We “angels” shop at garage sales, send WalMart certificates or outgrown toys (and occasionally someone packs up a truck and just GOES.)   Occasionally we get a letter from the Cayces, updating the services we have helped to sustain.  It makes me feel as if we are doing what Mother Teresa always suggested,  “Bloom where you are planted.”

If you are already volunteering in your own community or caring for those who need you, please don’t stop.  Cayce Charities is mainly for those who are looking to get involved in something on-going, but there’s no commitment necessary.  We’ll keep you posted.

PS The address is Cayce Charities, 403 South Second Street, Thornton Arkansas 71766

And here’s the story:

On the  day that Amy Pruitt’s little boy was born, the doctors were grim.  Baby Cory had so many physical problems that he was not expected to live past a few hours.  “Don’t even hope,” Amy’s doctor told her, trying to prepare her for the loss.

But Amy was hearing a different voice inside her.  “Somehow I knew that despite his difficulties, Cory would be healthy,” she says.   And her son did make a miraculous recovery.  He was deaf, but this did not intimidate Amy.  “I had always heard that deaf children were easy to raise,” she says.  And Cory’s life seemed to prove it.

He was a bright, sunny little guy, with what seemed to be a deep spiritual connection. When Cory was about eight years old, he asked his mother if she remembered when he was a sick newborn.  “How could I forget?” Amy asked.

“Well,” Cory said, “I saw Jesus then.”

It was a wonderful story.  But could she believe it?  A few years later, Cory fell through the ice on a river, but ended up safely on shore, with no explanation of how he got there.  Later he told Amy that an angel had picked him up and placed him on the shore.  Amy had goosebumps.  The evidence supported Cory’s statement perfectly.

“ Last year a five-year-old friend of ours was in intensive care with a ruptured spleen,” Amy recalls.  “I asked Cory to pray.”  A few hours later Cory came to his mother.  “He looked as if there was a glow of some sort around him,” she says.

“I just finished talking to God,” Cory told her.  “That little kid is going to be fixed.”  The next day the boy was fine. The bleeding had mysteriously stopped in the night.  A few months later, Cory’s grandmother had a massive stroke and it seemed hopeless. Again Cory prayed, and his brother reported that Cory was glowing, and said that Grandma would be fine.  She made a complete recovery.

Just recently Amy was told that her initial belief—that deaf children are easy to raise—was not true.  In fact, most presents major challenges.  And yet “Cory has always been a very good kid, a joy and a gift in our lives,” she says.  The whole family waits to see what will happen next.

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.”

Recently Daniel had what the family thought was flu, but it got worse and when he was taken to the hospital, a smart doctor in the emergency room did a CT scan, which showed that Daniel had fluid around his heart, which was making it beat 200 times per minute.  They airlifted him to another hospital, where a heart team waited for him. No heart surgery but he was in Intensive Care for five days.  When he did finally get back to school, the same thing happened and he had to return to the emergency room.

Needless to say, the family was not able to get the news around to everyone, but they are convinced it was prayer power that kept Daniel from dying.  In fact, they have been told that the e.r. doctor probably saved his life.  He is back at college (probably finishing his finals) and is okay but very tired.  How the family will bring Christmas to the people there this year is anyone’s guess.  Obviously we need prayers for this fine young man and his wonderful family, as well as prayers for those who depend on the Cayces.  Let’s send some extra angels to Thornton this year.  And here’s our story:

“When you were a little girl, Grandma, was there a Christmas?” my granddaughter asked one December day as, heads together, we read a book about the season.

“Why of course!” I laughed. “There’s always been Christmas, honey, ever since Baby Jesus was born.”

“What was it like-—your Christmas?” she wanted to know.  And I set the book down for a moment as the sounds and scents and the magic of long ago crept into the room…

Christmas started back then, strangely enough, with the aroma of wet wool.  Scarves and mittens dampened by the first snowfall and hung to dry over steamy school radiators somehow signaled the beginning of the season.  As the scent stole across the classroom, we children would catch each other’s eyes, unspoken understanding passing among us.  It was the beginning.

