Page 451 – Guideposts Articles

A Precious Little Angel

Posted on March 10, 2026April 13, 2026 by Jake Ness

Mike and I were psyched. Our families were taking a golf vacation at Hot Springs Village together.

The Christophersons lived down the block from us, but they were more than neighbors. Cindy and Dale were like an aunt and uncle to me.

In fact, we even figured out we were related—Mike and his sister, Amy, were my second cousins several times removed. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but we got even closer to the Christophersons after my big brother, Andy, died in a car accident. They were always at our house, bringing over food, asking if we needed anything.

They really encouraged us to take the vacation to Hot Springs Village too. You see, my family had been there before; it was the last vacation we took with Andy before he died. In a way, I felt like this trip was all about remembering him. And there was a lot to remember.

By the time Andy was a sophomore, he was already developing into a fine point guard. I was in eighth grade then. There was nothing like watching Andy in his white uniform with the big red 20 on the back, doing some fancy ball handling, dribbling downcourt for a three-point shot. The crowd learned to keep its eye on number 20.

When Andy died, the school gave us his uniform. Two years later, though, part of me was still scanning the court for him, or thinking that he might suddenly show up and shoot some hoops with Mike and me in the driveway. Our minister said I’d see Andy again one day in heaven, and I wished I could believe it.

I mean really believe it. Andy hanging around the court in a white uniform was one thing, but with a bunch of angels in white robes? I just couldn’t picture it. For now I had to settle for reliving some of the good times we had golfing at Hot Springs Village.

Mike and I helped our dads load up. We put the TV and PlayStation in the back of our van, and Mike rode with us. “I brought plenty of games and a stack of DVDs,” I said. “We’re set for the next two days.” Mike gave me a high five as we rolled down the driveway. Dale, Cindy and Amy followed in their car.

“Hey, guys,” my mom said. “We’re going to make an extra stop tomorrow. Cindy and Amy want to visit the Precious Moments Inspiration Park.”

I looked up from the game, completely blowing my next shot. “Precious Moments Inspiration Park?” I said. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Nope,” said Mom. “It’s in Carthage, Missouri. Right on our way.”

Mike and I looked at each other in horror. Precious Moments theme park had to be a drag any day, but on this trip especially. This was supposed to be about Andy! Andy did not “do” Precious Moments.

I threw a pleading look at Dad, but he shook his head. We all knew if Mom wasn’t happy, no one was happy.

Mike groaned. “It’s settled,” Dad said. “We’re going.”

I slumped back against the side of the van.

Early next afternoon, I spotted the sign for Carthage, Missouri. Precious Moments Inspiration Park—Next Exit, it proclaimed. I hoped Dad would just whiz by it, but he turned the wheel. In no time we had come to a stop in the parking lot. The Christophersons met us at our van. “Jake and I will stay here and chill,” Mike said.

“Oh, no, you won’t,” said Cindy. “You’re coming in and you’re going to like it!” Mom gave me that look, and I followed her to the ticket booth. We paid for seven tickets and entered the park. Everywhere you looked there were statues with huge heads and eyes. A fountain sprayed water in time to classical music. Benches lined the walkways so visitors could stop and peacefully take it all in.

It was just about the last place on earth I wanted to be. After about an hour of Amy and the moms cooing, Cindy pointed up a stone path. “Look,” she said. “There’s the chapel.”

Mike and I rolled our eyes. “Come on, boys,” Cindy said, giving us a push. “This is supposed to be the best part.” Right. It was crowded inside. We moved through the sanctuary into a room called Hallelujah Square. While the rest of us hung back in the doorway, Amy and Cindy milled around, inspecting the mural of heaven that completely covered the walls.

Hundreds of Precious Moments angels danced, hugged, twirled and skipped hand in hand. That’s where Andy’s supposed to be? I thought. Looks like a guy’s worst nightmare.

“Jake! Over here!” Cindy called from across the room. “You have to see this!”

I can only imagine. I made my way through the throng of tourists, to the far corner of the room. My dad pointed to the wall. More angels. What else was new? One was picking flowers, one was petting a kitten, and one was…shooting hoops!

“Whoa!” said Mike, coming up behind me. The angel held a basketball. The number emblazoned on the front of his robe: a big red number 20.

“I can’t believe I even noticed him,” Cindy said. “I guess that number really caught my eye.”

The seven of us stood around for a while staring at that angel. Somehow it didn’t seem that far-fetched anymore that that was exactly what my brother Andy was doing at this very moment. Shooting some hoops up in heaven. And it was as real as when we played one-on-one together in the driveway.

I’d planned on this trip being about remembering Andy. But now I knew for sure that Andy wasn’t just a memory. I would tell him all about this trip one day in heaven. Maybe over a game of one-on-one.

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A Prayer in Saigon

Posted on March 10, 2026April 13, 2026 by Walter Summers

How did a guy like me wind up in what was then known as Saigon, Vietnam, in 1966?

