Our Angels Deserve So Much Credit

I am so grateful that God constantly doles out His mercies for giving me daily content for my blog. On Thursday, he doled out His mercies to me as I was making my way to Austin to spend a few days with my children. I try to leave by 6 am to beat the Dallas traffic but the rain, all the way to Austin, slowed me down. Thank God it did. As I arrived in Waco, the flow of traffic going southbound was at a stand-still. Eventually, I turned my engine off and waited. I googled the issue and found “Southbound lanes closed on I-35 due to muti-vehicle accident. Traffic could be stalled up to an hour until vehicles are removed." I prayed “Lord please help those involved.” And, as I prayed that simple prayer, I realized, that the rain had helped me to NOT be in that pile up. Thank God for His tender mercies AND, thank God for my angels and the many times that I know, without a doubt, that angels were on duty for me. So why haven’t I given them more attention AND shown more appreciation to them for taking such good care of me?

As I start to write this blog, I remember the old song: “All night, all day, Angels watching over me, my Lord. All night, all day, Angels watching over me.” Wow! Appearances of angels in the Bible and even, today, we hear stories about the occurrence of angels in people’s lives. Why don’t we give them more attention, and for that matter, more gratitude for their presence in our lives? I have been reprimanded big-time as I write this blog. I am so sorry, my dear Guardian Angel. Now, I’m brought back to remembrance of those times when I know, without a shadow of doubt, my Guardian Angel was on duty for me.

It must have been my angel who came between the other car and mine when I was almost run into. I know it was my guardian angel keeping watch over me when I nearly drown at a young age. Or when an angel kept me from falling many times. And, the times that I did fall, my angel must have cushioned the fall because I have never had any broken body parts. I humbly ask for forgiveness for failing to express gratitude to my angels. Or when an angel, just recently, stood in the way of a semi-truck that almost, within inches, hit my children’s vehicle and RV.

I’ll never forget this story from my now 19-year-old grandson’s baby-sitter who fessed up about an angel showing up when she baby-sat Payton. She held the story in for so long. She shared: "When I was 11 years old, I was taking care of Payton who was only about one year old. I was feeding him goldfish crackers, when all of a sudden, he started choking. I patted him on his back, raised his hands in the air, but nothing seemed to help. He started turning blue. I was crying and so afraid, when all of a sudden someone burst into the room and stuck their finger into his throat and pulled out the cracker. Payton quickly recovered and was just fine.” She cried and cried as she told her Mom the story later that night. Her mom was with us the night she shared that story with us. She went on to share how sorry she had held that story in so long, but as she saw Payton serving God and being such an amazing servant that she knew God's hands were on him and just had to share the story.

I’m sharing this blog today, to voice my gratitude to my Guardian Angel and all other angels who have been assigned and on-duty for me far more than I can imagine, I’m sure. Their hands have been full as I’m not much of a sit-down-and-do-nothing kind-of-gal. Perhaps, I’m also writing this blog as a love-letter from God to remind YOU to give credit to where credit is due in your life, also. Maybe God is raising our spiritual antennas to recognize where thanksgiving and praise is due.

“For He will give His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways.” (Psalm 91:11).
”For it is written, ‘He will command His angels concerning you to guard you carefully.’” (Luke 4:10)
”The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them.” (Psalm 34:7)

What I Learned From an Escape Room

Last week a group of us from my community headed out for a fun-filled day that started with going to the “Countdown 2 Escape” here in Frisco. It is an Escape Room adventure where you go into one room and through a series of opening up boxes, drawers, and closets to find riddles, puzzles and clues to get through another door where even more challenges await us. It was my second time for this kind of adventure. My family took me on one for my birthday last year in Austin. It takes a ton of mental ability (Lord, have mercy!), lots of patience, thinking outside the box, teamwork and communication. There were about 25 of us who went and were divided into three different experiences. You have an hour to escape.

That experience made me think about this life we live and figuring out God’s ways and desires for us in this room called earth to eventually escape to our home sweet home in heaven. It takes a lot of patience, sticking to the rules, communication, teamwork and if we do our part, we’ll eat the good of the land here even before we go there. Isaiah 1:19 says “If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land.” I see my co-adventurers out there in social media land. I love watching your life adventures and most of all seeing you communicate your faith and even your times of difficulty and then see you weather the season and come “out of the room” with victories.

In that Escape Room, you can’t escape with duct tape over your mouth. You have to communicate to your group when you’ve found something. If you run into a stalemate, there is a Game Master watching you from another room, and if you ask, he or she will help you via a monitor. Doesn’t that sound like us? Especially when we’ve done all we can do on our own and we turn to God for help. He gives us an idea or a creative plan to get us out. We get to share our “how-to’s” with each other.

In our Escape Room, teamwork was huge in our success. All of us shared the same goal – to escape within the allotted sixty minutes. Thank God for all the various ways that teamwork plays such a significant role in our “life’s great escape” – our church, Bible Study, loving and faithful friends, family members, support groups and so many others who assist us in being devoted followers of Christ and help us escape on time. We need each other.

Every single thing in the Escape Room had a use – be it to distract us from the real thing or the key we found in a drawer that opens another thing. Every one of our life experiences has a meaningful use to it. I know that now as I look back on my life and realize that everything was making me stronger and wiser and more on purpose.

Consistency was key in our Escape Room. Some folks found a chair and gave up, but others of us refused to give up. We were persistent and determined. Our Game Master was always there to help get us out of tough spots. So does our Heavenly Game Master Who promises to never leave us or forsake us. He ensures that we complete our mission.

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” Philippians 1:6