An Angel With a Mop
When we were in Silver Springs, Florida, we took a glass-bottom boat ride. I had visited this same site as a child, with my parents. It actually was pretty close to how I remembered it, which made me smile. Along the sidewalks there were large cutouts with a space for people to stand in front of them, or place their face in them and have pictures taken.
One of the cut-outs was a very large set of angel wings. I was reminded of an “angel encounter” during a time of great stress. We had been getting ready for a graduation open house for our younger son, and David decided to jump on our son’s dirt bike and take it for a quick ride down the road. When he was almost to our driveway he popped a wheelie, to show our son he “still had it”. But unfortunately, he lost control of the bike, and came down hard in a standing up position. The force of the impact travelled up his leg and the bone “blew out” just below his knee. When the doctor in the ER was finished examining David he decided to transfer him to a hospital in Pittsburgh because of the serious nature of the injury. The doctor looked at me very solemnly and asked “Do you have faith?” I was surprised by his question, but answered “Yes, I do.” “Then you are going to need to draw on it very strongly now. David is going to need you.“ He laid out the serious nature of David’s injury, and told me to get a family member to drive me to Pittsburgh. I did.
Arriving in the ER in Pittsburgh, I found David being examined by the ER docs. David was in a great deal of pain, even with the pain medications he’d been given. The doctor motioned for me to leave the room with him. Stepping out into the hall, he looked at me seriously and asked me “Do you have faith?” Now, this was the second time in less than 12 hours that a doctor asked me a question about if I had faith… I answered “Yes, I do.” “Good” he said, you’re going to need to draw on it now and stay strong for your husband.” I was beginning to get the picture. They took David upstairs to a room and the specialist who was assigned to him came in to go over his treatment plan. David’s leg was swollen so badly from the injury that amputation was a real possibility. The doctor described the options he had, and told me they could only wait for two days for the swelling to go down so they could operate. He would come in the next morning and measure the progress. He left the room. It was the middle of the night, David was “resting” fitfully, and I had my head on the bed crying.
I heard humming coming from behind me, it was a gospel song that I recognized. I turned around to see a housekeeping lady come in the room and shut the door. She was as wide as she was tall, with brown skin, gray hair pulled up on her head, and a sweetness that couldn’t be missed. “Child, why are you crying?” I told her about what had happened to David. She said, “Child do you have faith?” It felt like time stood still. This was the third time that someone had asked me that question in less than 24 hours. I finally understood that God was reaching out to me, to let me know He was with me and with David. I answered “Yes ma’am I do, I do.” “Then you just stop your crying and hold on tight to God. He’s going to get you through this and your husband’s going to be all right!” She was almost laughing when she said those words, and a peace and confidence came over me. She smiled, and began humming again. She opened the door and disappeared down the hall. When I say “disappeared” I mean that she disappeared. When I looked down the hall, meaning to thank her, she was gone. I asked the nurse at the desk if she saw her. The nurse told me she’d never seen a cleaning lady fitting that description on their floor, and that they are not working at that time of the morning. I stood there a moment, and then headed back to David’s room with a new-found strength and perspective. I truly believe to this day, that God sent an angelic messenger to make sure I heard what He was trying to tell me. He was trying to tell me to TRUST HIM, that He was taking care of David.
As it turns out, the doctor assigned to David was one of the top trauma specialists in the country, and guess what, he was a man of faith too! He’d been praying about which procedure to complete. Just before they took David to surgery, he told me that “his mind had been changed, and he thought we’d be very pleased with the outcome of this particular procedure.” That was over 25 years ago. He was right!
This week I heard a pastor say that “if you don’t trust God, you’re no different than an atheist.” That really struck me, in fact, later that day God asked me “what good is it to believe in a God that you don’t think you can trust?” The truth is, it comes down to this: God doesn’t always do things the way we want Him to, or when we want Him to. We don’t like not having any say, not being in control. Trust frequently involves waiting, which takes patience, endurance and perseverance. It’s painful. I know, because I’m still waiting on answers. But that doesn’t mean I can’t trust Him. It means I have to remember that His ways are not my ways, or His thoughts my thoughts. It also means I have to lean into His Word constantly, and remember that His Word doesn’t “return to Him empty. It accomplishes what He sends it out to do.” I need to remind myself of all the ways He has answered prayers over the years, all the ways He has reached out to me (gratefulness), and all the good that is still coming to me (expectancy).
He’s leading me to trust at a deeper level. It’s a process, but as I put His Word into practice I experience that “peace that passes understanding”. It’s that peace that puts stress in the rear-view mirror and gives me strength to look out the front windshield of my future instead. Things are in His hands, and He CAN be trusted.