Looking out my dirty hotel window one evening I still wasn’t sure. There was a war being fought in the jungles north of us. But that wasn’t what brought me here. I was here for the paycheck. I was hired by an American firm contracted by the U.S. Navy for construction work. My skills as an engineer were in demand.

Right away I knew I did not like Saigon. It was hot, dirty and confusing. We engineers lived in a fleabag hotel called the Mondial. Mainly, I kept to myself and stayed inside the hotel. The more experienced guys warned us not to wander off alone, especially after dark. There were horror stories of American businessmen or contractors like ourselves disappearing down alleyways and never being heard from again. The streets certainly didn’t look welcoming with their unfamiliar shops, signs I couldn’t read and soldiers walking around with guns.

I miss America, I thought as I gazed down onto the busy street below. Nothing—not the job nor the money—seemed worth this kind of loneliness. I missed my family and friends back in the States. I felt miles away from everything friendly or familiar. But still, I had to eat. I tied my shoelaces and double-locked the hotel door behind me. It was time for my daily trek out into the streets of Saigon for dinner.

Once I’d had a decent meal I walked back to the hotel. I strolled slower than I usually did, taking in some of the knickknacks being sold at the various carts around the plaza by the hotel.

These folks aren’t so different from me, I thought. I should try to enjoy the adventure. It was good to be out and about. At least, surrounded by people, I felt a little less alone.

Then I realized the sky had gotten dark. Sundown. How many times was I warned to get back to the hotel before dark? I walked more quickly toward the Mondial. Lord, I prayed, if your angels exist, I’d love to have one of them protect me now.

A cycle-powered pedicab blew past me and I yelled after him, hoping for a faster trip home. He slowed to a stop. “Hello,” I said. “Hotel Mondial.” The cabbie nodded and started peddling off. Something didn’t seem right though. He was taking a strange route back to the hotel. The cabbie spun the pedicab into a very dark and deserted alleyway. There was another man in the alleyway already. He nodded in recognition at the pedicab driver. My worst fears about Saigon were coming true. I was trapped!

I leapt out of the pedicab but the men cornered me up against a brick wall in the alley. I was alone, in the dark. My two would-be assailants blocked the only exit.

As they moved toward me, I could make out a third figure, shrouded in shadows, coming up behind them. He towered over the both of them. Oh, no, I thought. Three against one. I’ll never make it. I’m going to be the subject of one of those horror stories new guys get told.

When they stepped out of the shadows, I saw the towering figure wore a U.S. uniform with master sergeant stripes. “Sarge?” I whispered. The two assailants wheeled around, just now seeing the hulking soldier behind them. They froze in their tracks. I skittered over to him. We walked out of the alley and toward the Mondial. The two muggers didn’t dare follow.

Never was I so happy to see the Mondial. “Thanks, Sarge,” I said when we reached the glass doors. He said nothing in return. I noticed he wasn’t wearing a sidearm. That was unheard of. And since when do master sergeants walk around Saigon after dark? Alone?

I put my hand on the door and turned around. “Hey, thanks again…” I froze with my mouth half open. The soldier was gone. I looked back down the way we came but the towering figure was nowhere to be seen.

As I dragged my weary body through the lobby of the Mondial, I remembered the prayer I’d made earlier that night. The Lord does have his ministering angels, and they do help those in need. Even in a faraway place like Vietnam.

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

An Unusual Little Angel

Posted on March 10, 2026April 14, 2026 by Colleen Hughes

This morning I walked in to a bunch of New York Times newspaper clippings scattered across my desk, each one from a different coworker, every one the same story—about an angel with a cellphone.

It seems a Dutch sculptor won a 1997 competition to create new statues for the ancient St. John the Evangelist Cathedral in the Netherlands. Ton Mooy, the sculptor, made 40 statues, 14 of them angels, one of them highly unconventional.

The Little Angel, slouching slightly, in blue jeans and with a laptop bag over her shoulder, has a cellphone pressed against her ear and the look my 14-year-old daughter haswhen she’s listening intently to a friend and shouldn’t be disturbed. The body language and downward glance suggest, This is an important call.

“Angels are there to guide, to protect people,” Ton Mooy said about his thoroughly modern take on a beloved subject. “They get messages from above. How do you show that? With a cellphone!”

A local couple couldn’t have agreed more. They printed business cards with a picture of the Little Angel—and her very own telephone number. The wife is the “voice” of Little Angel, and has answered calls from all kinds of people, some asking for prayers, some for solace, some looking for a moment’s companionship. Her favorite callers are children wanting to know if the Little Angel is cold, or worrying that she has no umbrella in the rain! “In most cases,” she says, “there is laughter.”

And why not, when spreading joy is also the work of the angels. I sure got a laugh out of the dozen or so copies of this story torn from yesterday’s paper. And I felt blessed that all these earth angels I work with read this story and thought of me.

