In the summer of 2007, my daughter, Shirah, came home from Vacation Bible School with wide eyes and a questioning heart.
“Daddy, have you ever seen an angel? Do you believe there are angels? Miss Debbie says there are angels that help us and protect us. How come I’ve never seen one? What do they look like?”
“I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen one, but I believe in them.” I went on to explain it as best a young father might do. I drew upon my Sunday school lessons and talked about Lot having angels in his home. I told her that the Bible says we could possibly be entertaining angels and not even know it.
“But I thought angels had big wings.” Those big eyes were looking at me inquisitively.
“Well hun, people like to draw angels with flowing white robes and big wings, and I suppose there may be some like that. But I think more often than not they probably appear as regular people just like you and me.”
A single Dad’s struggle with on-the-spot explanation to a six year old child might have turned out to be a more accurate and theological explanation than I could ever imagine. More on that in a minute.
I’m a praying Dad. I have to be. I was a single father from 2004 until 2015 and I have two daughters. Becca and Shirah to be more precise. I promise you that lots of on the job training occurred. Scary stuff. In 2015, Mary and I married and Courtney became my step daughter. Four women in my immediate family and they are stuck with me. Scary stuff. Like I said, I’m a praying Dad because I have to be.
Every day I pray for the safety of these four women. My prayers always go something like, “Lord, wrap their cars with the wings of your angels and protect them from any harm.”
My oldest daughter, Becca, is an oncology nurse. Eighteen days ago she was on her way to work via Interstate 20. About a mile ahead was a car wreck, so she was sitting in stand still traffic. Both lanes were backed up and she had the privilege of being in the very back. She sat still for about a minute and just as she reached down to grab her coffee….
Her world was turned upside down. Literally.
A car traveling full speed struck her in the rear flipping her multiple times down into the median and back up the embankment onto the pavement. She remembers tumbling and recalled to me in the trauma unit that in her first roll she realized, “I’ve been hit and I’m rolling.” The second tumble she instantly thought, “this is it. I’m not going to live.” Somewhere in the next tumble she was knocked unconscious. Probably a blessing for the most part.
Her car was crushed. No more trunk or backseat. Thank God her sisters or friends weren’t traveling with her in the backseat. The passenger side pushed in and pressed shut. Somehow the car bent and folded and broke all around her but didn’t crush her.
You can see the picture above. I went to the junkyard and saw it. Glass everywhere. Broken pieces of metal and plastic. Now deflated airbags. Blood stains on the seats, console, and roof. My child’s blood… containing half my DNA and all my love… and a parent’s fear.
Becca came back to reality hanging upside down in seatbelt. She felt the blood running from her head and knew she had to escape the car.
As she was releasing her seatbelt, a trucker who saw the accident ran up to the car and asked if she was OK. He ran to get a pry bar to get the door open. Before he could return, Becca got the door open under her own power. She crawled from the wreckage and was met by a nurse. This nurse was on her way to work as well and saw what happened. She pulled her car over and tended to Becca’s head wound until the ambulance arrived and took her to the trauma unit. The EMTs in the ambulance started IVs and kept the emotional balance as Becca began to realize exactly what had happened. Meanwhile, my son-in-law, D.J., had called me and I was on the way to the hospital.
There’s nothing like running into a trauma unit looking for your child. It’s been a long time since I was a football player, but I promise you nobody could have tackled me or even run me down upon my arrival at Doctors Hospital. I sprinted the parking area, hurdled a row of bushes like the O.J. Simpson rent-a-car commercials in the 70’s, and had D.J. lead blocking for me past any linebackers…uh, medical staff… that would deter my entrance into the area. Emotional the whole way. I wish someone had filmed that run. It was a thing of beauty, although I would have needed the trauma unit had my leg caught the row of bushes.
In the trauma unit, there was the Amazing Tori and Sensational Shelby. Fantastic trauma nurses who worked on Becca and kept us informed every step of the way. Becca, also a nurse, spoke in the medical jargon with them, so they had to interpret for D.J. and me what was going on.
“You must be the Dad?” Asked Nurse Tori. “You have a miracle girl here.”
I know.
The doctors arrived from testing. Scans had been done from head to toe. When the doctor walked up, I asked what was the condition of my little girl.
“You must be the Dad.”
I guess it’s obvious to hospital staff.
“Uh, yeah. I just want my girl to be OK.”
The plain faced trauma doctor smiled.
“It’s unbelievable. I’m pleased to tell you that nothing is broken. No organ damage. She’s got a concussion and twenty staples in her head. Deep bruising and cuts, but sir, she’s alive and going to be OK. In my line of work, I don’t often get to tell families of patients involved in this type accident this type of news. We had Help on this one.”
I went outside and found an empty bench. I sat down. I cried. I prayed and thanked God for sparing my child. I don’t take it lightly. I’m well aware there are parents that live daily with the loss of a child. A parent’s worst fear. I can’t even imagine how overwhelming it must be because I know how I felt when all of the things were unfolding in our experience. I have friends that have experienced the news when it’s not good and my heart aches for them.
So…. Angels? A story like this leads me to alter my answer to the original question.
YES, Shirah. I do believe in angels and I have seen them. Sometimes they look like truckers carrying pry bars or nurses wearing bloody scrubs. Sometimes they look like you holding my hand and wiping a tear off my cheek in the hospital parking lot. Sometimes they look like me hugging you while you cried it out over your sister’s wreck. Sometimes angels look like Mary and leave board meetings with the chief officers to sit hours with you, me, and your mother. Other times angels look like D.J. sitting by your sister’s hospital bed making sure she is getting the care she needs. And sometimes angels are indeed quietly invisible and protect us from horrible accidents. I believe. Don’t you?
Psalm 91: 11 – 12 For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
