I have always loved the thought of angels. In Scripture, angels are messengers that praise God and remind us of God’s love. The author of the venerable comic strip “Family Circus,” Bil Keane, loves to use angels in his comics. He often shows one of the children in the comic strip being escorted through a dangerous intersection, or being watched over at play by a protective angel. A nice touch is that the angel is often Bil’s father, who left this life some years ago. Bil’s father was a messenger of God’s love in his life and it is easy to see why Bil imagines angels to resemble his father.
When I was a young teenager, my mother and I were driving to my sister’s home, she lived about 50 miles away on a cold, windy, snowy Christmas Eve night. Mother decided she would take a shortcut, which meant we would be on country dirt roads. We had never taken a shortcut before, so I was hoping my mother knew where she was going! Before we knew it we had a flat tire and no jack. Fortunately we had coats, but no gloves or hats to protect us from the bitter cold Kansas winds. We walked for hours, hoping to find a farmhouse with lights on. It was, after all, Christmas Eve.
Finally after four hours, we found one… and thankfully the family was still up. My mother gave the man of the house the best directions she could to our abandoned car, while his wife made us hot cocoa and wrapped us in quilts to warm us. The man and his two sons returned with our car, then led us back to the main highway. This family lived out the message of God’s love for us in a very real way. I know that God used them in our lives that evening. We were not alone – God was with us in the angelic efforts of this family.
Thanks be to God!
Today… be an angel. Do something kind for another person. You can make it even more special by doing something kind in a way that no one will know about.
Rev. Connie Barnett, Asbury Campus Pastor