An Unlikely Feline Friend Brought Heaven-Sent Comfort

Posted on March 10, 2026April 13, 2026 by Elizabeth Wagoner

Bill just wasn’t a cat person. Yet there he was on the porch, my husband with a yellow striped cat in his arms. “Look who found me,” he said with a grin. My eyes widened while I waited for the stray to leap from Bill’s arms and go on her merry way—but that didn’t happen.

Bill and that cat, named AbbyCat by our granddaughter, were soon inseparable. Wherever Bill went, AbbyCat followed. On his long daily walks she stayed right at his heels. I’d never seen anything like it.

Watching from the window one chilly afternoon, I saw Bill heading for his Adirondack chair under the Bradford pear tree. AbbyCat jumped up on one of the chair’s broad arms and waited for Bill to settle in. When he was comfortable, he lifted her into his lap and opened a book. A bit later I brought him out a sandwich. Naturally he shared it with AbbyCat.

The only place AbbyCat didn’t follow Bill was into the house. The screened back porch was as far as she would go. So Bill fixed her up a cozy box for whenever she wanted to stay the night. “She’ll be snug in here,” he said when it was finished. Sure enough, AbbyCat curled right up inside.

I wasn’t surprised when I glanced out into the yard one afternoon in February. She obviously doesn’t mind this cold snap, I thought. Just like Bill. The two of them were in their chair, Bill stroking AbbyCat’s fur absentmindedly while he read. I’d grown used to their unexpected friendship, which somehow seemed meant to be. It felt like a blessing as I looked on from the window, the two of them all the warmth each other needed under the pear tree.

A few days later, Bill came into the kitchen for his usual breakfast: cereal and bananas. From the living room, I heard an odd sound. When I went to see what had happened, I found Bill lying on the floor. My husband couldn’t be revived. He had died instantly of a heart attack.

In the coming days, I hardly gave AbbyCat a thought as she came and went. But when I got home from Bill’s funeral, I found her on the porch. I knew she was looking for Bill, missing him, just like me. “He’s gone,” I told her. “We’ve both lost someone very dear.” She couldn’t understand. Neither could I. It was impossible to imagine a world without Bill in it. I tried to coax AbbyCat inside, wanting her there more than ever. She refused, as always.

After that, I stopped seeing her in the yard, or on the porch. Bill’s Adirondack chair stayed empty. So did AbbyCat’s box. Somehow her disappearance seemed to make Bill’s absence all the more permanent. It was a strange comparison, but all I could think was that I would never see either one of them again.

Then one afternoon, I glanced out the window and saw a flash of yellow. AbbyCat! She was sitting on the porch, staring at the house just like she had so many times before. “You’re always welcome,” I whispered. “On your own terms, of course.” I knew better than to try to coax her inside. It would only scare her away. Her silent presence was enough to lift my spirits.

Over the next few weeks, I glimpsed AbbyCat three times. She would sit on the porch, looking into the house, as if she wanted me to simply feel her presence. And even though Bill wasn’t there, I could feel his presence too. A presence that reached me all the way from heaven and assured me we would see each other again someday.

Once AbbyCat had gotten her message across, she didn’t return. Her angelic mission was accomplished. Not only by being an unlikely friend to Bill, but by being a comfort to me.

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An Office Angel’s Gift

Posted on March 10, 2026April 13, 2026 by Colleen Hughes

I’d been dragging around the office all day, all week maybe. My cold was hanging on, just like almost everybody else’s around here. The temperature-in-the-teens didn’t help, but why couldn’t I just suck it up like the rest of my coworkers? They didn’t seem to be complaining, just going about their business, getting the job done.

In a meeting after lunch, I coughed into the crook of my arm. My kids said that this lingering cold had at least corrected my outdated habit of covering my mouth with my hands, which is a good way to spread germs. I supposed I’d taught my little angels well about trying to find a positive in every situation.

Back at my desk after the meeting, I saw that someone had left a few cough drops on top of the manuscript I’d given up on. How could I concentrate on editing with this cold? I opened a lozenge and looked more closely at the writing on the little wrapper: “Get back in there, champ!” “Flex your ‘can do’ muscle.” “You got it in you.” “High five yourself.” “Tough is your middle name.”

I had to laugh—which made me cough! But at least I hadn’t lost my sense of humor. And that was definitely positive. At some point I will figure out which office angel sent me the perfect message in a cough drop. For now, I had a manuscript to concentrate on.

An Invisible Army of God’s Angels

Posted on March 10, 2026April 13, 2026 by Amanda Proctor*

Let me say at the outset that Carl is getting professional help at a domestic-violence treatment center. Since I do not want to hurt his chances of recovery, I have changed names and locations to camouflage his identity. Otherwise I am putting down exactly what happened on the night of May 10, 1994.