From wool, we progressed to boots, not the sturdy leather footwear that today’s children use, but floppy rubber overshoes clanking with metal buckles, fitting snugly over oxfords or saddle shoes—if one tugged hard enough.  In every home in mid-November, the same scenario ensued: locate the stored-away boot box, drag it to the drafty back hallway, measure which child would be promoted to which pair—and caution children to wear the contents Every Day.  We didn’t mind. It was another ritual, another step in the dance.

Then slowly, almost without notice, the trappings of Christmas began to appear.  Store windows took on a  dusting of artificial snow, an occasional red ribbon or evergreen bough, very often, the beloved manger scene itself.  Lights sparkled over the front door of the village hall while local firemen hung stockings from the mantelpiece behind their engines.  Wreaths, hand-drawn in colored chalk, festooned the school blackboards, and the faint sound of carols drifted across the snowy landscape.  No raucous commercialism, no hucksters exhorting us to “Buy, buy!”– just a simple but growing awareness of the time that was to come.  And we children watched, and held our breath and waited.

Christmas came in bits and pieces in those days, changes in our routines that whispered rather than shouted.  An extra delivery of coal to ensure a warm house for the visitors who would share the day. Sledding on the big hill, then coming home in the late-afternoon dusk for warm soup, and hearing the rustle of tissue paper behind Mother’s closed bedroom door.  The soft aroma of sugar cookies unexpectedly mingling with breakfast oatmeal and toast.   In the Chicago area, the radio program “The Cinnamon Bear,” faithfully reviewed each day on our walks to school.  Being asked to accompany Dad on an evening shopping trip, the sound of our boots squeaking on the packed snow, the thrill of being out after dark with the most important man in our lives.  Those pleasures were as much a part of the awareness of Christmas as bells and candles and holly.

And then one day, at last, the tree.  Pine-scented needles scattering across the kitchen floor,  Dad carried it to its place of honor in front of the window so we could share its beauty with all who passed.  First, the lights, then the delicate colored balls, and the tinsel which we hung one strand at a time in a shimmering waterfall.  The angel at the very top and finally the crèche in the place of honor, its chipped statues heralding memories of Christmases past.  “And it came to pass…” someone would read the comforting words that gave the season its true meaning.

The countdown began in earnest now.  Five days…four days… Hurriedly we completed our own shopping —a comb for a favorite aunt, a candle for Grandpa—and stored our wrapped cache under our beds, understanding again the joy of giving. Three days…two..the turkey on the cold back porch. Quick errands, candles, stockings that didn’t have holes (my brother hung a kneesock), cookies for Santa, and the feeling that one’s heart would burst..

And finally, on a cold dark morning, my siblings, wrapped in flannel bathrobes, bouncing on my bed in excitement.  “It’s Christmas!” they were shouting.  “It’s here!”

The remembered wonder gripped me again as I sat in my own living room, my own grandchild listening in delight.  “It came!” she exclaimed.  “Your Christmas always came!”

And yours will too, I told her silently.  Oh, the trappings will be different from the slower days of my childhood.  You will have frozen turkey breasts, TV commercials, a wrapping service at the local mall—by-products of a more modern age.  But beneath the gadgetry and clamor will be the same holy Child, the joy at his arrival shared by millions, past, present and yet to come.

For Christmas is excitement and anticipation and wonder, the secrets, the smiles, the sharing.  It’s the message of the little King repeated down through the ages, the message of hope and peace, renewed again in a troubled world. The message that keeps us believing in the magic of love.

“Yes,” I told my granddaughter, “Christmas will always come.  For what would we do without it?”

—The Cayces have received many school supplies thanks to all of you, and recently they reached their financial goal so they could put a new roof on the gym–where they store all the clothes and furniture that they give away.  It appears that the roof will be fixed before the rain and ice begin, and again, that’s a miracle you helped to make!

—Speaking of miracles, Loyola Press has just redone my 15-year-old book titled WHERE MIRACLES HAPPEN.  I have added some new stories and taken some out too, and am hoping that those who missed the book the first time around, can take some time to read the updated version.  You can always find my books at amazon.com.  And now an oldie but goodie:

If any of you have ever suffered from migraine headaches, you will sympathize with MaryAnne Rodrigues of Bombay, India, who experienced them frequently. “They usually started in the mornings at work,” she says. “I would have to leave the office immediately and come home, as I couldn’t bear light or noise, or concentrate on what I was doing.”

