I love angel stories. There have been a few stories highlighted this week on Spirit Daily, a site I love to check every day. Here, you can read a story about a Christmas Eve angel encounter. Another story shows a picture taken in a hospital corridor of an angel, appearing right before the girl took a turn for the better. If you search the archives, you can read about angels appearing as mysterious strangers to people in need. It is comforting to know that each one of us has a guardian angel, whose job it is to help guide us in times of trouble, and there to take us to the throne of justice when we die. This angel is with us from the time we are born. Guardian angels are Scriptural. St. Padre Pio regularly saw his angel and for a long time assumed it was a normal occurrence, that everyone else saw angels as well but just didn't talk about it. Gemma Galgani frequently saw and prayed with her guardian angel. There are many, many accounts of the saints having awareness of and close communion with their angels.
I know angels exist, because I have personally seen one. When I was around the age of eighteen, I took a trip with a couple of friends to San Francisco:
One of my friends had grown up there and was familiar with the area, while the other two of us had only been there a few times. We decided to park the car and walk around the piers, the Wharf, browse the gift shops and basically just spend the day sight-seeing. In the late afternoon, when it began to get dark, we decided we better get back to the car and head for home which was about a 100 mile drive. Only problem was, we forgot where we left the car. I assumed our friend tour guide would be able to remember where the car was, as I hadn't thought about it when I parked it. So, here we were, teenagers in a big city, not having a clue where the car might be. I started to panic and cry, while we went up one street and down another, each one looking the same as the last.
Suddenly, a man came out of a corner bistro, approached us, pointed up the hill and simply said to us, "Your car is right there." We looked where he pointed and sure enough, it was there. It was at that point when we looked at each other in amazement and wondered how this stranger knew that we were looking for our car, and, more importantly, the location of the car. How did he know? We had been there all day! It would be impossible for someone to just happen to know this information, so we decided to ask him. In the time it took for us to look up the hill and see the car, and look back at each other, we turned to ask him how he knew but he was gone. Just like that. It was then that we realized he had been dressed all in white. Our friend tour guide had previously told us about a mysterious man who appeared seemingly out of nowhere at times in his life when he needed help, but we had dismissed the stories as fiction. It was then that this friend said to us, "That was the man I was telling you about." We were simply astonished!
On the drive home, we were discussing the possibilities of whether it was logical that someone would be at the bistro all day and approach us at our moment of need, or whether more possibly that this was not a person at all but actually a real angel. It was the only conclusion that made sense! He was wearing all white, he seemed to appear out of nowhere, he had information about something we needed and as soon as he helped us he was gone. It had all the earmarks of a true angel story! After thinking about all that happened, I can never be convinced of anything else.
I am forever grateful that we have angels to help us, even if it is just a small task of finding a parked car! There is no telling how long we might have wandered around looking for our car without his help. San Francisco is a big city!
Suddenly, a man came out of a corner bistro, approached us, pointed up the hill and simply said to us, "Your car is right there." We looked where he pointed and sure enough, it was there. It was at that point when we looked at each other in amazement and wondered how this stranger knew that we were looking for our car, and, more importantly, the location of the car. How did he know? We had been there all day! It would be impossible for someone to just happen to know this information, so we decided to ask him. In the time it took for us to look up the hill and see the car, and look back at each other, we turned to ask him how he knew but he was gone. Just like that. It was then that we realized he had been dressed all in white. Our friend tour guide had previously told us about a mysterious man who appeared seemingly out of nowhere at times in his life when he needed help, but we had dismissed the stories as fiction. It was then that this friend said to us, "That was the man I was telling you about." We were simply astonished!
On the drive home, we were discussing the possibilities of whether it was logical that someone would be at the bistro all day and approach us at our moment of need, or whether more possibly that this was not a person at all but actually a real angel. It was the only conclusion that made sense! He was wearing all white, he seemed to appear out of nowhere, he had information about something we needed and as soon as he helped us he was gone. It had all the earmarks of a true angel story! After thinking about all that happened, I can never be convinced of anything else.
I am forever grateful that we have angels to help us, even if it is just a small task of finding a parked car! There is no telling how long we might have wandered around looking for our car without his help. San Francisco is a big city!
1 comment:
What an incredible story! That's really neat. I hope the San Fran angel is still there looking out for my son as he goes about his daily life there.
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