Carl Broderick and his wife, Marie, were my landlords and next-door neighbors just outside Lubbock, Texas. We shared a driveway, but that’s about all we had in common. I drove a 1987 Plymouth Voyager; Carl drove a brand-new Bronco and his wife a silver Cadillac.

Their house was large; mine was small. They liked cats and I had a dog, a big German shepherd mix named—more hopefully than accurately—Saint.

With so little to draw us together, it came as a surprise that Marie and I hit it off from the moment I moved into their tenant house. Marie helped me unpack, arrange the furniture in the three-room bungalow, and repair a fence around the property to keep Saint off the highway. She also helped me take down the plywood panels the previous renters had used to block most of the windows.

“Why was the house all boarded up?” I asked.

“There goes my phone,” Marie said, hurrying off. But her phone hadn’t rung. Later I wondered if the tenants had boarded up the house because they were afraid of Carl.

I was in my kitchen about seven months after moving in when I heard Carl shouting angrily. Then silence, followed by more shouts. A few minutes later Marie came running across the driveway, her long, graying hair loosened from its combs.

“We had a little argument,” she said. She looked as though she’d been crying. I asked if Carl had hit her. “Of course not,” she said. I wasn’t so sure.

Paul Bailey and Matthew Nelson were Marie’s childhood friends and both were worried about her husband’s behavior too—and her safety. Paul, who lived just up the road, was a bantam-size, take-charge guy who wore a diamond earring in his left ear. Matthew, who lived with his wife in Lubbock, was a gentle, heavyset, long-haul truck driver. I liked both men, even if Saint didn’t.

Saint’s grudge was with Matthew. Unaccountably, the big guy was afraid of dogs, and dogs can sense attitudes. Anytime Matthew came near our property, the hair on Saint’s neck rose and he went into a barking frenzy. It was his “Matthew bark”—not the joyful greeting he gave most people, but a low half-bark, half-growl.

On May 10, 1994, around 8:00 p.m.—maybe three weeks after the shouting episode—I was driving home from my job as a medical technician in Lubbock when I was startled to see Marie running down the highway through the semidark toward me. I pulled over and Marie scrambled in. Her blouse was torn, her hair disheveled, and there was blood on her face and hands.

“Carl’s gone crazy!” she sobbed. “He beat me up and smashed the Cadillac!”

The story tumbled out: Carl was drinking and taking drugs again. When Marie reproached him, he began to push her around. Marie ran outside and got into her Cadillac. Carl came after her. He jerked open the car door, grabbed her by the hair, threw her on the ground, jumped into the car and drove it through the side of the garage.

While he struggled to get the dented car door open, Marie ran out to the road. Crouching in the drainage ditch, she’d seen Carl’s Bronco roar out of the driveway and turn west.

I wanted to go straight to the police but Marie didn’t want “to get the whole world involved.” Instead, she asked me to drive her home; before Carl got back she’d pack a bag and find a safe place to stay.

Reluctantly, keeping a wary eye out for Carl, I turned into our drive. I could see the rear bumper of the silver Cadillac protruding from the splintered wall of the garage. Marie ran into her house.

When she came out carrying an overnight bag, she told me she’d reached Matthew’s wife, who had invited her to stay with them. The minute Matthew got home, his wife said, she’d send him over.

Marie had also phoned our neighbor Paul and asked him to come over while we waited. Paul arrived and wanted to know, “Where’s Carl’s gun?”

Marie ran back into her house and came out, her face ashen. The gun was gone.

“Let’s go to your place, Amanda,” Paul decided. “We’ll wait inside for Matthew.”

Saint barked his friendly greeting as I unlocked the door and entered the dark house. To ease our minds, I went into each of the three rooms, Marie following close behind, and switched on all the lights.

It was from the bedroom window that I saw them…

“Look!” I whispered to Marie.

Standing shoulder to shoulder around the house, just outside the fence, were scores of magnificent glowing figures. Twenty feet tall or more, they were luminescent against the darkening sky, as if their bodies were made of light.

They stood with their backs to us, facing outward; each one carried a shield and a long spear at his side. Strangely, I felt no surprise at seeing them. It seemed right and natural that they should be there.

“Look at what?” Marie asked.

“Those men…angels…whatever they are. Marie, there must be a hundred of them!”

Marie stepped to the window and peered out. “Are you feeling all right, Honey?” she asked. “There’s nobody out there.” She took me by the arm and drew me out to the kitchen. “Amanda thinks she sees angels in the yard,” she told Paul.

Paul looked out the kitchen window, then at me. “Yeah,” he said. “There are only two chairs in here,” he went on, clearly happy to change the subject. He went and got the rocker from the living room.

It was completely dark outside now. Nine o’clock came, and no Matthew. Then, around 9:15 p.m., Saint gave his Matthew bark.

“He’s here,” I said, jumping up to grab Saint by the collar. “Hush, Saint!” But the dog kept up his low, ominous growl.