One morning MaryAnne felt the ominous warning signs of a headache.  Her boss assured her that she could go home as soon as her work was done.  But it was one of those hectic days, and not until three p.m. had MaryAnne finally worked her way through the piles.  By now her head was throbbing, and she was feeling sick to her stomach.  She left the building and walked into the hot mid-day sun to cross the busy main road.

“The STOP signal was on but as I stepped on to the road and took two steps forward, I suddenly felt light in my head and could feel myself falling,” MaryAnne says.  “My bag and the things I had in my arms went sprawling across the road.” The signal changed, and MaryAnne saw a taxi speeding from the side street, attempting to overtake the slow-moving cars at the signal.  The taxi was heading straight for her!

But seconds before she lost total consciousness, MaryAnne saw something amazing.  Standing about four feet away, in the middle of the road, was a tall figure in a full white gown.  “His arms were lifted up, signaling the oncoming traffic to stop,” she says.  Then she lost consciousness completely.

According to witnesses, a crowd immediately gathered around MaryAnne, and someone sprinkled water on her face.  She revived quickly.  “When I came around I saw people gathering my things together but the first thought on my mind was:  Where was the taxi?”   How could she have escaped those wheels, heading straight for her head?”

But no.  There was the taxi in the middle of the street, stopped exactly where the figure in the white gown had been standing.

No one else seemed to have seen anything unusual, and tears sprang to MaryAnne’s eyes.  Not only had her life been saved, she realized, but she had been given a brief glimpse of the unseen world, the angelic protection that is always around us, caring for us with silent strength.  And she gave thanks.

.

—August 22nd is the 16th annual Be An Angel Day, celebrated throughout North America and several other countries.  The day encourages us to give thanks for angels by imitating them.  That is, doing acts of kindness, and helping others (anonymously if that’s possible—just like angels often do!) The type of angelic help you can offer is not defined or limited. It can be physical, emotional, or spiritual. Think about paying a stranger’s toll, sending a card to someone who needs cheering up (sign it, Your Secret Pal) or if you can afford it, buy some groceries for a family out of work and leave them on the porch.  What goes around comes around, and God, who sees in secret, will send you a special hug.

—Do any of you know of a blog or two aimed at younger moms?  Can you recommend them to me?  (joan@joanwanderson.com)  I’ll tell you about this in a week or two.

—The Cayces report that you are sending school supplies and other necessities, and they are able to make hundreds of Back to School bags for the kids.  You guys are awesome.

And now here’s a shortie but goodie:
“The good Lord must know when I’m out of my comfort zone,” says Marlene Creech who lives on a pension, “because that’s when interesting things happen!”  One day Marlene could not get on line.  Her computer kept flashing the message that her dial-up server was down.  After two or three tries, Marlene quit.  (Don’t we all know how she felt?)

The “server is down” message continued for another few days, and finally Marlene called the company.  “The automated phone systems are not easy for me at my age,” she says (and don’t we all know how she felt?) “but finally I reached a person, and told him the problem.”  After checking, the man told her that her dial-up phone number was bad, and she needed to get a new one.

“The problem here is that there are no more local numbers available,” he told Marlene. “You’ll have to choose one of three long distance numbers.” Marlene never thought to ask if there would be a change in cost for this.  She chose a number, and used it for a month.  And when she received her phone bill she almost fainted.  The bill was $257.

How could this bill be so much higher than usual?  “With my budget being so tight, I had to call them again, get myself through the automated system again, and tell my story to two or three people before reaching an employee who understood what I was asking,” she says.

“Your town only has one local number to get on line, and it’s perfectly fine,” he told her.

“Then why did that other man tell me that my line was bad?” she asked.  This employee had no answer, just the suggestion that she return to the local number, which she did. (And don’t we all know how she felt?)

“The next day I called the phone company again, this time to see if I could set up payments on this large bill, as my pension was already stretched to the limit,” Marlene says.  By now she was a pro at navigating the automated phone system, and she ended up with yet a third employee, to whom she repeated the entire story. “Let me look up your account,” he suggested.  A few moments later he came back to the phone, a bit puzzled.  “A deduction to your account was made yesterday,” he told her.  “You have a balance of $85, not $257.”

