Mike’s Angel

Posted by admin

November 29, 2008

Forty-year-old Michael was disappointed in his life. Despite the affection of his mother and his two sisters, Mike felt like he didn’t belong anywhere. One winter he left his northern Ohio neighborhood in search of himself, and ended up working construction in Florida. “We all worried about him,” his sister
Barbara says. “Mike lived poorly, slept in his truck most nights and worked in bad areas. He was a small man too, hardly able to defend himself.” The women prayed regularly for Michael, and often asked God to send angels to protect him.

One night Mike called his mother from a pay phone. While they were talking, Mike saw four men walking around his truck. One urinated on it; another looked menacingly at Mike. Mike knew they were up to no good, and began to shake. “I’ve got to go, Mom!” he shouted into the phone. “I love you!” Quickly he hung up. His mother began to cry. It was obvious that something frightening was happening to Mike, but she was thousands of miles away. What could she do? She knelt. “God, please send Michael the Archangel to my son, to do battle for him,” she prayed.

Mike stepped out of the phone booth, warily watching the group around his truck. Just then, another stranger appeared at his side. “Hurry!” this man told him. “Get into your truck with me, and drive away. Now!”

Was it a set-up? Would this man harm him? Mike didn’t have time to wonder. With the fifth man running next to him, he sprinted to his truck, jumped in and, tires squealing, raced down the road before the others realized what was happening.

“Good!” the fifth man exulted. “Those guys wanted to kill you!”

“Why?” Mike asked. “I only have ten dollars to my name…”

“It wouldn’t matter. They were trouble,” his helper told him. Then, “Stop here a minute. Then go straight home!”

Mike stopped and the man jumped out. “Wait!” Mike shouted as the truck door slammed. “Who are you? Where did you come from?” He looked in the rear view mirror, hoping to get a better look at the stranger. But there was no one there. No one behind him, or cutting to the side. It was as if the stranger had disappeared into the air.

In the meantime, Mike’s mother had alerted Barbara and her sister, and the women began to pray for their brother. Barbara’s sister, who lives in Columbus, Ohio, asked that God deliver Mike safely to her and she would take him in until he got on his feet again. Barbara started a novena to St. Joseph, asking that this faithful patron saint of families watch over her brother. Mike’s mother, a devoted fan of the angels, asked for their protection. It was good, the women agreed, to have a whole heavenly family to whom they could speak, when life was worrisome….

“Two days passed, and we didn’t hear from Mike,” Barbara says. “We didn’t know what had happened, or if he was okay, but we kept praying.” On the third day, Barbara’s sister answered a knock on her door. It was Mike. “Sis,” he asked, “could I stay with you until I get my life squared away?”

The family believes that it was due to their fervent prayers that Mike was spared injury or worse, and was able to make the journey from Florida to Columbus Ohio without a problem. And as the family discovered, the protection was much needed, for Mike was later diagnosed with progressive multiple sclerosis. What would have happened to him if he had become ill in Florida, alone without the proper medication or his family around him? “We truly believe that the stranger man who helped Mike brought us a miracle,” Barbara says. “He was either an angel himself, or sent by an angel to protect our brother. We praise and thank God for His goodness to all of us.”