Can just anyone be an angel?

Years ago, I got a job as a tree killer. One early morning, I climbed into the back of a pick-up with six or seven strangers, and was hauled away up into the hillbilly playgrounds of Northeast Alabama.

The job entailed jabbing trees in the roots with a large device that injected poison. Everything was all wrong: I didn't like being up so early, I didn't like being surrounded by strangers, I didn't like the black foreman, and it really went against my nature to kill trees.

Before I had gotten very far, the foreman had fired myself, a black girl, and another white man - the group was pretty much evenly mixed. The foreman had spent much of the morning arguing on the phone - I presumed with a wife or girl friend. Suddenly he called to have the equipment loaded: he had decided to call an end to the work for the others too.

We raced through the woods. All along, I grew angrier by the minute. Then it dawned on me that the man was lost; driving in the wrong direction. I saw the same realization crossing the faces of the strangers I had thrown in with. But, before anything could be said, my hope of at least getting back home that day was dashed. The man got his vehicle stuck in a large, watery mud hole. Now I was pissed.

He demanded that we all dig in the mud or some other menial chore. I refused adamantly. I turned from the group and headed out into the woods. I settled it in my heart that they could spend the night in the woods with their crazy foreman. I knew the direction we had come from, and the general time it took for the pick-up to creep along the winding muddy trail. I was confident I could make it back to the highway in short order. Thumbing a ride back south was a different matter altogether. I figured that might take me a while.

I crossed paths with two rednecks entering the woods for sporting pleasures. I was compelled to stop them and at least ask them to help the others. The men had a wench on the front of their four-wheeler-jeep-whatever, so I knew it was the right vehicle for the job. That such a vechicle was there, neither too early nor too late, was a fact that was not lost on me. I took my leave, having done what I considered to be my civic duty, but the men pressed me to return with them and I was persuaded.

After the timely rescue, the foreman offered me a ride back plus the job too; I took the ride. On the return trip, the black girl who had been fired along with myself and the other man, could not stop praising me for her deliverance. I was embarrassed and eager for the trip to end. I had not really intended to do any more than get my own self back home, but it turned out that God used me as a saving angel that day. Unwitting; unwilling? Yes. But, handy.

I guess what all this is about is this - are there any of you who have such a story to share in return? Have any any of you been an angel? Or, has your life been touched in some weird, unusual way that might just have been angelic?

 

Usually my first response to a story like that would be "well it was just coincidence that the men with the Jeep and you crossed paths" ... but someone back with the foreman who deep down really loves and believes in God could've been praying for help and there ya go..

my how I've changed.


i dont think i have such a story, maybe.. I had been feeling sad for what seemed a long, long, long time, and then last tuesday i found it in my heart to be more openminded towards God and i guess religion altogether (I used to be very atheist, i'm sure many remember that), and a day or two later i prayed for the first time in my life, i woke up later that nite and i realized that i love God.. and I'm happy now.

 

Keep on lovin' God and you'll stay full of peace and have a happy heart!

 

i dont understand why anyone would do this?

ps, have you read any of doreen virtue's writings? she's all into angels.

 

What a big horn you toot for yourself.

All you did was happen upon two rednecks with
a penis issue vehicle in the woods, thats such
a rare occurance?

You did a good deed, but your god, my god, who
evers god probably could give less than a damn
if those people spent the night in the woods.

Had you saved an old mans life, or a basket of kitties
or a bus full of youths for Jesus, then maybe you
could be an angel that saved the day.

But since you coaxed a couple good ol boys
to use their wench on your boss and a couple
more folks to get them out of a bog, you
are no more than a nice guy.

 

Indeed, such a story is wasted on some of you. You cannot see a higher nature in yourselves, therefore, there must not be a higher nature in others.

The intent of the story was to show that something more is actually at work in the reality some of you see so little in.

Soulrebel51, I'm really happy for you.

No, I haven't read the book.

Anyways, now that some of you negative people have put in your two cents worth, maybe you'll go elsewhere, and let the rest of us feel free just to have a discussion.

Any true angel stories out there?

 

Not very angel-like? What do know of angels? I'm here, ready to hear you. That is - if you consider anything in your life to be of a possible angelic nature.

I'm not an angel. But God may use any He chooses for His purposes.

Negative is as negative does. You may not know it, friend, but there are a lot of us who LMAO when you post - we just choose to give you the benefit of the doubt, as it were.

 

Dont give your god to much credit, he isnt as involved as you like to think.

As to seeing the higher nature of things, believe me, i am the wrong
on to make that accusation against.

Ask anyone that knows me on here, so you'd do good to know who
you accuse of what, because it might help you sound less like a fool.

 

Yes I do believe we all have our angelic potential as it were.