It was the exact amount of the long distance overcharge, Marlene realized.  Although she had not gotten angry or even complained, someone (maybe an Earth Angel?) had taken pity on her and removed the charges.  “The encounter left me so thankful,” Marlene says.  “Many times we receive blessings, and don’t even know it.”

And don’t we all know how she felt?

–Can you lend your collective goodness now to another need?  An eight-year-old boy named Isaac Frank suffered second and third-degree burns a week ago from an explosion on a farm, and has been in Loyola Hospital burn unit.  He was sent home this week and apparently no skin grafts will be necessary (people have already been praying) but he is still in a lot of pain, and missed his First Communion.  Isaac is a real angel-lover, and his grandmother is a member of our list, and is asking for prayers.  She wishes she could carry the pain for him, and we all understand that, so can you ask the angels to bring him some comfort and healing?  And here’s our story:

“My mother, Virginia, and her mother were as close as a mother and daughter could be,” says Barbara Martin of St. Louis, Missouri.    “It would be safe to say they were soulmates.”  Because Barbara and her mother Virginia were also very close, the three women had a special bond.  “I spent a lot of time with my grandmother when I was a little girl,” Barbara recalls.  “I remember her singing me her favorite song, ‘The Tennessee Waltz’ as we lay on the living room floor on blankets for sleepovers.  She was loving, kind and totally devoted to her family. “

Barbara was sixteen when her beloved grandmother died.  She and her mother were both devastated.  Virginia was so broken up that it took a long time before she was able to remember her mother with happiness instead of sorrow.   Barbara grieved especially hard because her yet-to-be family would never know Gram the way Barbara had.

Time passed, Barbara eventually married and had a family.  When she was in her fifties, she needed back surgery.  “It was a success, and the best part about it was that, while asleep, I saw my grandmother!  She was young, wearing a white dress with a red silk sash around her waist, tied in the back with a big bow.  She had beautiful curls in her hair, and was dancing to ‘The Tennessee Waltz.’  I was in awe.”  When Barbara awakened from the anesthetic, she immediately told a nurse what she had experienced.  The nurse smiled—no doubt she had heard many such dreams in the recovery room.

Barbara’s mother Virginia, now a widow, insisted that Barbara and her husband come to her house to recover from the surgery, at least for a week or so.  Barbara’s grown children came in and out too, so for various reasons Barbara never told her mother about her vision in the recovery room.  Just a few weeks later, Virginia’s health began to fail.  It started with the pain of shingles, and she also developed diabetes.  In less than a month after her own surgery, Barbara was now taking care of her beloved mother.
“
Hospice set up a hospital bed for Mama in her bedroom, which made her much more comfortable,” Barbara says.  “She stayed awake most of the nights and was alert and talkative.  She knew she was getting ready to go to heaven.” Barbara’s husband and children took turns watching Virginia.  Checking on her constantly was part of their routine because, at times, she would attempt to get out of bed.

One night about three a.m., Barbara looked in.  “Mama had the most angelic look on her face,” Barbara says.  Virginia was staring at the ceiling, smiling, and her eyes were twinkling.  She turned slightly, saw Barbara looking at her, and motioned with both hands for her daughter to come to the bed.  Barbara did, and sat down beside her.  “Oh Barbie!” Virginia said, “I saw Grandma.  She was a young girl, wearing a white dress and she had a red silk sash around her waist, tied in a big bow in the back.  She had beautiful curls too.  And she was dancing to ‘The Tennessee Waltz!”

Barbara gasped.  The very same dream!  But her mother wasn’t dreaming.  She was completely lucid—and joyful.  Barbara had never told her mother about her own experience.  How could Virginia have known?

Virginia died peacefully just nine days later.  Today Barbara continues to believe that the three of them will meet again, and spend eternity together.  As for now,  “I am sure,” she says, “that my mother and grandmother are dancing in heaven to ‘The Tennessee Waltz’.”

Happy Mother’s Day to all.