I started for the door but Paul stopped me. “Don’t open it till you know who’s there!” he warned. I went to the window. I could see the shining beings keeping guard around my fence, but no one else. Finally I let Saint go.

“What was that all about?” Paul asked.

“I don’t know. There’s no one out there , but…”

“Your angels?” said Paul.

Another 45 minutes passed. Ten o’clock. I made a second pot of coffee. “Why don’t I take you to Matt’s place, Marie?” Paul asked, but Marie was sure Matthew was on his way.

Then, a second time, the hair on Saint’s neck bristled and he began his Matthew bark. We waited for our big friend’s voice or knock, but once again we heard nothing. At a quarter to 11, Saint repeated his performance. “You say Saint only barks like that for Matthew—well, where is the guy?” Paul wanted to know. “I’ll bet it’s Carl out there.”

“Saint never barks at Carl,” I said.

At 11:30 Marie gave in and agreed to go to Paul’s house, where there was a sofa bed in the living room. They asked me to come too, but I wanted to stay in case Matthew finally showed up. Paul looked out the window. “Are they still here?”

“Yes,” I said, “and I’ve never felt safer.”

Paul and Marie left. I washed the coffee cups, put the rocker back in the living room and got into bed. As I closed my eyes, I thanked God for sending his angels to protect us. Then I turned out the light and immediately fell asleep.

Next morning I ran from window to window to see if the luminous beings were still there. I counted only four of them now, one at each corner of the fence. Guess we don’t need a whole army now, I thought.

Paul phoned; I told him that Carl hadn’t returned. A few minutes later Paul drove Marie over. “How are your angels this morning?” he asked with a smile. I told him four were still here, keeping watch. “Sure,” he said.

Around 10 o’clock Saint began growling—that unmistakable Matthew bark. And this time, through the kitchen window, I saw our friend on the front steps. I put the dog in the bedroom and all three of us went to the door to greet him.

“Where were you last night?” Paul demanded.

“Where was I?” Matthew asked. “Where were you? That’s the question.”

“Right here,” said Paul.

Matthew laughed. “No, you weren’t. I came by three times and there was no one here…except that dog, raising a ruckus.”

Paul sat down hard on the sofa. His jaw dropped as Matthew described how he’d come by at roughly 45-minute intervals the night before.

“Your cars were here. That’s what was so strange,” he said. “Saint would have eaten me up if I’d tried coming inside, but I walked around and looked in all the windows. The rocking chair was in the kitchen,” he added with a puzzled frown. “The place was empty, I tell you. If you were here,” he said, “you were invisible.”

I stared at him. “Then you had to be invisible too, Matthew,” I said. “We didn’t see you or hear you.”

“But if Carl was out there somewhere—” Marie began.

“And if we’d opened the door to let Matthew in…” said Paul.

The four of us sat blinking in the bright May morning. What mysterious protection had hovered over this house? It was Paul who told Matthew about the angels circling the fence.

There was much we didn’t understand—have never understood, and maybe are not meant to understand. We’ll never know what danger waited out there in the dark. Carl says his mind was so fogged by drugs and alcohol that he has no memory of that night.

But whatever the evil, it could not find us; scores of shining beings had made us invisible.

*Names have been changed.

An Inspiring Story of One Man’s Persistence at Christmas

Posted on March 10, 2026April 13, 2026 by Ricardo Bimbela

Why do we feel the need to tell stories around Christmas? Is it because we are all together and finally have time to talk? Or is it because an inspirational Christmas story reminds us of the joys this season can hold for us? Maybe it’s a little of both.

Learn the lengths a delivery man went to bring a young boy some holiday happiness in this inspirational Christmas story:

Playing Santa

Everybody can use extra money around the holidays, and Christmas is UPS’s busiest season. I signed up for a temporary route. Who knew how much I’d love the job?

One rainy afternoon a couple days before Christmas I carried a box up a walkway. Three faces appeared at the window as I approached. The front door opened and a woman stuck her head out.

“Could you go around the back?” she whispered.

I gave her a wink. This wasn’t the first time I’d helped a mom keep a Christmas surprise.

“Did the kids see?” my driver, Dan, asked when I got back to the truck.

I shook my head. “But not for lack of trying.” We laughed and started off down the street. “Now I know how Santa Claus feels.”

I really did feel like Santa Claus. There was nothing like bringing people something they really needed or wanted. Omaha steaks, books they couldn’t wait to read, even replacement bathroom fixtures were fun to deliver, especially if they were a gift for someone else. A lot of people would be happy Christmas morning in part because of me.

A Lost Package

We turned onto a short street with only three houses. We knew it well. As we pulled to a stop a woman came up to the truck.

“Do you have something for me?” she asked, pointing to her house. She sounded anxious.

“I’m sorry. Today’s package is for the house next door.”

“Mine must’ve gotten lost,” she said.

Dan and I exchanged a look of concern. We’d delivered 1,440 packages without a glitch. We didn’t want even one to go astray.

