Kaye visited her mom and took her for an early supper.  “Mom said she wouldn’t need her cane as she would not be doing much walking,” Kaye says, “so we left it home.”  (She won’t make that mistake again!) When they got back to the house, Kaye went around to the passenger side to help her mother.  But Mom had already gotten out.  “The ground was uneven and she twisted her ankle,” Kaye says. “She fell over backwards before I could grab her. I tried to help her up, but she was not cooperating and allowing me to take her weight.”  What should they do?

The farmhouse is set back from the highway. Vehicles were going past, and Kaye prayed that someone she knew would come by, and notice that they needed help.  But no one did.  Perhaps she should go into her mother’s house, and get the cane and a chair.  Maybe they could brace themselves and pull Mom to her feet.  She hated to leave her mother, but there was no other way.

“I had gone down the driveway and was in the house looking for the cane when I heard a man’s voice calling,” says Kaye. “A man I did not know was at the door, asking if I needed help. He said he was driving by and noticed my mom sitting on the ground up against the car, with the car door opened, and thought something must be wrong.”

He must be a friend of Mom’s, Kaye thought, and explained the situation.  “I don’t know you, but I’m certainly glad you came by,” she told him.

“You aren’t likely to know me,” the man answered.  “I’m a friend of one of your neighbors.” His attitude was so relaxed that Kaye didn’t give a thought for her own safety.  Instead, the man accompanied Kaye back to the car, lifted her mother up and onto her cane.  The three then slowly made their way back to the house.  “Once she was inside, I thanked him again and he left. I still had  no idea who he was but he was there when we needed him.”

Kaye got Mom settled, and she was feeling much better when she left.  When she got home, she called her mother again.  All was still well.  “I’m glad that man came by, whoever he was,” her mother told Kaye.  “He was a big help.”

“He said he was a friend of your neighbor,” Kaye said.  She was starting to get goosebumps.

“I never saw him before,” her mother told her. “I thought you knew him.”

But she had prayed, hadn’t she? Kate thought.  She had asked for help, and help was provided. “One never knows how God will get a message across or who he will send to deliver the message to us,” Kaye says. “One must remember that you only have to ask.”

Hello, angel friends.  It’s time for another angel story.  But first the usual announcements:

—My friend, Barbara Brabec, who is the guru of home-based businesses, has been Getting Organized and has assembled a terrific private catalog of books, CDs and VHS tapes on a wide variety of topics, most of which are priced between $1 and $6 and are of gift-giving quality. (Her late husband was a collector.) So far, her buyers have been delighted with their orders.   See testimonials and order a free catalog by clicking here:  http://www.barbarabrabec.com/private-sale-of-books-tapes.htm    

—Be sure to keep Father Joe Whalen in your prayers.  Hes the 85-year-old priest who makes the St. Raphael healing oil for all of us.  He had back surgery yesterday, and came through with flying colors, astounding the doctors.  But please continue to pray.  His website is: http://www.straphaeloil.com, in case you need some oil.

—If any of you are on Twitter or Facebook, let me know.  I’m there too and maybe we can exchange meaningless chit-chat!  Also, I will not be able to sell books from my website for the next few weeks.  If you need any, please order from Amazon.  (Of course that eliminates autographed copies, but well all survive.)

—A word about the story.  I know I seem to use a lot of car stories here, but that’s because there ARE a lot of car stories!  If angels are with us wherever we go, then we shouldn’t be surprised that so many angel stories occur on highways and roads because that’s where WE are.  Like this one….

It was winter when Nancy Williamson, of North Muskegan, Michigan, answered the door and found a  friend, Barb, and her daughter, Anna, standing on the porch.  Happy to have company during the  overcast day, Nancy fixed coffee and the women talked of vacation wishes. “Someday I’d like to  take my daughters on a vacation to Prince Edward Island,” Nancy said.  “It was the home of Lucy  Maude Montgomery, the author of ‘Anne of Green Gables,’ and the girls have read several of her  books, and watched the television series.”

“Why don’t we go?” Barb asked. “I’d love to see that area–when it’s a little warmer, of course.  And the men could certainly fend for themselves.”  (These husbands and sons usually spent their  vacations hunting.)

Nancy was all for it.  They had plenty of time to save money, and plan a two-week trip.  She bought a tent to cut the cost of hotels.  She and Barb would take turns driving Nancy’s station wagon, and Barb would be in charge of directions and maps.

All too quickly the departure date loomed.  “My budget was tight but I figured we would have  enough money as long as nothing went wrong,” Nancy says.  “But two days before we left, I noticed  a grinding sound when I turned the steering wheel of the station wagon.”  Nancy had already had  the car checked out, and knew the noise was coming from a small steering fluid leak, which would  cost several hundred dollars to fix. “But,” Nancy says, “I figured that if there was enough fluid, there was nothing else wrong with the car.” So instead of cancelling the trip and fixing the power steering, she bought several bottles of steering fluid instead!  On a warm July morning, with the station wagon packed and fluid in the steering wheel, the women headed for Niagara Falls where they would spend their first night.

It was an adventure from the beginning.  “Every day we had to add a bottle of steering fluid,”  Nancy says.  “Wherever we parked the car, we left our mark—a puddle.”  But the journey  continued without a breakdown, and on the fourth day of driving, they reached their destination,  a campsite on Prince Edward Island.

The area was beautiful, and perfect for relaxing and enjoying the sights, including the home of their favorite author.  But the leak was getting worse every day.  “We were leaving bigger puddles of fluid,” Nancy remembers.  “We could watch it trickling from the car as we poured in more.”  Every day required a trip to a service station to buy additional containers.  Uneasily Nancy wondered how they were going to get home.  Were they going to break down at night? Or on a dangerous stretch of road?  Nancy knew that she had made a foolish decision about this trip.  But she would never forget what a wonderful time they had enjoyed.  “God,” she prayed.  “Please take care of us, even if we don’t deserve it.”

Their departure morning arrived, and Barb decided to drive the first lap.  The women stocked up on bottles of fluid, and headed for the ferry to return them to the mainland, New Brunswick, Canada.  Barb drove off the ferry and onto the road.  But almost immediately the women realized that she had made a wrong turn.  Barb pulled to the side of the road, and took out the map.

Just then the car behind them pulled up and a nondescript man got out and approached their station wagon.  He put his hand on back of it.  “God bless you,” he said.  “Can I help?”

Barb explained her confusion, and the man gave her directions.  As he turned to leave, he said again, “God bless you.”  It was perhaps a strange comment to make, but the women were simply glad they were now pointed in the right direction.

It was a four-day trip back to Michigan, and every time the women stopped the station wagon, they  checked the steering fluid.  “Not once after we left that man in New Brunswick did we have to put  a drop of steering fluid into the car,” Nancy said. Nor did they leave any puddles in parking lots.  They arrived home safely, thanks to an obviously-talented mechanic, who knew just what to do.

The next morning Nancy went outside and started the station wagon.  The grinding sound was back, and there was a large puddle of fluid under her car.  But a final miracle awaited her. “I had enough money left from vacation to pay the entire repair bill,” Nancy says.  The angels think of everything.

<~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~>

Copyright 2009 by Joan Wester Anderson. Published by Joan Wester Anderson, P.O. Box 127, Prospect Heights, IL 60070. For more stories of God’s love, check the blog at http://www.joanwanderson.com.

<~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~><~>