In fact, Dennis believes that the first miracle he received during this time was a case of double pneumonia from standing guard duty out in the rain all night on the base in Oklahoma, and then working a 20-hour shift before finally going to the hospital.  “Spinal meningitis was going around then,” he says, “and although I didn’t get it, the pneumonia was probably the reason that I was not sent to Vietnam, but to Germany.”

He was a good soldier and moved up in rank.  “One day we received a call that bullets could be heard overhead,” Dennis says.  “My sergeant and I went out to investigate. Sure enough, we could hear the whiz of bullets flying thru the air.”  But who was shooting?  There was no war going on here.  The men finally figured out that the bullets were coming from a hill to their left.  There were vineyards on the hill, and a house on top of it. Carefully they climbed, then stopped again to listen.  “Suddenly a pair of hands with thumbs over my ears grabbed my head and yanked it back, just as a bullet passed,” Dennis says.  “I turned around to see who was there, and no one was. I can still see the face of my senior sergeant when those hands grabbed me.  His eyes widened as if he was seeing something that he just couldn’t talk about.”  A few minutes later police reached the house, and found the farmer drunk and shooting his rifle.

“Years later, when my angel came again, I was walking to a nearby fast food to get some lunch,” Dennis says. “I was approaching a corner when a growling dog came around it and headed straight for me.”
“Lord, have mercy!” Dennis prayed, then froze, knowing he was going to be attacked.  The dog never stopped, and it leaped for his throat. Then Dennis saw an arm in a white robe, similar to what Jesus is pictured wearing, and the arm pushed the dog away.  Almost immediately, the dog put its tail between its legs and, whining, ran back around the corner.

Stunned, Dennis saw a woman come out of the corner house and head for her car.  “Hey, your dog almost bit me!” Dennis called to her.
She shrugged.  “Not my dog…” and got in the car.
It was a time for a good argument.  But Dennis couldn’t do it.  Faced with what might have been, he simply closed his eyes, and thanked Jesus for sending an angel to protect him.

Dennis has never forgotten these close calls, and is grateful that his angel is on the job.  “We are all blessed,” he says, “and are given a choice to believe or not.”

One Saturday afternoon as Virginia was rearranging her bedroom, she was interrupted by a phone call.  As she chatted with a friend, she wandered around the house, room to room, idly straightening and moving small items around.  Everything she touched somehow reminded her of Desi, and she felt tears welling up, ready to spill.

Continuing to talk, Virginia walked to the front door, and swung open the heavy oak to let some fresh air in.  Almost immediately, a large monarch butterfly flew right past her into the house, as if it had been waiting for the door to open.  “Its wings were a brilliant shade of orange, accented with black,” she says.  “It fluttered through the living room and continued down the hall toward Desi’s bedroom.”  Distracted, Virginia ended her phone conversation and followed the butterfly to where it was flying in lazy loops outside Desi’s doorway.

“It didn’t seem frightened by being inside, or by me,” Virginia recalls.  The butterfly went to the other doors in the hallway, seemed to waver near each one,  then came back to a spot just outside Desi’s room.  Several moments passed while it circled an overhead light fixture, then drifted toward the patio door.

Virginia stood watching, transfixed, peaceful for the first time since her daughter’s death.  She was sure this was Desi come to visit her, or at least a sign that Desi was still near her. Wasn’t the butterfly a symbol of new life?  Again she watched as the graceful creature rested near the door handle.  Carefully reaching over, Virginia slid open the screen door.  “The butterfly took its time exiting the house,” Virginia says.  “It slowly fluttered around the patio vines and flowers before disappearing into the neighbor’s yard.”

This was the first of many such visits from Desi, Virginia believes, to confirm her spiritual presence.  “As long as I keep recognizing the signs, I believe she will keep showing them to me.”

(C) 2004  Joan Wester Anderson   www.joanwanderson.com

Ryan, a sixteen-year-old boy had become separated from his father that morning while grouse-hunting. Now he was lost in a wilderness area high in the Rocky Mountains, wearing only jeans and a thin shirt. Worried, Patti looked out her window at fog and sleet. No one dressed so lightly could survive long tonight.