“Maybe one of your neighbors has it,” I said.

I checked at the house next door, but they had no extra packages. No one answered at the house across the street.

“They’re the only other people on the block,” I said.

The woman looked on the verge of tears.

“What was in it?”

“A Santa suit,” she said. I might have laughed if she didn’t look so upset. Obviously this Santa suit was important. “My husband is going to wear it Christmas Eve. We want to make this Christmas extra special for our son. He’s seven and he’s… well, he’s been very sick.”

We had to find that package! According to our tracking records we had definitely delivered the woman’s package to the right street, but not the right address. The package had to be in that empty house. We didn’t even have a phone number.

Praying for a Christmas Miracle

For the next two days I thought of nothing except that package. But the house stayed empty and I had no way of getting inside.

Santa could solve this problem by magic, I thought as I climbed into the truck for my last day on the job, December twenty-third. I needed God’s help. Please, let me find that package. It would be the best Christmas gift you could give me.

All day I prayed for a miracle. But none came. Just after sunset we turned down the little street once more. As we passed the house with the sick child, I spotted his mother standing in the garage. She looked sad. Like she’d given up. Maybe it was time I did too.

“Hey,” Dan said. “The garage door’s open.” He pointed across the street. For the first time in days there were signs of life at the mystery house. A couple was getting out of a car. I almost broke my neck running over to catch them. “Did you find a package by any chance? A package that doesn’t belong here?”

“We just pulled in to check on our friends’ house,” one of them said. “They’re on vacation. But we’d be glad to look around for you.”

Moments later I was springing across the street with the long-lost box in my hands. “UPS, we deliver!” I announced as I handed it over.

“I’ve been trying to find a replacement suit for days!” the woman said. “Nobody could get it to us by Christmas Eve!”

Just then a little boy came to the door. He seemed fragile, but with the innocent face of an angel.

“This man has brought us a very important package,” his mother told him.

The boy looked up at me. “Thank you,” he said. “Do you like fruitcake?”

He went into the house and returned with a box wrapped with a ribbon.

“Merry Christmas,” he said.

“Looks like you got a present too,” Dan said when I got back to the truck with the box.

I sure did. And I didn’t mean the fruitcake.

Animal Angels: My Dear White Deer

Posted on March 10, 2026April 13, 2026 by Alice Koerber

Out in the yard trimming a tree, I thought, Fred should see me now. We’d been married almost 50 years when lung cancer took him from me. In the four months since, I wondered every day how I’d go on alone without him by my side.

I threw some clippings into a pile and felt a presence behind me. A deer stood stock-still, staring at me from three yards away. I’d never seen such a noble-looking animal before. She was almost entirely white, except for a bit of brown on her forehead. But not just white. Immaculately white.

Her coat was so clean, so impossibly pristine, like something from another world. I took a small step closer, half wondering if this deer was real or some kind of divine vision.

The deer held her ground. She didn’t get spooked by my movement. She didn’t run, like a regular deer would. But then again, there was nothing at all that was regular about this deer. She watched me until I finished my job and went back inside.

The next afternoon my strange visitor returned. And the next. There wasn’t a day in over two months that I didn’t see her. I came to rely on the sighting. A strength, a peacefulness seemed to radiate from her and penetrate my aching heart. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t without God. I wasn’t really without Fred, even.

“She doesn’t go into anyone else’s yard but yours,” a neighbor mentioned one day. And eventually the white deer stopped coming to my yard too. But not before I’d gotten the message of her comforting presence.

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

Angels to the Rescue

Posted on March 10, 2026April 13, 2026 by Jewell Johnson

Our church choir was small, but we worked hard on our Christmas program.

“If we do our best, God will do the rest,” I told them at each rehearsal.

But just a week before we were due to perform, several members of the choir came down with a cold.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to sing at all next week,” one after another told me in a raspy voice. We’re down to only a few people, I thought. Has all our hard work been for nothing?

The morning of the performance, a mountain pass got snowed in and eliminated two more members.

“All we can do is our best,” I told the remaining choir members right before the program. “God will do the rest.”

I couldn’t imagine how that might be possible, though. What did I expect, after all. A Christmas program miracle?

We gave it everything we had, but nothing could make a handful of members into a full choir. If only the audience could have heard us at top strength, I thought when it was over.

One of the congregation approached me.

“Mrs. Johnson,” he said, “that was a tremendous program! Never have I heard such beautiful Christmas music.”

He is just being polite, I thought. But then several other people came up to tell me the same thing. They were way too enthusiastic for mere politeness. The audience had heard something remarkable.

“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” hadn’t been a part of the Christmas program that year. But I believe that’s exactly what happened. Angels sang to fill in the gaps in our choir. We’d done our best and God had done the rest.