These children are the poorest of the poor, and rarely have a chance to enjoy a party, and of course JoAnn has been the beneficiary of our angel group for many years.  If you’d like to get involved, just contact JoAnn at 403 South Second St., Thornton AR 71766.  Here’s the story:
 
Luke Baird, then fourteen, was running late to meet his best friend.  He was pedaling his bike at top speed on a fairly busy street (and, his mother Doreen says, at six feet tall, Luke could work up a pretty good head of steam).  As Luke approached an intersection, his bike chain slipped and jammed his back wheel, stopping the bike dead in the street.  Luke, however, tumbled over the front of the now stopped bike at a very high speed.  “He remembers rolling head to feet, over and over again, so fast that he actually rolled to his feet, only to crash to the street again,” says Doreen.  Luke finally came to rest in the middle of an intersection. A car had been approaching, but the driver was able to slam on her brakes in time.

“The driver, bless her, got out and helped him out of the street, and called our home because Luke was shaking so hard that he couldn’t hold her cell phone,” says Doreen. Luke’s older brother was the only one home, and he had just received his learner’s permit, but he jumped in the family car anyway, and drove to pick up his brother.

At the emergency room, doctors discovered that Luke, having caught his hand in a storm grate while tumbling, has broken several fingers.  His shoulders and knees were badly gouged, and he had some serious “road rash,” visible even a few years later. And since Luke had had back pain almost all of his life, it was assumed that some serious problems would show up there too.

But his head and face were completely protected, and he even still had his baseball cap on his head without any debris on it.  When Doreen finally saw him, she couldn’t help wondering if something or someone had cushioned his back too, for he was not having any pain.  As it turned out, he never did, and has had a normal life ever since.

How did Luke emerge almost unscathed from that spooky, fast potentially deadly fall?  Doreen thinks she knows.
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—-I’ve been getting some raves on my new website/blog and I wanted to introduce you to the kind and capable woman responsible for designing it and teaching me how to use it (don’t snicker.)  You should be able to get around the site a little better, especially to the posted stories, comments to me through the CONTACT page,  and to join Twitter if you’d like to.  (Never mind).  The world of computers is so daunting for so many of us that we really need someone to be there AFTER the site is built, to answer our questions and give us the encouragement we need.  That’s why I’m nominating Traci Vanover as my earth angel.  If you’d like o talk to Traci about your own website/computer needs, just visit her website at http://PromoDiva.com, and tell her what you need.

—-We earth angels have a particular group that we take care of whenever we can—an area in Thornton Arkansas where the poorest of the poor live.  The Cayce family has been serving them for over 40 years. Here’s the long-awaited update on their Christmas giveaway.  I’m going to just print Joannie Cayce’s letter—it’s long but how could anything be better?

“We helped 726 poor children and hundreds of elderly have a wonderful Christmas. This year was a year of many miracles and wonderful blessings. The day after Thanksgiving Daniel went to the gym and starting pulling out all the used toys from the back of the gym that we had saved all year. Some people had mailed us new things we saved throughout the year also. We quickly saw we would be needing TOYS. We ordered 300 basketballs and prayed for a miracle.

“Then wonderful things began to happen.  Packages from angels started coming in and an angel at a church in Little Rock connected Scholastic Book Company with us. Scholastic Book Company handles all the school book fairs. They are going out of business in Little Rock. The manager called me and said she was looking for a charity to donate their store’s inventory to.  I had no idea of the miracle that was about to happen. I told her about our giveaways and how many thousands of people in impoverished Arkansas are helped by Cayce’s Charities. She had the idea to donate the books to several different organizations but while she was talking to me she felt God telling her Cayce’s Charities was the organization she was looking for.  Scholastic Book Company donated not just books but toys, gift sets, watches, candles, and many wonderful gifts. We had their new wonderful things in the children’s bags, and all over the gym floor for the poor to receive as gifts.

“The angels around the country sent enough warm socks, underwear, coats, tooth paste, tooth brushes, soap, shampoos and gloves for every child. Boxes of games, puzzles, books, colors, coloring books, trucks, cars and dolls came in and went into the bags.  Each time I filled a bag I thought about the sacrifice each angel made, and the love they sent with each kage they mailed here. I wished there was a way of letting each of you know how wonderful you made Christmas Day for so many children. Every child we helped had a wonderful Christmas. We also had food sacks for each family filled with macaroni and cheese, soup, crackers, spaghetti sauce, spaghetti, hamburger helper, cookies, hash, stew, chicken and dumplings, oranges, apples, jelly, canned milk, peanut butter, and lots of candies. These were the nicest food boxes we have ever had at Christmas. The donations we received for food made these bags possible.