Rescuers drove to the area, and Patti felt a high level of urgency as she and her search dog, Hasty, began to walk. “The sleet had turned to snow, and the wind was strong,” she recalls. “I couldn’t help thinking that by now, Ryan’s wet clothes were probably frozen.”

Hasty picked up Ryan’s scent and forged ahead, but even with her head lamp, Patti’s visibility was poor. She heard other searchers on motorcycles and above her, a National Guard helicopter. But there was no sign of Ryan.

Struggling through the marshes, Patti thought of her own children safely asleep, the Thanksgiving turkey ready for roasting. She thought of Ryan’s distraught family. God, please help us, she prayed. And keep Ryan warm.

The long night continued, and exhausted searchers began to lose hope. Then, shortly after dawn, Patti heard the unbelievable news. Ryan had been found alive, with no sign of frostbite! But how?

Later, surrounded by rescue workers, the teen explained. Lost in the dark and shivering uncontrollably–one of hypothermia’s first stages–he had laid down under some trees, and slipped into sleep. Under normal circumstances he should have gradually frozen to death. But something wondrous
happened instead.

“Ryan awakened in the middle of the night, feeling warm and comfortable,” Patti explains. “Astonished, he discovered that, although his rifle was at his feet, two female elk had come out of the forest and were lying against him, one on either side, protecting him from the cold.

“We searchers were dumbfounded, since such behavior is completely uncharacteristic of elk.” But there was no other explanation for Ryan’s healthy condition. Later, evidence of the animals’ presence was found under the trees.

Patti drove home, exhilarated. She was remembering a night centuries ago, when animals kept another Child safe and warm.

(C) 1994 Joan Wester Anderson Originally published in Woman’s Day Magazine.

“The back gate opens onto an alley, and whenever it’s left open, Lucky always runs out of the yard and gets lost,” Renee says. “So when we returned home and I pulled up to the curb at the front of the house, I was surprised to see Lucky sitting quietly in front of the house next to the fence.” But there was another surprise too. A girl about ten years old was standing right next to Lucky, holding a golden leash attached to the dog’s collar.

“The girl was dressed in old-fashioned garb, a blue dress with a white pinafore, which hung just below her knees,” Renee says. “She wore white stockings, and some sort of locket around her neck. The dress was trimmed with white lace at the neck and sleeves. She had long thick blonde hair that hung to her waist, and there was a white glow about her.” Renee stared. She had never seen such a person in her neighborhood. Had the girl found Lucky and brought him home? But how would she know where he lived? And where had the leash come from?

Questions bouncing around in her head, Renee took her eyes off the scene to finish parking. When she looked over again, the girl was gone. “But the dog was still sitting there, with the leash not only still attached to his collar, but looking like it was suspended in mid-air!”

The family got out of the truck and walked towards Lucky. “Usually he would be bounding towards us, but he was still sitting there, watching us approach,” says Renee. The leash had disappeared, but when Renee got within five feet of the dog, she heard a girl’s voice. “It’s okay, Lucky,” the voice said. “You can go now.” Instantly the dog began to jump all over the children.

“The kids never saw the girl,” Renee says. “But I did. It couldn’t have been my imagination because I had no inkling the dog was even in danger.” When Renee said her prayers that evening, she thanked the girl because without her, the family would have lost their beloved pet. “She didn’t have wings or a halo, but I’ve never been able to think of her without feeling that she was an angel.”

Would God care about the loss of a pet? Enough to send an angel to prevent it? This is the same God who tells us that “every hair on your head is numbered.” A God of details. A God Who cares.

Post script from Renee: “We had to put Lucky down a few years ago. He was 8 at the time. He had gotten into a scuffle with a toad, and began developing weird neurological symptoms, eventually resulting in seizures. We went into the vet’s office as a family. I had my hand on Lucky when the injection was given, and I physically felt his spirit, as soft and warm as a cloud, lift from his body through my hand and part of my arm, towards the ceiling. Because of this, I knew he was gone before the vet did. It really hit home with me that our souls have physical substance.”

