For Chanukah two years ago, I bought Nicole a pair of shearling earmuffs. I had remembered how much she said she hated wearing a winter hat when it got cold (she never liked how they looked on her), so I got her the next best thing to help keep her warm. She loved the gift—she’s worn the earmuffs for two winters now. Last week, Nicole was heading home from work, riding the New York City subway. The train stopped at Union Square and Nicole got out. As she stepped through the subway doors, the earmuffs fell from her head…and dropped
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How did a guy like me wind up in what was then known as Saigon, Vietnam, in 1966? Looking out my dirty hotel window one evening I still wasn’t sure. There was a war being fought in the jungles north of us. But that wasn’t what brought me here. I was here for the paycheck. I was hired by an American firm contracted by the U.S. Navy for construction work. My skills as an engineer were in demand. Right away I knew I did not like Saigon. It was hot, dirty and confusing. We engineers lived in a fleabag hotel
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Angels don’t always announce their arrival. And they don’t always have wings. But however angels come, they change our lives. Tammy Kline would agree. Tammy, her husband Rich, and several others had embarked on the Grand Canyon climb. An experienced hiker (and married to one), Tammy had never had a serious problem climbing hills in Colorado. But now as the group approached Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, the huge uneven steps going down the trail were about 18 inches apart. Each time Tammy landed on one, she jarred her knee and gradually the pain began. Read
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Many angel stories occur in hospitals, and that’s logical, isn’t it? Where better to look for helpers of the spiritual kind? Mary LaGrange of Greenfield, Wisconsin, would agree. She was concerned when her brother George was admitted to the hospital to have laser surgery on his lower eye lid. He had had a previous surgery on that eye lid because of a bout with cancer, and the laser had removed a small portion of lid and his eyelashes. Now his eye was becoming irritated, and the doctor wanted to do the procedure again. Read More Angelic Doctor Helps Patient Make
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Zippy stuck his head out the car window, grinning into the wind that ruffled his fur. We were having a fine time vacationing in a cabin in northern Minnesota for the month of August. My husband, Bill, hiked; Zippy, our Shetland sheepdog, ran in the open space; and I painted. We left our hideaway to replace the creaky old bed frame in the cabin. “Look over there!” I said, pointing up the road at a country store with a big sign hanging out front: Consignment Shop. Bill pulled up and parked. Zippy jumped around in back, eager to get out.
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Vail Mountain—the perfect vacation spot for ski lovers like my husband, John, and me. From our chair on the ski lift, I watched the evergreens pass underneath. Suddenly I felt something wet hit my head. Thick icy snow ran down my face and onto my lap. More and more fell from the sky. Sleet! Forget hitting the slopes! We skied off the lift and looked for shelter. There was none. The ice coated my goggles. I took them off and squinted between my gloved fingers. Nothing but white. “I can’t see a thing, can you?” I asked John. Read More
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Up here on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland February blizzards come up right quick, and when they do, watch out! Snow blows in heaps from the northeast, pack ice piles up and you can’t see five feet in front of you. A man can lose his way just walking to a neighbor’s house. It’s weather you don’t want to get lost in. I should know. I had my own brush with a blizzard when I was just 25. It happened on a chilly February Saturday here in Raleigh, where I’ve lived all my life. Read More Man Lost in Blizzard
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For our first Christmas in a new state, far from the rest of our family, I wanted to get my daughters, Tiffany and Jasmine, something special.“What do you want from Santa this year?” I asked them.“Bicycles!” they replied in unison. Clearly they had their hopes set. But when I went over the monthly bills, I saw I couldn’t afford one bike, let alone two. I took the matter to my head accountant: Lord, would it be fair to my landlord to be late with the rent this month? Just this once? Read More Christmas Angels Help Mother Pay for Gifts
