Pushed to Safety by an Angel
From California in the US, comes the true story of one young mother's encounter with what she considers an angelic helper when her car broke down on a dark, deserted road leaving her stranded with two young children and no way of getting help.
Back in 1980, Deb was a single mother with two infants in San Bernardino County, California, and occasionally she needed reliable babysitters. Fortunately, her parents lived only about 30 miles away in Alta Loma. Deb would usually drop off the children at her parents' house, go do what she needed to do, then pick them up in the evening.
On this night, Deb had retrieved her babies from her parents' place and was heading home. It was relatively late, about 11:30 p.m., and Deb was driving her "old clunker". Among the car's many deficiencies, the gas gauge was broken, requiring her to guess when the old thing needed fuel. Occasionally, her guessing was off.
"Halfway home, the car started to putter," Deb remembers, "and I realized I was on empty. I pulled off the first offramp I could, and it just happened to be one that was slightly uphill. Almost at the top of the exit, my car died and there was absolutely nothing around except empty fields and distant lights at a truck stop about a quarter of a mile down the road. There were no other cars around me. It was pitch dark, other than my headlights. I remember I could hear crickets, and the babies were sound asleep in their car seats. I panicked because I couldn't think of what to do. Walking in the middle of nowhere with a kid on each hip after midnight was not going to work, and I couldn't - and wouldn't! - leave them in the car."
Remember that this was some time before mobile phones became commonplace. So with no means of communication, stuck in the dark with a dead car and two helpless, sleeping infants, Deb was feeling desperate. "I put my head on the steering wheel while saying a short and panicky prayer," she says. "I hadn't even finished when I heard a few taps on my window."
When she looked up, there stood a clean-cut looking young man, who Deb estimated to be about 21 years old. He motioned for her to roll down her window. "I remember I was surprised," Deb says, "but I wasn't even the slightest bit afraid, even though I normally would have been terrified. He had on clean pants, a dressy shirt and had neatly trimmed hair. He smelled slightly of soap. He didn't even ask me if I needed help. He just told me to put my car in neutral and he would push me over the slight hill down the road to the rest stop where I could get a couple dollars worth of gas - back then when it was a couple of dollars.
"I thanked him and followed his instructions. The car started moving. I steered it toward the lights of the truck stop and turned around to yell 'thank you' again to him. He was so nice! My car kept moving, but the young man was nowhere in sight. I mean, this area was completely remote. There was absolutely nowhere he could have gone that quickly, even if there was somewhere to go. I don't even know where he came from to begin with.
"My car continued to roll down the road to the truck stop, and I was so grateful to be in a lit area with people around. The kids didn't even wake up. I've always trusted in God to take care of us, but in relating that story many times to my children, who are now 30 and 32, they know for a fact that angels do exist and are sent to us if we just believe. I always thought it was so amazing that we were sent someone who I would trust instinctively without question. Since that incident, I've come to believe that we probably encounter angels all the time, and take for granted who they really are. I think they come in all shapes and sizes, young and old... and sometimes when we least expect them."
Posted on Mon 8th Nov 2010 21:59:31