(C) 2002 Joan Wester Anderson www.joanwanderson.com

On a Saturday morning of the following month, November, Diane was catching up on apartment-cleaning when, for some reason, she felt compelled to go to the patio door. Looking out, she saw a dozen white doves circling and swooping in the back yard. “Their flights seemed to be orchestrated, like precision choreography,” she says. And again, although there are plenty of black crows in her yard, Diane had never experienced the presence of white doves—especially doves who almost looked as if they were performing. Then, one by one, the birds began to depart. Impulsively Diane ran out her front door and into the parking lot to catch a final view.

“As I looked around, I saw that four of the white birds were perched on my neighbor’s rooftop,” Diane relates. “Sylvia’s brother had died a day or two before, and I wondered if, perhaps, the doves were blessing her household. I also saw four white doves perched on my portion of the roof. Another four circled in the sky. It was incredulous, delightful.”

A week later, Diane’s nephew and his family phoned to say they were coming to visit her mother and her. “Their visits bring happiness, so that was very good news,” Diane says. “I was still somewhat overwhelmed by the doves of the previous Saturday, so I said a little prayer. I asked God that if He had sent the doves last week, could He send them again so my mother and my nephew’s family could see them.”

During the family’s visit, the white doves came once again and performed their lovely flying circus. Diane did not tell anyone about her prayer, but everyone enjoyed the flying entourage.

The birds did not return. But the next month, December, brought the sad news that Diane’s mother was terminally ill, diagnosed with esophageal cancer that had metastasized in the lungs. Diane remembered that Saturday when the four doves had rested on her neighbor’s roof after the death of her brother. Diane had wondered if it was some kind of heavenly consolation. Now she thought of the doves that had rested on her own roof, and the flock that had flown so beautifully over her family. Was God, in fact, sending her a sign of reassurance and comfort? How she wanted to believe it!

Diane had her answer within days. She visited a friend, Marie, who was packing up for a move. Marie, a commercial artist, occasionally gifted friends with her paintings, and she had saved one especially for Diane. “The minute I finished it, I knew it was for you,” Marie told Diane, “although I’m not sure why.”

Diane knew, and she sent a silent “thank you” to God. The oil was a painting of white doves.

(C) 2003 Joan Wester Anderson www.joanwanderson.com

Carl and Susan had grown up as children of a divorced mother in the Detroit area, at a time when such families were looked down upon. “We moved around a lot, and spent time in childrens’ homes when she couldn’t care for us,” Susan recalls.

The two children were very close; in fact, Susan probably provided most of her younger brother’s security. Carl had attended eleven schools before he finally graduated and entered the Air Force. “He attained the rank of Sergeant there, came home, went to college on the GI bill, and worked for thirty years at Chryslers,’” Susan says. A normal life in many ways….and yet Carl never married, and often battled depression. “I used to wish he had a wife and a bunch of kids,” Susan says. “I think he would have been happier.”

Instead, Carl grew increasingly isolated. Long ago he had purchased a cornfield, and as the years passed, he worked on the land in his spare time. He planted trees, had three ponds dug and most important, made a habitat for wildlife all over the property. “As land came up for sale, he bought more, and eventually he owned sixty acres, most next to the cemetery,” Susan says. “He had lived in an old mobile home until recently, but finally built a new house to retire in.”

An occasional friend would visit to fish or stroll the premises, always made welcome, and it seemed an acceptable life. But Susan still worried. More outgoing, and busy at her nursing career, she wondered if her beloved brother was, in his own way, at peace. The happiest she ever saw him was when he fed the wildlife each day, especially the doe and her twin fawns who came to eat on his driveway. Carl would sit on his porch and watch them, in hushed communication. But was it enough?

Now, she would never know. And she would not be able to honor his last—and only—request. In the midst of her shock and grief, she prayed once more for an answer.

That afternoon, her phone rang. The township officials had inexplicably changed their minds. Carl could be buried in their cemetery.

“Of course all the funeral plans were changed,” Susan said. Quickly, she and the others visited the cemetery to choose a proper gravesite. Someone found a black granite boulder just over the fence on Carl’s property. It would be the perfect monument.

Apparently it is. For the day after the funeral, Carl’s grave was covered with deer tracks, as if his friends were coming to pay their last respects, as if—-in that small gesture—they were assuring Susan that her brother had indeed found comfort in their presence.