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Angels Ride the Rails

Posted on March 10, 2026April 13, 2026 by Sandra Carlson

In the 1940s, trains were my father’s world. A machinist for the Southern Railway, he once surprised me with a trip to the roundhouse in Atlanta, where he worked. I was four years old. The steam engines were the biggest things I’d ever seen, but I wasn’t afraid with Daddy beside me.

He took me right up into the driver’s seat, pulled on his engineer’s cap and set me on his lap. “Ready, honey?” he said. “Here we go.”

The engine blasted, the wheels cranked up, and we were off, chugging slowly at first and then picking up to full speed. From my spot at the very front of the train, I could see the tracks lit up by the engine light. In fact, I was sure I could see angels riding the rails with us.

No princess had ever made an entrance so grand as I did pulling into Atlanta’s Union Station that night. The trip had taken under an hour, but I would never forget it, or my heavenly escorts.

That memory remained a bright spot as I got older and life at home got darker. The father who took me on that special train ride was slowly replaced by an unpredictable, sometimes frightening alcoholic.

He left for work at the train yards in the afternoon around the time I was coming home from school, so I rarely saw him. Truth be told, I was glad to miss him. It was easier that way.

One summer, years after that childhood trip to the roundhouse, I boarded another train with my mother and two sisters. We were off on our annual visit to my grandparents in New England, with free tickets, as always, thanks to Dad’s railroad job.

Our trip north had become a welcome break for all of us, but for me especially this particular summer. My relationship with Dad was at an impasse, and I’d forgotten that he was or ever could have been anyone but who he was at his worst.

“Top bunk!” my sister Diane and I called when we found our Pullman car.

Mom and my baby sister, Vickie, shared the bottom. I breathed a sigh of relief as we left Georgia–and my troubles–behind. We took turns reading aloud until it was time for bed. I stayed awake long after the others were asleep, enjoying the rocking motion of the train.

When it slowed down I raised the shade at the window and peeked out at the destinations passing, one small town after the other. I fell asleep, dreaming of angels riding the rails with me.

Late the following night, we arrived in Providence, Rhode Island. From there we drove on to Bridgewater, Massachusetts, where my maternal grandparents lived. Excited but exhausted, we climbed up the stairs to their three-story flat.

On my pillow was a new pair of pajamas and a new doll. When I slipped under the covers I still felt the train moving beneath me, like angels rocking me to sleep.

Weeks drifted by like the scenery outside our Pullman car window. My sisters and I played house under the grapevine trellis, explored the town square, had sodas at the drugstore. This is the way life should be, I thought one afternoon on my way to the library.

I checked out as many books as I could carry and took them up to my grandparents’ attic along with my new doll. “Today I’m going to teach you about fractions,” I said to my “student.” “And we’re also going to learn some history from these books.”

All afternoon I lectured in my make-believe classroom, dreaming of becoming a real teacher. Why not? On summer days anything seemed possible. Except what I wanted most: for summer to last forever.

Eventually signs of autumn began to appear: back-to-school displays in shop windows, bales of hay in the fields. My grandparents waved good-bye to us at the station.

My angels had escorted me to a peaceful place, and I was sad to leave. That night, when Mom and my sisters were asleep, I peeked out the window, squinting, searching for my angels.

It was hard to see anything at all in the dark. Not like sitting on Dad’s lap in the very front of the train, where I could see by the engine’s light. It was as if my love of trains and angels was born that night. Over time my love for both had grown deeper.

In a way, I thought, each time I got on a train I was taking the best part of my father with me. Maybe I could hold on to my roundhouse-trip memory after all, and cherish the best of my dad.

I lay back and enjoyed the rocking motion of the train. One day I’d be old enough to ride on my own. I could go anywhere I pleased, make the life that I wanted. For now I knew that angels were coming home with me, always lighting my way.

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Angels Over Iraq

Posted on March 10, 2026April 13, 2026 by Brenda Kay Ledford

‘‘Hi, Aunt Brenda! Thanks for the care package. Those brownies were delicious.” My nephew John was calling from Iraq, where he’d been deployed with the Army for the last five months as a military police officer.

I loved hearing his voice, even when the reception was poor. John only got access to the shared satellite phone once or twice a month. Those calls were the only times I knew he was okay. The only times I took a break from worrying about him.

“I’m glad you liked the brownies,” I said. “I…” BOOM! Pop-pop-poppop. BOOM! The sounds of explosives and machine-gun fire rang in my ear with crystal clarity. “John, what was that? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “That is nowhere near where I am. But yeah, that’s pretty much what it sounds like over here all the time. Someone’s always shooting at us. But I have a job to do. I can’t let it get to me.”

It certainly got to me. All I could think about was the danger around him. I had a job to do too. “I’m praying for you,” I said. “And so are a lot of other people. I have called most of the churches in Clay County about getting your name put on their prayer lists.”

Day and night I asked God to watch over John, but that didn’t stop me from worrying. It was 2004. Soldiers were dying every day in Iraq. “It means a lot just knowing that you and everyone back there is thinking of me,” John said. “And sending brownies, of course.”

