelic stories, subscribe to Angels on Earth magazine.

He Built Memorable Monuments in the Adirondacks

Posted on by Aline Alexander Newman

My husband, Neil, and I were staying at our summer house in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. I love that house because it’s a rustic cabin on a wooded lake but also a short walk to a bookstore and a 15-minute drive to an enchanting stone chapel that is one of my favorite places in the area.

Browsing at the bookstore one day, I spotted a slim, green paperback called The Earl Covey Story: A Master Builder in the Adirondacks. According to the back cover, Earl Covey was an early-twentieth-century renaissance man of the mountains, renowned as a wilderness guide, an innkeeper, a stonemason, a trapper and an inventor. He also built several remarkable, one-of-a-kind structures using trees and rocks from the surrounding woods.

Why hadn’t I heard of him, I wondered? I’d read a lot of local history.

I was flipping through the pages when my eyes fell on a portrait of a young woman with long, thick hair.

I gasped. I’d seen that picture before. In my grandmother’s photo album!

I bought the book, hurried home and read it.

Earl Covey and I, it turned out, were related. The girl in the photograph was Emma Chase, Earl’s mother and my grandmother’s first cousin. Here was a long-lost family connection to the mountains I loved.

Ties between Earl’s branch of the family and mine started early, I learned. Emma, Earl’s mother, grew up on a lake owned by my grandmother. In the 1800s, my Chase family ancestors purchased 3,006 acres of cheap Adirondack wilderness, including two namesake lakes—Upper and Lower Chase.

Grandma inherited the upper lake. Memories flooded back of tales she told about life on those lakes, with their pine-shrouded shores, tangles of blueberry bushes and warm sand beaches. In August 1915, four visitors caught 444 bullhead there, in one day! And that’s no fish tale.

For Emma, the happy days didn’t last. She was only 14 when she married Adirondack pioneer Henry Covey. They had two sons, Clarence and Earl, and lived in various towns before moving to Big Moose, an even wilder, uninhabited Adirondack lake. Emma contracted tuberculosis and died when Earl was 13 years old.

For Earl, it was the beginning of a life shadowed by tragedy.

Two years after their mother died, Earl and his brother were out on Big Moose Lake in a canoe fashioned from a pine log. The canoe flipped, and Clarence drowned.

Soon after, Earl quit school to help run a hotel built by his father. He married at age 19 and fathered five children in quick succession.

Itching for a place of his own, he purchased a tract of land on an undeveloped neighboring lake. It was the middle of winter, but Earl set to work building what became Twitchell Lake Inn. He and a friend backpacked to the site and camped in a snow cave while starting construction.

The inn was a success, but two decades later, tragedy struck again. Earl’s wife died of pneumonia. Then one of his sons succumbed to the 1918 flu pandemic. Earl built a lovely stone bridge over the outlet to Twitchell Lake as a memorial to his son. A few weeks later, a second son died after an injury.

Earl seemed broken. He began talking of leaving the Adirondacks and moving to California.

That summer, a woman named Frances came to work at the inn. She was 13 years younger than Earl and a college graduate who had grown up in Boston. She knew nothing of the woods, but she fell in love with her stoic boss and they married.

Earl was regarded by his contemporaries as a real-life Paul Bunyan. He felled trees by himself and once hauled an entire cast iron stove on his back into a hunting camp. He could build a log cabin in days. He ran his hotel, guided hunting parties and organized weekly square dances.

Somehow, in the midst of all that, Earl also built numerous beautiful buildings that still stand today.

One of his best-loved buildings is Covewood, a summer resort on Big Moose Lake now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The first time I went there, I knew nothing of its history but I was wonderstruck. With its woodsy exterior of bark-covered spruce slabs, enclosed balconies, a wide veranda and a stone staircase, the inn appears at one with the landscape. It reminds me of a giant fairy house.

Also on the national register is Big Moose Community Chapel, Earl’s masterpiece. Turning to that part of the book, I realized with a start that the chapel is the very same chapel that I had been visiting and loving for years without ever knowing I was related to the architect. The story of the chapel distills everything else in Earl’s life of resilient faith.

The chapel is actually the second place of worship Earl built on that site. The night before it was to be dedicated, someone called Earl at home: “The chapel is on fire!”

Volunteer fire companies rushed to the scene but the pump they brought wasn’t strong enough to bring water from the nearby lake. Earl stood helplessly as his meticulously fitted spruce log beams and rafters, his hand-rubbed birch paneling, even his hand-laid fireplace succumbed to flames.

Having endured so much sorrow and so many setbacks in his life, no one would have blamed Earl for shaking his fist at God and walking away. Instead, he allowed himself only a few hours of teary-eyed silence before proclaiming, “We will rebuild!” Earl was accustomed to working in solitude. All his life, he had carried burdens both physical and spiritual. This time, God sent help to bear the load.

The day after the fire, a group of local residents, property owners and hotel guests gathered in a nearby boathouse. The smell of smoke hung in the air. A visiting minister conducted a brief service. It was 1930, the Great Depression bearing down, but the impromptu congregation of several different faiths vowed to raise enough money to rebuild the chapel.

