The Best Gift

Posted by admin

November 29, 2008

A few days after Christmas, Kathy and Phil Lindstrom went to a party near their home in suburban Chicago. Over a foot of snow had fallen and temperatures were plummeting, but they dressed foolishly—light coats, no hats and Kathy in high heels.

It was after 2 a.m. when they started home in their pickup truck. But blowing snow obscured their vision, and Phil took a wrong turn off the highway. The pickup swerved into a ditch and stopped, as if the wheels were caught. Phil couldn’t dislodge it.

“I’ll walk back to the highway. I think we passed a gas station back there,” Phil said. “But the wind is terrible—you’ll freeze!” Kathy objected.

“Well, we can’t stay here. We’ll get hypothermia or frostbite.” Phil jumped out of the truck. Frightened, Kathy thought of their two small children at home with a babysitter. Why had she and Phil put themselves into this dangerous situation?

Intense cold penetrated the truck’s interior. Please God, get us out of this, she prayed.

Eventually Phil returned, with bad news. “The station’s open but its tow truck won’t start, and there aren’t any others available,” he told Kathy. “We’ll have to walk back.”

In high heels? In these huge drifts? And how could Phil endure the trip again? His eyelashes had frozen and his face was dangerously red from the wind.

Then, unexpectedly, light spilled into the cab. Ahead of them stood a tow truck! Where had it come from? But Phil was too grateful to ask questions.

Getting out, he called to the driver, who hooked up the pickup. “What a lucky coincidence,” Phil said as he hopped back into the truck.

The tow truck started to pull, and the pickup lurched, then slid precariously toward the right. “Phil, we’re falling—we’re going to turn over!” Kathy screamed.

Suddenly she heard men shouting—five, six of them behind her—and bright headlights illuminated the dark scene. “Here, I’ve got it!” “Okay?” “Give it a push!” Stunned, Phil and Kathy listened to the babble. They had seen no lights approach. Where had all these men come from, especially all at once?

Hands seem to actually lift the pickup under them, and soon it was free. Immediately the lights behind them went out.

“How…?” Phil was out of the pickup again, but there was nothing to see now but the tow truck. No army of volunteers, no receding headlights or engines running in the frigid night… Just a driver, whose arrival had, itself, been inexplicable, and who told Phil he knew nothing of the men or how they had arrived.

The couple drove home, lost in thought. “Kathy,” Phil finally spoke, “I think God just sent us a bunch of angels.” Kathy thought so too. Christmas was over. But heaven had saved the best gift until last.