Boo! Angels and Where They Find Us

Spirituality Column #259
October 25, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Boo! Angels and Where They Find Us
By Bob Walters

“You’re going to love this story!” a Christian co-worker recently exclaimed.

I knew immediately this was a Kingdom faith story. A non-Christian would have said, “You’re not going to believe this, but …”

Anyway, my co-worker’s brother Mike (also a believer), slipped and fell – hard – the day before outside a busy gas/convenience store in a small northeastern Indiana town. Mike was numb from the neck down, tingly all over, and unable to move. A friend comforted Mike, told him to lie still, and dialed 9-1-1. A crowd gathered.

Amid the confusion, seemingly out of nowhere, a woman appeared. Telling Mike’s friend she was a nurse, she knelt down, stroked Mike’s hand and quietly, clearly assured him, “You’ll be all right.” Then she walked away.

Everyone’s attention was focused on Mike. The “nurse” came and went without being recognized. Immediately after she left, Mike’s feelings began to return. When the paramedics arrived, Mike was fine.

Certainly, it’s possible the injury was less severe than initially thought. And having been around sports injuries and charitable paralysis foundations, I know “stingers” can come and go quickly.

Or not. A small town and nobody recognized the nurse? She left before the ambulance arrived? (Most nurses would stay.) Mike’s paralysis disappeared just like she did? Gotta’ be a God thing; an angel moment.

My wife and I had a similar “close encounter” this summer when our right-rear tire exploded on northbound I-465 nearing the I-69 high-speed connecting ramp in heavy traffic at 10:30 on a Saturday night. Driving in the middle “thru” lane with no sane way to get to either shoulder, we were forced into the most dangerous place imaginable – that striped, “V” shaped no-man’s land in front of the ramp-split crash/runoff zone.

Needing not to stay there, we crept a hundred yards down the I-69 ramp (not the way home), still situated horribly: on the narrow left shoulder with a disintegrated right-rear tire exposed to whizzing traffic scant feet away. We had a flashlight and a spare tire, but no jack, tire iron or lug wrench (long story).

Suddenly, the way I like to tell it, “Jesus showed up.” A slight, scruff-bearded man in dirty work clothes stopped his old, rusted compact car, backed up the ramp’s left shoulder, dug through his cluttered trunk for loose tools and scattered sockets, grabbed his jack, and changed our tire crouching perilous inches from the speeding ramp traffic. ‘Said he usually drove a tow truck – in Noblesville. With my profuse, astonished thanks and $30 he didn’t ask for (all I had on me), he drove off.

I just love that story.

Walters (email rlwcom@aol.com) encourages people to tell angel stories this Halloween instead of ghost stories.