The resulting house of worship was a triumph of beauty and reverence. Built of local stone and wood, it has a small tower and a vaulted wood sanctuary with arched windows looking out on the trees and the lake. When all seemed lost, God sent a community of angels to help Earl complete his architectural masterpiece.

As soon as I’d put all the pieces together, one weekday afternoon, Neil and I drove to Big Moose Lake. I had to get back to that chapel. Finding the door unlocked, we stepped into the empty sanctuary and sat down in one of the varnished wood pews.

I gazed out the windows at the surrounding forest. I pictured Earl setting each stone of the exterior in place, hoisting ceiling beams and arranging the pews just so. I thought of his many setbacks in life, all the times he could have given up and turned his back on a God who had not intervened in tragedy.

Earl never gave up. He looked for God in the midst of tragedy. He found God in his beloved mountains—our beloved mountains—and labored to help others encounter that same divine presence in the wild. I had experienced that presence myself long before I happened upon the slim, green paperback. But knowing Earl’s story added a richness I could never have imagined.

For more angelic stories, subscribe to Angels on Earth magazine.

Heavenly Touches Make This House a Home

Posted on by Kathie Kania

Every house had its treasures. Or so I thought until my husband, Michael, called me over to the computer to look at pictures of the only rental available in our new town of Lewiston, Montana. “Well,” Michael said, “what do you think?”

I thought it was the plainest house I’d ever seen in my life. No comfy nooks, no molding or millwork, few windows, low ceilings–it would be like living in a cardboard box.

“Does the Realtor have any other pictures she could send us?” I asked hopefully. Maybe these had just failed to capture anything charming.

The agency e-mailed some more pictures over. If anything they were worse. Plywood cupboards. One microscopic bathroom. Dull floors. But we really had no choice. “We’ll take it,” Michael said over the phone.

As we got ready to move out of our house in Utah, I reminded myself how lucky I was. At least we’d have a roof over our heads. I knew some people didn’t. The truth is, I’d been spoiled when it came to houses. All my life, it seemed, angels had blessed me with wonderful places to live.

I grew up in an 1850s saltbox with a drafty add-on, set on 38 woodsy acres in New York State. In my mind’s eye I could still see the layout of the old farmhouse, with its big, rambling rooms heated by the wood-burning stove.

I loved every detail–the wavy wood floors, glass bubbles in the windowpanes, slanting windows in the attic, the cut-glass doorknob in the bedroom hanging off-center.

Even the closets were quirky. One in particular had a big, fat doorknob made of brass. Inside, the floor was covered in a linoleum with a faux wood-grain design. That was a house with personality, I thought, packing up.

If I had my way I never would have left that house. But after we got married, Michael took a new job in Idaho–one that promised more moves in the future. Being with Michael was the important thing, but it was hard to say good-bye to that farmhouse and hello to our “updated” apartment.

“The kitchen isn’t very big,” I said on the day we moved in.

“Yeah,” Michael agreed. “But look out the window.” The view from the sink took in a gorgeous mountain landscape. It was a worthy substitute for the woods at the farmhouse.

Even that little apartment had its surprises, I thought as I taped up another packing box. Box, I thought. We’re moving into a boring box.

With all our belongings in the care of a moving company, Michael and I headed to Montana. Watching the scenery sweep past I remembered the 1970s rambler we’d lived in in Oregon.

In those days, with two little girls and various dogs, cats and rabbits to take care of, I didn’t have much time to worry about my surroundings. But when I watched my daughters play by the creek in the backyard it felt like home.

After that house came a much more modern one in Anchorage, Alaska. I never thought I could find anything in that spacious and contemporary house to remind me of the farm, but on cold nights the tiny fireplace gave off just as much homey warmth as Daddy’s wood-burning stove.

Keep an open mind, I thought as we drove up to our new house in Lewistown.

We walked in and my open mind shut itself up tight. Here it was, I could now see with my own eyes, the most disappointing house I’d ever moved into. Maybe I’d been hoping angels would have magically transformed the place into something other than what we’d seen online. But that hadn’t happened.

I stood in the kitchen with its plywood walls and wondered how this place could ever feel like home.

I drifted from room to room, feeling more and more dejected. Eventually I made my way back to the hall outside the kitchen. My eye fell on a closet door. Something stirred inside me. What was it about this door? Something was familiar… The knob!

I looked at it more closely. Cut glass. I turned it and it rattled just like the one in the bedroom at the farmhouse. I moved down the hallway to another closet. Another familiar doorknob. This one was big, fat and brass and when I turned it, it squeaked.

I pulled it open to reveal a linoleum floor in a faux wood pattern, just like at the farmhouse! When Michael found me I was laughing out loud. “What’s so funny about a closet?”

“Angels,” I said simply. “They must have moved in before us.” They filled our new house with treasures for me to discover and made yet another house a home.

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

Healed by Heavenly Angels

Posted on by Cathy Taylor with Nancy Aguilar

I lay perfectly still on the hospital scanning machine table with my arms and legs strapped down. Heaviness surrounded my heart like a shroud, but I purposely didn’t cry because I couldn’t wipe away the tears.

My doctor had ordered a thyrogen scan to detect thyroid cancer. As I waited for it to begin, many questions raced through my mind: Did the radioactive iodine treatment work? Had the cancer reappeared and spread? Would I need surgery? After 23 years in remission, my bloodwork had shown a possible recurrence of thyroid cancer. Over the next year and a half, I endured numerous medical procedures, tests, injections, and special diets.