“This week I am meeting with the person who will be selling the property, and I’m hoping that whoever buys it will take care of the land as Carl would have wanted,” Susan says. “And then I’ll go to the cemetery, and see if the deer have been visiting with him again.” Or perhaps they are angels in disguise.

(c) 2003 Joan Wester Anderson www.joanwanderson.com

As Caryl stepped from the car in front of the terminal, two gorgeous white doves suddenly flew out of the snowy sky, directly toward her. “They swooped down in front of me, then soared up into the air and disappeared into the snow,” Caryl recalls. “I felt it had to be some kind of sign, since I had never seen doves in winter. I thanked God, and felt a rush of warmth through me.”

After she arrived in Tallahassee, Caryl tried to tell Kelly’s distraught parents about the doves, and their untimely appearance. But they could barely concentrate. “I’m not sure they believed me, and of course it could have just been a coincidence,” she says.

The service began, and those in attendance mourned deeply. How could anyone find something hopeful in this situation? But as the mourners were coming out of the church behind the ministers and the casket, someone cried, “Look!” Another pair of snow-white doves appeared. This time, they glided up off the grass into the sky, swooped back down in front of everyone, then circled up and over the casket. “They were so close, we could feel the air from their wings on our cheeks,” Caryl says.

Everyone stood there, astonished. “Were those birds–or angels?” one man asked.

“I have never felt such heavenly energy,” the minister added. Kelly’s parents smiled through their tears. Doves, they knew, were a promise of new life.

Caryl felt graced. It was just a little sign, she knew. But God had cared enough to send it not just once, for her, but again, thousands of miles away for the whole congregation.

(C) 2002 Joan Wester Anderson www.joanwanderson.com

They still had Timmy (who was very possessive of Sylvia) and Cocoa, who was expecting a litter shortly. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Cocoa gave birth to an orange tabby?” Sylvia mused one day.

Gary smiled. “Cocoa’s totally black, and the father is grey and white.”

“Well,” Sylvia shrugged, “miracles DO happen.” She missed that orange bundle of fur more than she wanted to admit and was very ready for another one.

A few nights later, Sylvia was preparing supper when the front doorbell rang. She and Gary opened the door to two teenage girls. They looked vaguely familiar—–perhaps from across the street?—but the Martins hadn’t met many of their new neighbors yet. One of the girls was holding a small blanket-wrapped bundle. Peeping from its folds was a tiny orange tabby kitten! “It’s been rejected by its mother,” the girl explained. “Would you be interested in taking it?”

Gary and Sylvia couldn’t hardly believe it. “Of course we’ll take it!” they said in unison.

The girls’ mouths dropped. “You will?”

“We just lost our own orange tabby,” Sylvia explained. “I think you girls are bringing a miracle to our door!”

The teens were delighted, as they laid the bundle in Sylvia’s arms, and promised to look in on the kitten from time to time. Gary was already on the phone with the local pet store. “I explained the situation, and –you won’t believe this—they’re going to stay open until I can get there,” he said to Sylvia as he grabbed the car keys. “We’ll need a can of powdered kitten formula and a tiny bottle.”

What nice people lived in this neighborhood, Sylvia thought. But she was wondering about something. “What about Timmy?” she asked her husband. “You know how jealous she is of me? What’s she going to do about this new kitten?”

Gary smiled. “I don’t think it was an accident that this kitten was suddenly given to us,” he told Sylvia. “Things will all work out.”

He was right, Sylvia thought. Hadn’t she asked for a miracle, a new tabby kitten? And wasn’t this the answer, this warm little bundle, personally delivered to her door? “I’ll name you Precious,” she murmured to the kitten who looked up at her trustingly. Sylvia stroked it, and as the blanket folds fell away, she saw that Precious had a little bit of white fur on her back. It was shaped just like a cross.

As the days went on, far from being jealous, Timmy “adopted” little Precious, and gave him all the “cat nurturing” he needed. The vet provided Precious’ first checkup—-as well as bags of kitten food—at no charge. Neighbors came by to meet Precious. And the Martins, who had expected to be homesick, found themselves part of the community right away.

Was this all by accident? Syvia doesn’t think so. God works in mysterious ways, she knows, and can even use a little kitten as part of His plan.
(C) 2004 Joan Wester Anderson www.joanwanderson.com