“The day of the giveaway the lady from the Scholastic Company came with 10 others to help. They said they were in shock at the lines, the poor, and the poverty in south Arkansas they did not know existed. They were so touched by the experience and said it had changed their lives forever. We had many Spanish speaking families that showed up for gifts for their children and food. They could speak no English and we can’t speak Spanish. But one of the men that came with the Scholastic Company spoke Spanish and we were able to help all the Mexican families!

“We also gave away tons of used clothing, blankets, bedding, furniture, shoes, and much more. We are really starting the year off with empty gym tables, and full hearts. We thank every one that helped us make this Christmas a wonderful day where the poor child, parents, and elderly could feel loved and have a day of hope filled happiness. Thank you. Joannie Cayce.”

Thank you, Joannie, for allowing us to help God’s poorest.  Our hugs also go to Joanne who broke her foot during all of this! and has been using her convalescence to write thank you notes to all of us.  The Cayces can be reached at 403 Second St, Thornton AR 71766.  And finally, here’s our

story:

—She isn’t sure of the year, but Helen Kron will never forget the fires that kept spreading for what seemed like weeks.  She knew full well that she should not have gotten herself in this situation.  But when her son—who had been visiting her in Indiana—invited her to come back with him to Florida for awhile, she decided to go.  Surely the fires she had been reading about would be out by then.  And her son drove a large and sturdy van. They would be fine.

They were, for the first day.  But as they got closer to Florida, Helen saw the smoke wafting through what was usually a bright path.  Then as miles passed, she started to see the flames. “I was very concerned about these fires along both sides of the road,” Helen says. “From time to time the wind would pick up some burning item and blow it across the street.  That piece would start something else burning.”  Helen fell back on her remedy for fear—serious prayer.  “I began to pray that God would send rain,” she says.

Miles passed, and Helen kept praying.  “Oh Lord, give us a flood!” she murmured at one point.  And then, although she could hardly believe her eyes, rain came.  There was no warning—the deluge simply started as if a dam had burst.  Rain pounded the van’s windshield, poured on everything in sight.  The fires alongside the roads were quickly extinguished.  “Isn’t this wonderful!” Helen cried out in amazement.  Who would believe this timing?  She thanked God and praised him.  The rain kept falling.

Soon, however, the roads seemed to be flooding.  Helen noticed that several cars were driving through puddles almost half as high as their tires.  Traffic immediately slowed and cars began to stall.  “Mom,” Helen’s son said, “I can’t see the road—the wipers can’t keep up.  I’m going to have to pull off and wait it out.”  There was a parking lot near them, and he splashed into it.  The engine died.

Now what?  Helen had prayed that rain would come, and now she was praying that it would leave. The old saying, “Be careful what you pray for–you just might get it” popped into her head.  How did one ask God to stop the blessings?

Then, through the windshield on the driver’s side, Helen saw a bright light.  Was it lightening? This made her even more uneasy.  “Then I saw the figure of an angel,” Helen recalls.  “Oh! how beautiful she was.  She seemed fully grown wearing a white dress that was either eyelet or lace. She had tight blonde curls—like Shirley Temple when she was a child—and she wore a tiara.”

Helen could no longer see the windshield, as the angel’s light was filling the van’s interior. Her arms were outstretched, showing the full sleeves flowing from her dress, and she was looking at Helen.  “I felt as if she was saying that everything would be all right,” Helen says.  “There was no doubt in my mind what I was seeing.”

The vision lasted just a few minutes. By now the rain had stopped, and drivers seemed to be getting back on the road.  “That was a lucky break,” Helen’s son mused as he turned the key and the engine sprang to life.  “Look—the sun is even coming out.”

“Didn’t you see her?” Helen demanded, still awed by the vision.

“See who, Mom?”

Warmth flooded Helen.  She would tell her son in a few minutes about what had happened.  Right now she wished only to hold the miracle close to her heart.  “This memory is still very clear to me,” she says today.  “I praised God, and wondered ‘why me?’”  It was a privilege I’ll never forget.”