During the ordeal, other members of my family experienced health issues as well. My mom received the diagnosis of recurrent lymphoma. My older brother Brian underwent chemotherapy, also for lymphoma. Most heartbreaking of all, my twin brother David became ill and died of the HIV virus.

The burden of afflictions in my family felt unbearable. Lying there on the table, I began praying the words from Isaiah 53:4 (ESV): “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”

As I finished praying those words, the atmosphere of the room changed. I can’t explain it except to say I was in the presence of two angel-like beings. One stood tall on my left with arms folded across his chest, as if he was guarding me. The other stood very close on my right.

“What are you doing here?”

“We’ve come to comfort you,” the angel on my right said.

“That’s so nice,” I said.

As incredible as that may sound, my anxieties left, and I felt deep peace. “We’ve come to dry your tears, just as you dried your brother’s tears when he was dying.” The angel on my right reached over and touched my cheek, as a father would do for his crying child.

“I’m not crying,” I said.

“Your soul is crying.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Just as you once ministered to your brother David,” the angelic being said, “now it’s time to minister to your mother.”

I knew exactly what the angel meant. “Yes, I’ll do that,” I said. “Your scan will be clear and you will be made well,” the being on my right said.

As suddenly as the angels had appeared, they left. Then my tears began to fall and roll down the side of my face. I couldn’t wipe them away, and that was all right because they were tears of joy. What I had seen were strong, male like figures with light shining from behind and around them. They resembled holograms and were the color of pewter like flowing mercury. Ezekiel 8:2 (ESV) describes heavenly beings as having “. . . the appearance of a man. Below what appeared to be his waist was fire, and above his waist was something like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming metal.”

When the scan was over, I walked out of the room and into my doctor’s office, grinning. I had gone from deep despair to pure joy. The doctor told me that even though my scan was clear, “You’ll have to wait for the results of your final blood test.” (His nurse had earlier drawn the blood.) I told my family and a few friends about the angels’ visitation. “I don’t know what it all means,” I said, “but I know I’m going to be all right.”

The following week, I received the news that my blood tests showed thyroid cancer “somewhere,” and my doctor ordered a PET scan to determine if I needed surgery. I cried and cried, asking the Lord to help me understand.

“Trust me.” I didn’t hear those words out loud, but they echoed through my heart and gave me peace. I completed the scan and felt confident that the Lord would bring healing; however, I assumed that I’d have to go through much suffering to be made well. As I waited for the results, pondering all that had happened, I realized the angels had visited me after the nurse had taken my blood. Once more, I felt hopeful, wondering if I had been healed after the blood tests were done. Lord, please let it be true.

The next week, I woke up on Tuesday morning and a voice within said these words to me, “Before you hear the news from your doctor. I want you to rejoice that you’re healed.” With renewed joy in my heart, I spent a delightful day at the zoo with my son Nick.

That evening at 7:30, my doctor called me at home. I was visibly shaking and burst out with the question, “Is it good news or bad news?”

“I’ve been poring over your PET scan results,” he said, “and I can’t find cancer cells anywhere in your body. According to your blood work, we should have found something, but you are totally clear.”

“Do you think it’s possible that I was healed sometime between my bloodwork and my thyrogen scan?”

“It’s certainly a possibility,” he said. He talked for several minutes before he finished with these wonderful words: “I don’t need to see you for a year. No surgery. No more radiation—just relax and have a good summer.”

Today, six years later, my follow-up exams continue to show no cancer. My fear of death is gone. I’m assured that when it’s time, God will send angels to escort me home. God has been so gracious to me, and I am humbled by His mercy. The Lord did it all, and God always does all things well.

Guideposts Releases Free eBook: Angel Sightings

Posted on by mcherkezian

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GUIDEPOSTS RELEASES FREE EBOOK ANGELS SIGHTINGS: 7 INSPIRATIONAL STORIES ABOUT HEAVENLY ANGELS AND EVERYDAY ANGELS ON EARTH

Leading Inspirational Publisher Makes Available A Free eBook Filled With Stories of Profound Mystery That Radiate Faith-Affirming Hope

CARMEL, NY—AUGUST 3, 2010—Guideposts, the non-profit organization dedicated to providing hope, encouragement, and inspiration to millions across America and the world, today made available via a free download Angels Sightings: 7 Inspirational Stories About Heavenly Angels and Everyday Angels On Earth, hand-selected by the editors of Angels on Earth magazine.

The collection of stories contained in the Angels Sightings eBookare examples of people whose lives were transformed through a meeting with an angelic being. The free download features stories of angels on earth and the messages they deliver. Stories of catastrophes averted, illnesses cured, and ill-fortunes reversed.

“The profound mysteries of God’s messages—and his celestial messengers—don’t demand scientific proof. They simply present themselves to inspire and instill in us faith and hope,” said Colleen Hughes, Editor-in-Chief, Guideposts’ Angels on Earth magazine. “The stories contained in the free eBook Angel Sightings: 7 Inspirational Stories about Heavenly Angels and Everyday Angels on Earth are uplifting, and represent the mysterious and unexplained experiences that people have had with angels. I believe there is nothing more beautiful than knowing that we are not alone in our time of trouble, and that God sends angels to help and minister to us in our time of trial and need.”