I don't believe it neccesarily comes from a belief in God, indeed an atheist who strives to make the world a better place has sprouted for more impressive wings than a believer who sits back and waits for God to sort things out.

Daniel Herring - Have you seen Amelie?

Heron and Fuzzy - Have you read Life of Pi?

 

Nope havent read that. Good?

 

It is actually.

If you JUST read the blurb (After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue pacific. The only survivors are Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan ... and a 450 pound Royal Bengal Tiger) I can see how you could very easily dismiss it as very boring.

I mean summed up it is just about a kid on a lifeboat with a tiger for 9 months.

I was thinking about the end of it though, that's what sprung to mind.

Shall I explain or leave you to read it yourself? I really don't mind actually.

Blessings

Sebbi

 

Give me a little more, i will look into reading it later, i am bogged down. Just started a great new book last night, on anthropological and liguistic research of Arthurian history.

So i may be a while lol

 

No really - any angel stories out there?

 

There's a bit at the end, where Pi has finished his trip and he's being questioned by some Japanese officials, so he tell them the story. They dismiss it as rubbish and ask for a more reasonable story, so he retells it with humans instead of animals.

"For the purposes of our investigation we would like to know what happened?"
"Yes."
"So you want another story?"
"Uhh... no. We would like to know what really happened."
"Doesn't the telling something always become a story?"
"Uhh... perhaps in English. In Japanese a story would have an elevelemt of invention in it. We don't want any invention. We want the 'straight fact', as you say in English."
"Isn't the telling of something - using words, English or Japanese - already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?"
"Uhh..."
"The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn't that make life a story?"
"Ha! Ha! Ha! You are very intelligent, Mr. Patel."
Mr. Chiba "What is he talking about?"
"I have no idea."
Pi Patel: "You want words that reflect reality?"
"Yes."
"Words that do not contradict reality?"
"Exactly."
"But tigers don't contradict reality."
"Oh please, no more tigers."
"I know what you want. You want a story that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or furthur or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeatless factuality."

---- The alternative story ----

"Is that better? Are there any parts of that you find hard to believe? Anything you'd like me to change?"

---- They discuss the sinking of the ship and the Japanese officers make to leave ----

"Well Mr. Patel, I think we have all we need. We thank you very much for your cooperation. You've been very, very helpful."
"You're welcome. But before you go, I'd like to ask you something."
"Yes?"
"The Tsimtsum sank on July 2nd, 1977."
"Yes."
"And I arrived on the coast of Mexico, the sole human survivor of the Tsimtsum, on Febuary 14th, 1978."
"That's right."
"I told you two stories that account for the 227 days in between."
"Yes you did."
"Neither explains the sinking of the Tsimtsum."
"That's right."
"Neither makes a factual difference to you."
"You can't prove which story is true or not. You must take my word for it."
"I guess so."
"In both stories the ship sinks, my entire family dies and I suffer."
"Yes, that's true."
"So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the story either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with the animals or the story without the animals."
"That's an interesting question..."
Mr Chiba: "The story with the animals"
Mr Okamoto: "Yes, the story with the animals is the better story."
"Thank you. And so it goes with God."

Blessings

Sebbi

 

yes... i have an Angel story.....

My Father died many years ago... at his funeral among the mourners there were many men that i had never seen before. I was curious as to how these men knew my Father and so joining their group i asked them just that.

During the war my Father was in their Squadron and they had story after story of how by instinct alone my Father had saved their lives on many occasions. Each and everyone of them had deep gratitude for the unassuming man that just seemed to show them the way out of trouble and certain death. and the wreath they bought with them read.... Some are Angels in heaven... here was an Angel on earth

 

Thats more of an Angel on earth story than saving a bunch of tree killers in a bogged down truck.

 

Great story, Pabsy. Thanks. Sounds like your dad was the real deal.

 

Thakyou DH... i'm not sure i believe in Angels.. or what the definition of one should be.. but in times of trouble we all look for deliverance. and if it comes its an amazing spiritual experience.

 

I believe in angels - obviously. And 'amazing' is a good word for a brush with the unknown. Of course, I've never seen an angel, but a man I once knew told me a story of a man who had seen one. He told me a story his father-in-law had told him.

The father-in-law was a traveling salesman who had routes all across the west and mid-west. He spent much of his time on the road. He had been a church goer but fell away from that due to his work. One day, he spied a clean cut young man hitchhiking along a barren stretch of road and decided to pick him up - which was, I was told, out of character for him. As they drove along at 60mph, with the windows up, the air on, and music playing, the young man suddenly asked the salesman, "Are you a religious man?" The salesman had been looking out his window, so he turned to answer, but found the passenger seat empty.

The man who told me the story said his father-in-law started attending church again after that incident. Amazing.

 

Yes!