Heroes: A Collection of Angels

I never really thought about angels when I was growing up. I really did not know how they related to mankind except at Christmas, with the birth of Jesus Christ. I would say even Christ was a mystery to me as well. I attended summer Bible school, and it was there that I was first showed any real kindness or interest in me through the volunteers that taught the Bible lessons. We also got to do craft projects with biblical overtones.

I remember doing a tray that was to be given as a gift to our parents at the end of Bible school. I was given a picture of Jesus sitting, surrounded by children, and he was smiling at them. I remember asking the lady that was showing us how to decoupage, why is he smiling at them? She said that Jesus loves all the little children of the world.  Where is he now, I asked? She looked surprised and then said he is in heaven with his father, God.

She was also astounded by my sudden tears at his not being alive.  I then asked, “if she knew any other man that loved children?” Maybe this question let her know that I really had no idea of what love was it was. After this question, she came over to me, hugged me, and said, “There are a lot of people that love children.” She also said that Jesus can come inside of us if we pray for him to be with us. What she did not know was I really did not know what prayer was either.

I remember how I kept hoping that Jesus would come and be with me inside. He was already there. I just never really knew how to recognize him. I believe we all have guardian angels that are designated to watch over us. What I mean is, that God’s will does determine if we end our life on Earth and how effective the protections of the guardian angels will be.

I longed for this man who could love me without getting angry or hitting me for my failure to pass up temptations to do wrong. I did not even have to do wrong to be hit. I was told by family members that we were loved. The look on my parent’s faces never ever matched that of face of Jesus. Were there other kinds of love I did not know about? How could I get that kind of love and from whom? These were thoughts and longings that would haunt me for many years.

I grew older and angrier like the parents that raised me. I became hardened to life around me and accepted my excuses for my actions and the pain this caused my children. It was after my third daughter was diagnosed with Leukemia at the age of 2 ½ years old that I first was introduced to angels. Not the human representatives that many people will call a person whose good deed is done. Not the manmade kind either.  I learned to believe in what I could not see myself, but through my daughter’s eyes, I was guided. It was she who saw them flying above her hospital bed.

She was dying of pneumonia, the dangerous one of the two types; it was the one which kills many leukemia patients, especially children.  She started seeing bright lights flying over her bed, and she would say things like, “The nice people said they would keep me company.” She asked me who were they? I was not really sure how to answer the question. I not being spiritually knowing at that time just thought the fever was making her hallucinate.

They knew time was short for her so they did a biopsy to determine which kind of pneumonia she had. My daughter said there were more people who were coming to keep her company. I asked, “Are you afraid of them?”

 She answered, “No, they will keep the light shining so that it does not get dark.” What are you talking about dark? She told me that before they came, she was having trouble seeing that the room was getting darker.

It was at this statement that I realized she was seeing something that I did not understand, but it was something good. I did not put the name angel to them at that time. I was too busy caught up in all the questions racing through my head; will she live through the surgery? What will they find? Is she going to live? And more questions than there is room to put here. She came out of the surgery, but had taken a turn for the worse. She was put into intensive care after the surgery.

It was not long before they came to and said she had less than an hour to live and if I needed to call anyone or see a religious person that I should do it now. I found the chapel and went there to hope that God did exist. I fell to the floor and talked from my repentant heart to God. I told him that I would not blame or hate him if she died. I knew I was wrong in the way I lived. I laid there for more than an hour spilling my guts out to the one I hoped more than ever existed. A nurse came in and asked me to come with her to talk to the doctor.

While I had been in the chapel, God was performing a miracle for me. A whole new team of doctors was now in charge of my daughter’s illness. I did not know it that every two weeks doctors are replaced by new teams learning and volunteering to work in the intensive care unit. My daughter started to show signs of improvement. She was out of the death notice and stable in a few hours.

When she left the hospital two weeks later, she said that she would miss her friends from the hospital. She corrected me that it was not the children acquaintances, but the ones that flew over her bed and kept her company. My fascination with angels came after my full repentance eleven years later. It took me eleven years to find God and know how to recognize him in my life.

 I found that I was drawn to a look of peace and grace in the faces of manmade angels. At first, I was worried about liking idols or craven images. I then realized that people can be inspired by a love for God and create beauty and grace for man to behold something that inspires him to want that connection with our creator. I have over the last sixteen years managed to collect thirty angels of all kinds.

I collect angels because they remind of what love God gave my daughter when she needed it most. My daughter is thirty years old now, and she does remember the flying people she saw. I only hope I will be privileged to see them before I die.

ponderland@charter.net  Grace Seeker

Barbara L. Gonzalez