Download your free copy of Angels Sightings to enjoy true first-person stories that explore the faith-affirming existence of angels among us. The complimentary eBook is available exclusively on Guideposts.org at: http://guideposts.org/free-ebooks/angel-sightings-7-inspirational-stories-about-heavenly-angels-and-everyday-angels-on-earth

About Guideposts FREE eBooks

Here are a few more eBooks available at Guideposts.org that aim to provide visitors with inspiring material on popular topics:

The Power of Positive Thinking

A Prayer for Every Need

Daily Devotionals: 7 Days of Bible Devotions to Strengthen Your Faith

Inspirational Quotes About Life, Love, Faith and Hope

Mysterious Ways: 9 Inspiring Stories That Show Evidence of God’s Love and God’s Grace

Paths to Happiness: 7 Real Life Stories of Personal Growth, Self Improvement and Positive Change

Positive Thinking 2010: Rediscover the Power of Positive Thinking with Norman Vincent Peale

The Power of Hope: 7 Inspirational Stories of People Rediscovering Faith, Hope and Love

True Inspirational Stories: 9 Real Life Stories of Hope and Faith

About Guideposts

Guideposts is a non-profit organization that touches millions of lives every day through products and services that inspire, encourage, and uplift. Its flagship title, Guideposts, has a paid circulation of 2 million. Its website Guideposts.org now offers consumers greater control in choosing content appropriate to their stage in life and key interests. Ideals Publications, based in Nashville, Tennessee, is the retail book sales and distribution outlet of Guideposts; including Guideposts Books, Candy Cane Press, Williamson Books, and Ideals. In total, Guideposts has annual direct to consumer and retail book sales of over 5.7 million copies. Through magazines, books, a prayer network and outreach programs, Guideposts helps people connect their faith-filled values to their daily lives. For more information on Guideposts, please visit http://www.Guideposts.org and follow Guideposts on Twitter: twitter.com/Guideposts_org, and on Facebook: facebook.com/Guideposts.

Guided to Heaven by His Guardian Angel

Posted on by Melissa Deal Forth

Six years after we were married, my 29-year-old husband was fighting leukemia. Pain dulled Chris' blue eyes; he was barely able to move without help. Doctors offered little hope, and for months I slept on a cot alongside his bed at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. At 3:00 a.m., I was shaken awake by an alarmed nurse.

“We can’t find Chris!” she exclaimed.

My eyes darted to his bed. The sheet was turned back; the bed empty. How? I jumped up and raced past the nurses’ station outside the room, then ran down the hall. As I passed the glass-paneled chapel door, I glimpsed Chris sitting inside with someone. I burst in, crying, “Chris, we were so worried….”

He turned and smiled. “I’m fine,” he said.

I stared at the young man who sat with him. His skin was smooth and clear, and he had short white hair. He wore exactly the type of clothes Chris liked: checked flannel shirt, crisp Levi’s, and lace-up work boots. The young man looked up at me and my heart caught. As I stared into his crystal-blue eyes, I felt stunned.

Chris broke the spell. “Melissa, please leave us,” he asked. “I’m okay. I’ll be back.”

After reporting Chris' whereabouts (no one else in that security-tight hospital had seen his visitor), I went back to our room. About a half hour later Chris returned exhilarated, merrily rolling his IV pole–walking on his own! And he didn’t look sick anymore.

“Who was that man?” I gasped, not sure what to ask first. “You’ll never believe it.” He grinned. “It was an angel–my guardian angel.”

Chris sat down on the bed. “I awoke with an overpowering urge to go to the chapel,” he explained, “and I was able to walk there easily. As I knelt at the cross I heard a voice behind me, and I turned to find him standing there. He asked if there was anything I wanted to be forgiven for. I’ve always hated my stepfather. The angel said I was forgiven, and you know, for the first time, the hatred I had harbored for so long was truly gone. Then I told him I was worried about leaving you. He said you would be fine, that all my prayers were answered.”

The next day with Chris was unbelievable. He ate well and visited patients on our floor, buoying their spirits. I thought he was healed.

Two days later Chris died. But in a very real sense I know that he had been healed–healed of fear and pain, ready to go on to new life. And when my time comes, I’ll be ready too.

Guests at the Barn

Posted on by Isabel Wolseley Torrey

Impossible! That is what my mother said about the upcoming Christmas family reunion. It was our turn to host. “How can I fit over 50 people into this house?”

In my bedroom, I looked up from reading about Dick Tracy and his two-way wrist radio. There wasn’t a conversation that went on without the whole house hearing. The place was tiny. It looked like a dollhouse beside our big barn. I tried to count up the family members who would be coming.

There was Mom, Dad, me and my little sister, Rosalie. Mom’s six brothers and sisters. Their children—one of my uncles had 11 kids, another had 9. Some of them had children of their own. I didn’t have to do the math to know Mom was right. They’d never fit in this house.

I turned the page of my comic and stared in shock at an ad showing that scandalous new bathing suit: a bikini! Then Mom’s voice came again from the kitchen. “We can’t afford a rental hall,” she said.

“I’ll come up with something,” said Dad. That was his standard response to everything. But he didn’t sound too sure of himself this time.