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Piano music started to play and I took my position at the barre. Dance class was the one place I could put aside my worries these days. My mother had come through surgery for her broken hip remarkably well. Even at 87, she was healthy and fit, and the doctors anticipated a smooth recovery. After a short stay in the hospital she was transferred to a rehabilitation center. But almost as soon as she got there she was rushed back to the hospital for an emergency blood transfusion. Read More Woman Feels Angelic Presence When She Needs It Most –
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Robin Leach, host of the former Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous is one of many celebrities who have angel stories to share. A few years ago he told his to listeners of WYLL Radio in Chicago. Christmas was approaching and Robin had invited over some friends who, he knew, might otherwise spend the holiday alone. They would have a feast, he promised. Robin would bring the wine, and his best friend would provide the food, including a turkey with all the trimmings. “On Christmas eve, I phoned the friend who was supposed to provide the food,” Robin says. “I
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The trip started out like hundreds of others. Lorie Torbeck of Appleton, Wisconsin, helped by her teenage daughter, Eryn, buckled the seven children who attended Lorie’s home daycare into their seats in her big Chevy Suburban to go to the high school. “Eryn was a cheerleader, and it was yearbook picture day for the team,” Lorie says. “The kids and I had made this quick trip dozens of times.” Now, as they were driving along a narrow stretch of highway, a white panel truck came toward them. Lorie moved over a few inches, onto the shoulder, to give the truck
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Someone at work gave my son, Sean, a big red helium balloon on a string, and you would have thought it was the moon! Presents didn’t come often to my three-year-old. Nor me. I was thankful for my job at his day-care center, but it didn’t pay much. I’d been so full of hope once. Now it seemed like I would be forever struggling. I reached out to tie the balloon to Sean’s wrist for our walk to the car. “I’m a big boy!” he said, jerking his hand away. “Promise you’ll hold on to it tightly?” I said. Sean
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Thunderstorms. The blips on the radar screen disturbed me as the copilot and I ran through our preflight checks. I leaned around the cockpit door. A young boy lay on a stretcher, unconscious, pale as death. His doctor and four nurses stood by. Medical equipment crowded the aisle. I was chief pilot for a charter airline, and I’d handled hundreds of ambulance flights, but I seldom knew much about the patients I transported. This boy was named Toby. He was 11 and had something wrong with his brain. We were all set to fly from Cincinnati to Branson, an hour
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Justin was stretched out on the couch watching TV. “How can you enjoy being cooped up on a day like this?” I asked. He shrugged, the nonverbal equivalent of “Whatever.” Justin was at that age. Moody, private. I had no idea what went on inside his head. “Well, it’s beautiful outside,” I said. “I want to do something. Maybe take the canoe out on the river.” “What’s stopping you?” Justin said, his eyes glued to the television set. “It’d be a lot easier if I had a hand. Come on, we haven’t hit the Housatonic in ages. That 16-foot canoe
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Christmas Eve always began for us with a delivery of my mother-in-law’s homemade candy. Instead I’d started the day with a disappointing phone call. “I’m so sorry your Christmas candy won’t arrive on time this year,” my mother-in-law said. “I just got the package off a few hours ago.” We were in New Jersey; she lived in Ohio. The candy wouldn’t get here until after Christmas. Especially with all the snow we’d been having. Read More Christmas Angels Help Package Arrive on Time – Guideposts.
Emergency medicine doesn’t take holidays off, but this was the first time I’d pulled an EMT shift on Christmas. Already we were racing to a studio apartment in an independent living community to answer the night’s first 911 call. I couldn’t help thinking this was supposed to be a night of miracles, not injuries. The ambulance had barely come to a full stop when my partner, Dan, and I jumped out with a gurney. A staff member from the facility waited at the apartment door. Featured Product Angels in Disguise Angels in Disguise A must-read for all pet and animal
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Church on Sunday couldn’t compete with a pond full of crappie. That’s where my best friend, Johnathon, and I were headed if the minister ever finished his sermon. “Take a good look around you,” he went on. “Think the people you see are the only ones in this church today? Think again. There are angels in our midst, watching over us, waiting to perform one of God’s miracles in our lives.” Read More Guardian Angel Protects Teenage Boy in Car Accident – Guideposts.
