Angels

Faith nearly caused me to drive off the road a few weeks ago.  I was driving my grandma’s old 1997 Ford Expedition (also lovingly referred to as “La Bamba”) into town carting her to the pool with Jacob and Teags.  Jonner was off at summer camp and it was a warm and lovely summer afternoon for a pool trip.  She piped up from her seat, “Mommy, who was the fuzzy white person sitting on daddy in the accident?”  While a knot rose up in my throat I tried to manage some cohesive words to answer her inquest.  “Ummm, what are you talking about sweetie?”  She just flowed into the conversation as if we were discussing her favorite movie or candy or flowers.  “When we were hit there were lights coming in the front windows.  The lights moved around the car, and then came in daddy’s window.  When I looked over at him there was someone all in fuzzy white sitting on him.  Then the lights left, and the fuzzy white person carried daddy out of the car.” 

I know that Kit was carried out of the car.  In fact I have imagined that he was wrapped in an angel’s embrace and held as he flew 70 feet out of the window of our car and skidded to a stop in the middle of Highway 78.  His survival of that seemingly deathly journey has been evidence to me that he was indeed held, and while he was severely wounded, he was spared from mortal injury.  All of his injuries came within a breath’s distance from ending his life, but didn’t crush life from him.  He had major scalp wounds, but his beautiful brain was only slightly bruised.  He had a fracture of one of the vertebrae in his mid back, but was not paralyzed.  His vital organs were not even damaged.  Medically the likelihood that he died on that road was very, very high.  As a doctor I am fully aware of each “bullet” he dodged.  But that has not been conversation that has been had around sweet Faith.  Those details would have only served fear up in her heart after that night, and so many of the details were kept from her.  She didn’t see him after the accident other than his silhouette as she was carried to safety away from our car by a kind stranger.

So when my 4 year old love asked about the fuzzy white person it took my breath away.  While I tried to regain the ability to produce words Teags (my concrete thinking 7 year old) answered her, “That was probably just a man or woman all dressed in white.”  Jacob immediately responded, “Teagan, there was no man or woman in white sitting on dad’s lap in the car.  Faith, you must have seen an angel.”  She then asked me, “Mom are angels invisible, or can we see them?”  And with that I was able to finally get some words to come forth.  “The Bible says that sometimes we can see angels, and sometimes we cannot.  Some people have been in the presence of angels and not known it.  But I believe you saw the angel that protected daddy, and God gave you a special gift.  He gave you the ability to see the angel that saved daddy in the accident.”  And then she moved on in the conversation to share the joy she had about going to the pool. 

My sweet baby girl saw a fuzzy white angel carry her daddy out of the car in the middle of the darkest night of our lives.  She was given a beautiful gift of sight to see the presence of angels that we believe were with us in our peril.   In the months following the terror she spontaneously shares her memories.   Some of them fill me with the dread, as she retells the events from her innocent eyes.  But this sweet memory allowed me to be filled with joy and gratitude.  I know Kit was held, a knowledge that is based on my faith.  She saw him being held with her own two eyes. 

As we move forward, beyond this event that has shaped, and scarred, and strengthened us, scripture has come alive to me as never before.  Like these verses in Psalms 91, “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone…’because he loves me’ says the Lord, ‘I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.  He will call on me and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble,  I will deliver him and honor him.’”   God in his infinite mercy had angels carrying Kit and holding all of us as well.  We were rescued, and protected, and for that we are grateful beyond words that can be written or spoken adequately.  And I, for one, am planning on watching out for people dressed all in fuzzy white, as I believe fully that angels are all around us.