A couple of days later Dad came up with his solution. “There’s plenty of room in the barn,” he told Mom after dinner.

“The barn?” Mom said.

Even I had to gasp. I loved our big barn. It was great for playing hide-and-seek or reading. Dad had hung a rope from the ceiling so we could swing from the hay bales. When I hit the highest point of my swing, I swear I could see all the way to France out the barn windows!

But swinging was one thing, Christmas dinner was another. Would we eat with the chickens? Sit in the cow stalls? Have Christmas in a barn?

“We’ll borrow the church’s folding tables and chairs for the adults,” Dad said. “The kids can sit on the hay bales. I’ll move the tractor and corn-sheller outside for more space.”

“Just make sure everyone knows it wasn’t my idea!” Mom said. Then she thought of something. “It could be freezing on Christmas Eve. How will we heat the fine venue?”

“I’ll come up with something.”

I couldn’t help but root for Dad to find a solution.

Days passed. Then one afternoon, out of the blue, Dad found the answer. “Remember that old wood stove you wanted to be rid of?”

“The one you insisted on storing in the cellar,” said Mom.

“We’ll put it in the barn,” Dad said. “The almanac says we’re due for a mild Christmas. We’ll be fine.”

Mom marked the days till the reunion on the Purina-Feed calendar. Over the coming weeks, we got the barn into shape. Mom broom-brushed the cobwebbed walls. Rosalie and I swept hay and dust off the concrete floor. Dad “neated-up” the cow stalls.

Some farmer neighbors helped Dad carry the stove to the barn, stick its exhaust pipe through a window and stock firewood by its side.

A few days before Christmas, we unfolded the church tables and chairs, spread a festive tablecloth, laid all the places. Dad lit the wood stove to see how it worked. It didn’t take long for the drafty barn to feel warm and cozy.

What’s more, the front of the stove had a little window made of isinglass. I could see the fire glowing from inside it, casting a warm, beautiful glow. It was like having a fireplace right there in the barn.

“We’re ready,” Mom said. Even she had faith in Dad’s plan now.

The next day a wicked north wind roared across the Kansas plains, whipping up snow everywhere. Highway 50’s black-licorice asphalt turned white. Black ice crusted the road. Icicles hung from the phone lines and sparkled in the cornfields.

“What if nobody comes?” I asked Mom. I no longer felt embarrassed about our Christmas barn dinner.

“Angels sang at Jesus’ first birthday,” said Dad. “They’ll come to this one and pave the way for our guests.”

I couldn’t help thinking that if we were just entertaining angels for Christmas, they could have fit in our tiny little house. But Dad was right. By the time the rooster crowed on the day of the reunion, the sky had cleared.

We were just finishing breakfast when a noise like a coffee grinder split the early morning silence. It was a truck, slip-sliding its way up the lane to our house. My uncle Elmer popped his head out. “Betcha thought we wouldn’t make it clear from Wichita!” he called.

Aunt Sadie climbed out. “Where do I put the fried chicken?”

We led the way into the barn, followed by Uncle Elmer, Aunt Sadie and the eight kids they’d crammed into the backseat. “Neat!” they said when they saw our pot-bellied stove.

Pickup trucks arrived all day, with more relatives and more food. I ran from the house to the barn, eagerly listening to everyone catching up. “I put up a hundred quarts of tomatoes this year,” Aunt Minnie told the other women in the kitchen. “Heard the Millers got thirty bushels per acre,”

Uncle Jack was saying to the men by the corral fence. “Isabel, come and play hide-and-seek!” my cousins called from the haymow.

At dinnertime Mom clanged the cowbell hanging from its strap by the haymow ladder. “Come and get it!”

We took our places on folding chairs and hay bales. Grandpa read the twenty-third Psalm from the Bible and led us in a blessing.

We ate, talked and laughed for so long, the cows started bawling to come in for milking. Dad opened the door and in they came, snorting steaming clouds of air all the way to their stalls.

I’d thought a barn was a strange place for Christmas dinner, but all this time later it remains my favorite setting. Because that year we had everything Jesus did on the first Christmas. We had family, hay, farm animals—and, of course, angels.

Guardian Angels Saved This Pilot

Posted on by Don Donaldson

I leaned forward in my pilot’s seat, straining to see any sign of the skies clearing in the distance. But there was nothing. I’d been flying my Cessna single-engine plane through thick dark clouds for more than an hour, across the length of Pennsylvania. The stress of navigating in “pea soup” was definitely getting to me. My wife, Chiqui, was next to me. Our young daughters, Almarie and Sissel, behind us. You’re putting their lives in danger, I thought. You should have never taken off from Pittsburgh in conditions like these.

I was a veteran pilot, based in Guatemala and certified to fly instrument-only—that is, without being able to see the ground. But a certification didn’t take away the stress of constantly checking my altitude, that the plane was level, that I was on course, listening for airport radio traffic—things that didn’t require as much diligence in good weather. My shoulders and neck were stiff. I hadn’t relaxed them once since we took off.