It was our third day in Prague and already we’d visited six churches. My wife, Tib, has a boundless capacity for gilded domes and rococo statuary, but as I limped painfully up the steps to Our Lady of Victory I promised myself this was my last church here in the Czech Republic. I’d plead the inevitable stair-climbing involved; a year after knee-replacement surgery steps were still agony. Read More Angelic Sculptor Miraculously Repairs Statue – Guideposts.
Many weekends I get up before dawn and head to my favorite fishing hole, a wooded lake near my home in North Carolina. It’s not just catching fish I like. It’s the quiet. The time to think. The lake reminds me of the Oil Mill Pond in Danbury, Connecticut, where I used to fish and skate when I was a kid. I’ve often puzzled over something that happened to me there one winter when I was eight. I understood it then, or thought I did. But over the years I began to wonder if my explanation was nothing more than
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I fretted as I felt my five-year-old daughter’s warm forehead. All day she had been sick with a fever. I checked her temperature again. Still high. It had been nearly four years since she had a seizure, but still I worried. The doctors had never figured out what triggered her off-and-on seizures as an infant. I lay down beside her and dozed off. A piercing scream jolted me awake. I knew that scream. I grabbed for my glasses and shoved them on. Celina was deathly white and her eyes were glassy and fixed. Her body was stiff. Her tiny chest
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John White was the general sales manager at a Ford dealership in Kingman, Arizona. Sometimes he drove trade-ins home at night to see if they were fit for resale. The trip to John’s home in Bullhead City was a challenge: he had to maneuver through a dangerous mountain pass, but also watch out for unsavory characters known to also travel the road. One night John had just reached the top of that treacherous mountain pass, when the used car went dead. “No lights, no power brakes or steering,” John recalls. Somehow he guided it through the winding curves, pulled it
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Nuns usually enjoy telling people of the miracles that graced their order’s founders, and the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis are no exception. The primary objective of this order is to care for the sick and the poor, and through the years they have had some interesting experiences. One of their favorites occurred around 1885, several years after they had come to America and settled in the Peoria, Illinois area. A contagious disease had broken out, and many ill people were being brought to Mother Krasse and her sisters. Most of the sick were delirious with high
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The lazy days of summer were winding down, and I was anxious for the new school year to begin. I always liked to come into my elementary school art classroom a couple of weeks before the first day to get things ready for the kids. You could hear a pin drop in the quiet halls. My mind wandered among all the new projects and ideas I had for the coming year. Thank you, God, for this time alone to work hard and prepare. Read More Guardian Angel Catches a Woman’s Fall – Guideposts.
On school days Mom had our Chevy Suburban at her disposal. We needed room enough for us five kids, sacks of groceries and whatever supplies the animals required. Our house in the Santa Barbara foothills sat on a high plateau with steep drop-offs front and back, reaching hundreds of feet down. We could see the entire city far below, but ours was like a place deep in the country. We had lots of animals running around—chickens, pigs and of course our dogs and cats. Read More Guardian Angels Protect Children Trapped in Car Wreck – Guideposts.
Paula Steinke was enjoying Prospect High School immensely. She was now a sophomore, but her parents were still hesitant about giving her more freedom. “I especially worry when you stay late after school and walk home alone,” Paula’s dad explained to her. “Promise you’ll phone me to come and get you.” Paula promised. But she felt a little guilty. The Steinkes have six children, and her father was busy enough without adding yet another run to his personal taxi service. But she obeyed. Read More Angel Escorts Young Woman Home at Night – Guideposts.
One day my friend Doug Schockey was swimming in the ocean when he was caught in an undertow. No matter how hard he swam, the water dragged him farther out to sea. Panicking, he swam harder, exhausting himself with fear and exertion, when suddenly two swimmers appeared, one on either side of him, two men. Reead More Summer Angels Save Swimmer – Guideposts.
As an editor at Angels on Earth, Be an Angel Day was an idea I couldn’t pass up. Now I just had to find the right thing to do for someone else. Sounds easy, right? Not if you have a habit of over-thinking. Even with a list of ideas I couldn’t settle on the right one. I puzzled over it as the subway pulled into my stop, Times Square. On my long walk through the crowded station, head bent, weaving through the crowd, I kept asking myself, Who do I know who could use some kindness? Then it hit me:
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