Angels in the Basement

Maybe there was only one.

One day last week Carol tried to call me from the road. She was traveling with her brother south to take their parent’s car to the AutoTrain near Washington D.C. “You’re not going to believe what happened,” she said.

“Can I call you back?” I said. “You are not going to believe what just happened here.”

We finally reconnected an hour or so later and took turns relating our stories to one another and saying, “Whaaaat?”

Carol and her brother were in a 20 car pile-up on a highway slippery with black ice. She described a car that was spinning out of control and coming directly at them when at the last second it hit the edge of another car sending it careening like a pin ball off the road. Three hours later, the police let her drive off, both the car and its two passengers without a single scratch.

The same hour, I was walking home with the church mail and opened the door. My parents, who had decided to visit unannounced, were just inside, and as I opened the door it knocked my father, as upright and stout as a bowling pin, all the way down the cellar stairs (see photograph) where he landed on the cement floor below. I watched helplessly as he moved almost sideways in slow motion through the air. My mother screamed and I ran down the stairs to his side. Laying on his back, his head landed on a small bag of empty soda cans that acted like bubble wrap. Stunned and laying there, staring up at my poor mother, all he could say was, “I told you I wanted to stay home today!” He sat up and stood up and walked back up the stairs, completely unharmed. He is 86 years old.

We have more than 50 prayer partners praying now for our imminent trip to Africa. No one will ever convince me that the prayers of God’s people were not at work that day and that there were not angels on the highway and at least one in that basement during that same single hour. A different outcome in either one of those scenarios would have changed everything, and forever. Thank you for your prayers!

Gary.