And I still hadn’t hit my biggest problem: landing in Lancaster, our destination. I had no way of knowing how low the cloud cover would be, when I’d actually be able to put eyes on the runway. Plus, my plane didn’t have an indicator to tell me when I was nearing the runway. Most of my flying was in Guatemala, where airports didn’t have those kind of beacons. Making that final descent was going to be no picnic. As of now, Lancaster was still reporting minimum conditions for landing. If it got worse, I’d have to divert, but things were no better anywhere on the East Coast.

I looked over at Chiqui, her head bent in prayer. I wasn’t going to say anything to alarm her more. The girls were talking and laughing, oblivious to the danger.

We were headed for a church revival meeting in Lancaster. I was scheduled to preach and give a presentation about the aviation ministry I ran in Guatemala, hoping to raise funds. For the past five years I’d flown ministers to churches in jungle villages where few roads even reached. I loved my work, but it was expensive.

Once a year we came to the U.S. to raise money. That’s why I hadn’t wanted to cancel this flight. Every stop was important. I’d waited for hours hoping the skies would clear. Finally, at 5:30 P.M. I’d made the choice to take off. I knew that the sun would be setting by the time we landed, only adding to the challenge, but I’d told myself everything would be okay.

Now I recognized my confidence for what it was: pilot arrogance. “Get-home-itis” I called it, a stubborn determination to reach a destination. Placing too much trust in my own abilities.

The radio crackled with instructions from the control tower. “Descend to three thousand feet.”

My hands gripped the yoke tighter. Lord, help me, I thought—more an involuntary thought than an actual prayer. I nosed the plane downward. “Lancaster tower, cleared to three thousand feet,” I said into the mike, checking the altimeter. I just hoped I wasn’t coming in too fast. Down, down we went, with still no sign of the ground below. My stomach was in knots. Focus, focus, I told myself.

From the back of the plane I heard a voice, little Almarie’s. “Mommy, I see angels in the clouds.”

What on earth? “Chiqui, take a look outside. Do you see anything?”

“Yes, there are angels,” she said. But all I saw was the ground below. And a high-tension electrical wire just feet away from my wheels. In seconds we’d be toast.

I pulled hard on the yoke, my arms straining, willing the plane to climb faster. Slowly, slowly it responded. We missed the wire by inches.

I radioed the control tower that I’d missed the approach and was making another attempt.

“Lancaster tower, please let me know when I’m over the beacon,” I said. The controller could track my location on radar.

“Roger that,” came the reply.

I circled around. This time I got the word when I was over the beacon. I eased the plane downward. There was the runway, and my approach was perfect. My shoulders relaxed. Seconds later the wheels touched down. The girls cheered. Night was falling. We had just enough time to make it to the revival.

God had known our position when I could not. And sent flight controllers from heaven to protect us. I was beyond grateful, but I’d also learned a lesson: to put my ultimate trust not in myself, but in the one who guides our paths.

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Guardian Angels Protected Her Son in a Moment of Danger

Posted on by Sue Coffey

Everything was quiet when I blinked awake in the darkness. My husband, Bob, was fast asleep beside me. But I’d heard someone call, “Mom!” I was sure of it. One of the kids, I thought, dragging myself out of bed. Probably just a nightmare.

I checked the rooms where my two younger daughters slept. Eight-year-old Elizabeth was fast asleep in her bed. So was 10-year-old Sarah. Cosmo, our Jack Russell, lifted his head from the living room sofa as I went up the stairs. “Shh, it’s okay,” I whispered. And it was. Fourteen-year-old Amy was in her upstairs bedroom, sleeping as peacefully as her sisters. “Guess it was my own nightmare,” I whispered to Cosmo as I passed by him again. “The girls are fine.”

There was one child I couldn’t check on, and I still hadn’t gotten used to that. My eldest, Matt, was finishing up his second year at Texas A&M in College Station, some 800 miles away from where we were living in Smyrna, Tennessee. Matt was due home for a visit the following night, but would soon return to Texas for a summer internship. I’d accepted his being away during the school year. Now I’d have to give him up for the summer too.

I hope he doesn’t miss his flight tomorrow, I thought as I slipped back into my bedroom. I knew Matt was old enough to take care of himself, but as a mother it was hard not to worry. He had trouble being punctual in the best of circumstances, and I knew he’d want to celebrate the end of finals. Packing would surely take a backseat. When he was at home I could remind him of the time, but with him far away in Texas…

“If one of the girls called out to me, she’s asleep now,” I whispered to Bob as I got back into bed. He didn’t answer. He’d missed the whole thing. I prayed myself back to sleep, calling on Matt’s guardian angel to check on him in my absence. I didn’t dare call the dorm at this hour.

I couldn’t have been sleeping long when I was awoken again. This time by a loud scream. I jumped up and looked at the clock. It was a little after 2 A.M.

“Did you hear that?” I asked Bob.

He listened with me for a long moment, but we heard nothing. “I must really be dreaming tonight,” I said. But I couldn’t settle myself down. I couldn’t get that scream out of my head. Again, I went out to the living room. This time, I scooped Cosmo up in my arms. Something wasn’t right.

Cosmo and I made the rounds. “Everybody’s fine here,” I said to him. So why did I feel so uneasy? That particular kind of uneasy of a mother for her child. If my three here were okay, that left only one who might be in trouble.