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I laughed and we said our goodbyes. But even as I hung up the phone I wished there was something more I could do. Time for another care package, I thought. I filled a box with more brownies, packages of Kool- Aid, wet wipes, a long letter and some inspirational books. At the post office I asked God to ensure it reached its destination.

“Were you praying?” a woman behind me in line asked.

I explained about John. “He’s going to be fine,” she said. But how could she be so sure?

Back at home I stared out the window at the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. I never had any children of my own, so all the love I would have given them went to John. When he had visited me in the summer, the two of us rode horses all over the mountain trails. Deep in the forest, surrounded by the beauty of nature, that’s where I felt closest to God—and to John too.

We talked about his dreams for the future, how he wanted to be a lawyer. But when he told me he was thinking of enlisting in the Army after graduating from college, that he hoped to one day be a JAG officer, I was terrified. “What do you think?” he’d asked me.

I took a deep breath. “I think you should pray about it and go where you feel led,” I said, hoping that God and I were on the same wavelength.

But it hadn’t turned out that way. Since the day John left for boot camp I’d never really stopped worrying. It only got worse when he deployed to Iraq. His quarters, he’d told me, a squalid former Iraqi jail, were infested with rats. Nothing like the beautiful mountains we loved.

So much of what he was doing he wasn’t even allowed to tell me. He felt unreachable. Even my prayers seemed somehow to fall short, as garbled as the reception on John’s monthly phone calls.

That night in my bedroom I read the Bible and prayed for God to shelter John from harm. Like I always did. But in my mind I could still hear the sound of the mortars from that morning’s phone call. My hands trembled as I closed the Bible and got into bed.

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I tossed and turned for what seemed like forever when…suddenly I was in the desert, nothing but sand for miles around. In the distance I saw a group of men. I walked toward them. They were soldiers, kneeling in a circle. One of them was John. He was holding another soldier in his arms. John was crying. Why am I seeing this?

Overhead I heard a sound, like a whisper on the wind. I looked up. A band of angels hovered above. Female angels with wings, in flowing white robes. They encircled the men and danced, their faces joyous, carefree, as if there was no place in the universe they’d rather be.

One of the angels reached out to me. I hesitated, not sure if I should take her hand, but she beckoned me. There was a warmth to her, an incredible feeling of reassurance that put me at ease.

I floated up with her, and we danced. Time stood still. I could feel the tension leaving me. In its place there was only love, unconditional love. Our bond had a strength to it that even an army couldn’t break through.

I lifted my head and…I was back in bed. My eyes wide open. I cried tears of joy, and I thanked God for being ever faithful, for watching over all our soldiers, and especially John—the connection between us stronger than ever.

A couple weeks later I answered the phone. John’s voice sounded strained. “We got ambushed the other day,” he said. “Someone shot three rocket-propelled grenades at us. But no one got hit. No one. The grenades just flew by us.”

In the months that followed there were more calls like that. Mortars and mines that exploded near John but didn’t harm him. The danger was still ever present.

Of course I worried, but not like before. It wasn’t that I thought he could never be hurt. But I knew with absolute certainty that he wasn’t alone, that the angels would always be with him.

John served two tours of duty and finally came home for good in 2006. He never got that law degree. Today he’s in seminary, but that doesn’t mean I pray for him any less.

Angels on Facebook

Posted on March 10, 2026April 13, 2026 by Colleen Hughes

We all make mistakes.

When I was an editorial assistant I used to stay up nights worrying about typos I hadn’t caught or facts I hadn’t rechecked. Readers depended on me to do a thorough job, and I didn’t want to let them down.

Now as editor-in-chief my responsibility is to readers and contributors alike. It’s a big deal to be published in America’s only magazine devoted to angels! I want the experience to be one our contributors will remember forever. Every page in the magazine was to be perfect.

Of course it doesn’t always happen that way. We made a mistake in a recent issue, and to me it was a mistake of the worst kind. We published the wrong byline on Jo Donofrio’s “Angels in Bloom” story. She was gracious when we called, but I wanted to set the record straight. How could I reach as many people as possible—and fast?

An on-the-ball editorial assistant (like I used to be) had today’s answer: Facebook! We were able to go right onto the Angels on Earth page and tell our 2,153 friends what had happened. We posted Jo’s story with the right byline this time, and I could count on the Angels friends to get the word out to those who weren’t online. Instant correction! What a godsend!

If you haven’t already, go to Facebook.com/angelsonearth. Log in if you have a Facebook account; sign up if you don’t. Then click the “like” icon.

You can join in the conversation, and get the latest blogs from Sophy Burnham, Joan Wester Anderson and me. Share your hopes and dreams with other angel lovers, and read more angel stories while waiting for your next Angels magazine to come in the mail.

Join us on the Angels on Earth Facebook page to enjoy angels 24/7, or just in case I make another mistake you need to know about.

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