The Non-Emergency Angels
Last spring, I decided to turn the yard upside down. It’s also called spring fever, and I was in way over my head. I pruned, dug, leveled, and tried to grow new grass where the winter storm had taken out a giant spruce tree. After a full day of work, loading the trailer with brush, and picking up hundreds of little rocks and pine cones, I called it a day and crawled into bed.
The following day, my loaded trailer was waiting to be taken to the landfill. My sore bones were dreaming about another cup of coffee on the porch, but I had to be on my way. I had already committed to putting down the sod today and had asked a neighbor to give me a hand. The trailer needed to be emptied so I could load up at the nursery. Sore and tired at 9 am is not a good way to begin a day, I thought while driving down the mountain, and I knew I had a long day ahead of me. “Lord, please help me to get through this day without hurting myself. Maybe you could send me a little helper to unload the trailer?” was my prayer.
Halfway to the dump, I realized I hadn’t brought a single tool along, no shovel, pitchfork, rake, or broom, to unload the trailer. Wow, I really must be tired and definitely out of shape after a long winter at the warm stove. How could I forget?! “Lord, now I really need your help. Please let somebody be there to help me. Maybe one of the landfill workers? Can you just make them see me, pleeease?” I pleaded.
Driving up to the brush pile, I parked and scouted my options. Nobody was there other than an old lady in the back of her pick-up truck; she looked like she needed more help than me. Ah, there comes a truck! Maybe that’s it, I thought. An old couple on the way to dump their brush. No, I guess I really had to get with it myself; I was running out of time. Just getting the ropes undone was already a workout today. “Looord?”
“Like a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. For He knows how we are made. He remembers that we are dust.”
I was in the middle of lowering the ramp when another pick-up drove up and stopped right next to me. Two guys jumped out, took the ramp out of my hand, saying, “We get that for you!” No question like “Do you need help?” or “Would you like some help?” They just took over, and as if they had already discussed how to do this best, they grabbed the end of my bottom board in the trailer and pulled it out with everything I had piled on top. Wow, supernatural power at work, I thought! How in the world can anybody pull this all out in one piece? I was speechless; it all went so fast. When the two men were done, smiling, they picked up the few branches that didn’t make it out of the trailer, said, ”Have a nice day,” and moved on to the little old lady right next to me. This whole episode didn’t take two minutes, after it took me all day to fill up my 5 x 8 trailer. Completely perplexed, I gathered up my rope and walked over to the older of the two men, who was watching his son (?) in the back of the pick-up truck, throwing out the brush. I said, “Thank you so much, Sir. Do you know that you were heaven-sent?” As soon as my words came out and I saw his face, I realized how meaningless, washed out, and overused those words were. “Really, I mean this! You were heaven-sent! I drove down here with no tools and prayed all the way down the mountain for help, and here you are, unloading for me in no time! Thank you so much for being the answer to my prayer.” “No big deal, we just like to help.” I left, still wondering to this day whether or not they were real men. All I know is - my non-emergency angels were heaven-sent!
The overwhelming thing to me is that our God, maker of the universe and all living things, looks down on us and cares! He lovingly cares about the little things as much as the big things we can’t handle on our own. It’s almost too much to fathom. Our God is an Awesome God, and I’m forever thankful that He made Himself known to me, even after all those years that I rejected him.
I hope that you know Him in this personal and intimate way, the way our heavenly Father longs to fellowship with us. If you don’t yet, start sharing with Him all your joys and pains, ask Him for everything, and take Him with you everywhere you go, and soon, you will see a wondrous transformation.
“For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well. My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is their sum! If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I wake up, I am still with you.”