“God, please keep Matt safe,” I asked out loud in the darkness. “If he is in trouble, send his guardian angel. Send Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and all the heavenly host to come to his aid.” Only after I’d finished my prayer was I calm enough to go back to bed.

I woke up early, and it took several tries for me to reach Matt at the dorm. “I’m fine, Mom,” he said, his voice groggy with sleep.

Thank heavens! I must have been even more worried than I thought about Matt missing his flight. Enough to give myself nightmares. But whether warranted or not, fervent prayers for my growing son were never a bad idea.

Making his flight with plenty of time to spare, Matt arrived home late that night. As soon as he hugged me, I knew something was wrong. Instead of his usual tight, affectionate squeeze, he embraced me quickly with one arm, favoring his side. “It’s a long story,” he said when I asked him what happened. “I’ll tell you in the morning.”

“You will tell me right now,” I said. “Otherwise, I won’t sleep. Again!”

Little by little, it came out. Matt had gone to a party off-campus to celebrate the end of exams. While Matt and a friend were waiting outside for their ride back to the dorms, four young men approached, looking for trouble. “We tried to ignore them, but they were determined to pick a fight,” Matt said. “We went down pretty fast. I remember lying on the sidewalk, curled up, protecting my head while somebody kicked me.”

Matt paused and frowned, as if in confusion. “The next thing I knew, I was leaning on a car down the street. One second I was on the ground, the next I was yards away. I ran back over to my friend, who was talking with EMTs. I didn’t even see the ambulance arrive. I’m a little bruised and my friend needed stitches, but we’re okay.” Matt shook his head. “I just don’t understand how I got where I was. I asked my friend, but he couldn’t tell me either.”

“What time of night was this all happening?” I asked.

“Around two,” he said. “I watched the time because I didn’t want to be out too late. I had a plane to catch.”

Two o’clock. Perhaps Matt’s guardian angel had awakened me that night, calling for my prayers to alert all the angels in heaven to the situation before anyone was seriously injured. And as scary as things got, Matt deserved credit for good planning—not only about not staying out too late, but also in arranging for a ride home from the party. Maybe I’d never stop worrying about him completely. Maybe no mother could ever do that. But I could trust my son to make responsible decisions—and trust God to be with him while he did it. Even when he was far from home—and me—Matt was never far from angelic protection.

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Guardian Angels: God’s Protective Messengers

Posted on by Ashley Lateef

Content provided by Good Samaritan Society.

If you saw someone who looked sick, would you have the confidence to ask if they felt all right? Would you know if they were having a stroke?

On a summer morning in 2004, Merry Jo Escher woke up not feeling well. She was on a business trip and had been at a golf outing the evening before, where she had had a few drinks and had golfed with people who were smoking.

She figured that was the reason for how she was feeling, and she got ready for a sales call. On her drive to the appointment, she felt terrible and started seeing double, so she drove back to where she was staying. After resting for a while, she decided to take off again.

By the time she neared her destination, Merry Jo, a 48-year-old, was only seeing light and dark, but she was able to cross a major intersection and get to the building.

When she walked in, the receptionist, Verda, asked her how she was feeling. They had known each other for years, and something seemed off to Verda.

After Merry Jo told her the symptoms she was experiencing, Verda called the company’s head of safety and told him he needed to get Merry Jo to the ER because she was having a stroke.

“I didn’t think I was having a stroke. I knew the signs.” – Merry Jo Escher, stroke survivor

The doctor she saw was a cardiologist. He confirmed she was having a stroke and asked about her medications. She was on birth control pills at the time, and a stroke was one of the classic side effects of the pill.

Merry Jo had started taking a low-dose birth control pill when her insurance company wouldn’t pay for her to have a hysterectomy. “I was in complete denial because of my age,” says Merry Jo. “It was the last thing on my mind.”

After her ER visit and overnight hospital stay, she made an appointment at Mayo Clinic, where she found out she had a small blood clot in her brain.

Two to three years before Merry Jo started feeling back to normal. “I didn’t feel bad,” says Merry Jo. “I just didn’t feel right.”

After the stroke, she lost the ability to do math and slurred her words. “I worked really hard on doing Sudoku and any math challenges to keep my mind as sharp as possible,” she says. “I also continued to take baby aspirin daily for the next several years.”

She still slurs some words today when she’s tired, and her right eye droops slightly. But she is thankful to be alive.

“It kind of brings you back to earth that anything can happen to anybody. There’s a reason for things, and it’s not my place to understand.” – Merry Jo Escher

She considers Verda her guardian angel for spotting the stroke and seeing things she didn’t. When they talked about it in the years that followed, Verda said she didn’t even know what made her think it, but she was positive it was a stroke.

Merry Jo says, “I truly believe God was looking over my shoulder.”

Guardian Angel on My Bridge

Posted on by Deidre Snee

Time can change the way you see a place.

Even the places that are most familiar.

I was walking down to the stream I’d crossed every day of my childhood. But now I was a mother with two young sons.

John and Peter rushed ahead, eager to explore Mommy’s old stomping grounds. “Don’t run so far ahead!” I called as they raced down the grassy slope.

Too bad so much of it had changed. I hardly recognized the area. Land development had swallowed up my aunt’s old house and my grandparents’ farm. The orchard, the beehives, the fields of melons and tomatoes were now taken over by asphalt and stores. Only my parents’ property remained untouched, if threatened—a few acres of isolated woods holding back the urban sprawl.

