Garden Angel

It was spring, and Jeannette and Mimmo Aracri, of Newport News, Virginia, were preparing for the season.  “My husband, who is Italian, always insisted that wherever we lived, we would have to have a large back yard so he could plant his vegetable garden,” says Jeannette.  This particular lot had all of that, and a lake as well.  Today Mimmo was going to get the ground in shape, weeding, laying out the plots and roto tilling the soil.  Soon there would be tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, spices and, of course, flowers—a typical Italian garden.  

Mimmo worked all day, pausing only for lunch and an occasional bottle of water.  Finally Jeannette insisted that he stop for the day.  His dinner was getting cold, and night was falling.  Mimmo took a shower, and then came into the kitchen, looking concerned.  “Have you seen my wallet?” he asked Jeannette.  “Did I leave it inside the house?”  

His wallet, stuffed with important papers, credit cards, his driver’s license and money from a check he had cashed yesterday…  Jeannette had cleaned house, but hadn’t seen the wallet.  They looked at each other.  “I got gas for the roto tiller earlier,” Mimmo remembered.  “Maybe I left it at the gas station.”  He jumped into his car and raced to the gas station.  He returned a few moments later.  No luck. 

Jeannette wondered if Mimmo had put his wallet in the back pocket of his shorts, and it had fallen out while he was working.  “I’m going outside with a flashlight to look around,” she said.  “You’ll never find anything in that big area, even with a light,” Mimmo protested.  Jeannette went out anyway. 

Standing in the midst of the garden, however, she realized what a hopeless task it was.  There were piles of debris all over this extremely large plot, and Mimmo might even have covered the wallet with soil, had he not noticed it.  Jeannette turned to prayer.  “God, please show me where the wallet is,” she prayed.  “I need a sign so that Mimmo might believe in you more firmly.”  The instant that she finished, Jeannette heard an inner voice.  “It was my guardian angel,” she says.  “I have heard and felt him before, and I recognized him.” 

The voice had specific advice.  “Go to the shed by the lake,” it said. 

There was a tool shed far from the house on the edge of the lake, where they kept all their gardening things.  Jeannette walked towards it, still shining her flashlight on the ground.  “I didn’t say on the ground, but in the shed,” the voice came again.  Now there was no doubt.  Jeannette quickened her pace, opened the shed doors and started looking on the ground of the shed.  “Put your hand into the roto tiller,” the voice directed her once more.  Jeannette obeyed.  

“There, balanced on top of the blade, was Mimmo’s wallet, without a scratch on it,” Jeannette says.  Never even wondering how a wallet could have gotten on top of a tool, especially a blade that moves, Jeannette ran through the darkness and into the house, thanking God for this gift.  “Mimmo couldn’t believe what he saw,” she says.  “Since then he has become less doubtful, and when things come into our lives that we have no control over, he also turns to the Lord in prayer.”  

People who believe they have heard an angel’s voice say that in most cases, the directions are clear and concise, compelling one to believe and do, without question.  How wonderful that we can bring even our smallest problems to the heavenly host, and to the God who gave them to us.

(C) 2005  Joan Wester Anderson   www.joanwanderson.com

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