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I caught up and took John and Peter by the hand. The boys stumbled over brambles. “When I was your age this path was clear because we all walked it so much,” I explained to them. “It’s sure not the same anymore.”

It wasn’t just the landscape that was different. I was different too, and in surprising ways. Just my being here was proof.

As a teenager I’d rebelled against a strict upbringing. Too much hard work, too little spending money, too many rules—at home, at school, at church. Too many things I was expected to do and believe just because adults said so.

I couldn’t wait to leave it all behind and do things my way. At college I stopped going to church and focused on fun as much as my studies. I got married young—too young—and thought I’d never have a reason to look back.

But things hadn’t turned out the way I planned. When my marriage ended it was my parents who were there to take me in while I put my life back together.

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Now that I’d matured, remarried and had children of my own, all those lessons about hard work, saving money and God’s love made sense. Life experience had taught me the things I was too young to understand as a child. They’d taught me to appreciate what I had and to thank God for it. Now I wanted to teach my sons the lessons I’d once resisted.

“Look, Mommy! There’s a bridge!” said John.

I followed his gaze and winced. I recognized the bridge just fine. It stood strong across the stream where I used to wade. On the other side of the stream was the hill that had once led to my grandparents’ farm. Now it was littered with trash and abandoned grocery carts from the big box store that stood at the top.

As I led my sons to the water, in my mind I saw the land the way it used to be, with green grass and tall trees of my childhood. “This was my favorite place to go when I was young,” I told the boys. “Every evening, just before dinner my mother would call, ‘Who’s taking the newspaper over to Babci?’ I’d shout, ‘I will!’ and start down the path.”

“But why didn’t your grandmother have her own newspaper to read?” Peter asked, his brow wrinkling up.

“We didn’t need to buy two papers,” I said, thinking how pleased my thrifty mother would be if she could hear me now. “My parents read the paper in the morning, and my grandparents read it at night. Delivering that paper was the highlight of my day. Sometimes I played along the way, or splashed in the stream, or just listened to the birds in the trees. Then I crossed over that bridge and went up the hill where Babci was waiting with a hug.”

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“Can we play in the stream too?” asked Peter, looking at the water.

Dipping my toes in for old times’ sake seemed like a good idea. There was no trash in the stream that I could see, only on the hill. “Okay,” I said. “But stay close to me.”

The boys splashed in, squealing about the smooth rocks and cool water. No matter how it changes, I still love this place.

“Can we go up on the bridge?” asked John. “Like you used to do?”

“Sure,” I said. “Your grandfather built that bridge with his father.”

“Wow!” said John, his eyes wide.

As a child I had taken my family’s accomplishment for granted. Now I treasured a hundred memories of it: Skipping across to Babci’s house. Stopping at the spot right in the middle, where I knew no one could see me, just to watch the water flow underneath my feet. Running across it back home to escape a coming rainstorm. Something else I remembered about crossing that bridge.

Read More: An Unlikely Guardian Angel

At school, Sister had taught us about guardian angels. “Everyone has one,” she said.

“How come I’ve never seen my guardian angel?” I asked.

“Your guardian angel doesn’t always want to be seen,” Sister said. “But never doubt: She’s with you always, whether you see her or not.”

Walking to Babci’s house, I often thought about that angel. Did she see me when I was being naughty? When I was sleeping? When I was crossing the bridge? When I was standing at the spot right in the middle where no one else could see me? Was she with me while I stood watching the water flow? Once I turned around quick and looked behind me.

“I want to see what you look like,” I said, turning back to the water. “Why won’t you let me see you? Why won’t you talk to me?”

Spinning around again, I hoped to catch sight of my angel before she disappeared. Back and forth I walked across the bridge, stopping every few steps to turn around and catch her. But each time my angel was too fast.

Maybe guardian angels were just one of those things grown-ups said without explanation. Like the rules I had to follow at school and the chores I had to do at home just because a grown-up said so.

Well, if I couldn’t see her, I wasn’t going to believe in her. I stomped across the bridge to Babci’s house. Babci was someone I could see with my own eyes.

The boys splashed me and broke my reverie. I shook my head remembering how stubborn I used to be. How many times had I tested Sister’s lesson, daring my guardian angel to show herself. I’d not seen her to this day, but I couldn’t have made it this far without her by my side. Or right behind me. I looked over my shoulder. You’re still too fast for me!

“Mommy?” John tugged at the hem of my shorts. “Mommy, I found this in the water. What is it?”

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He dropped a piece of pottery into my hand. It was curved, probably from an old teapot, stained and cracked from being in the stream for who knew how long.

But there was a piece of a scene on it. I could make out a young girl with a pouty expression. Behind her was a man with a kindly smile. His arms were stretched out protectively toward her, his sleeves hanging down on either side. Like angel wings, I thought.

“Did you find any more pieces like this?” I asked John.

He shook his head. “Nope, just a bunch of pebbles.”

I tucked the pottery shard into my pocket, sure that my guardian angel had meant for me to have it. Of course she had been with me on the bridge that day, as she was and is every day. Just as my sons’ guardian angels would be with them throughout their lives. I would tell them this was true.

And not just because an adult said so.

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