Guardian Angels Rock

Guardian Angels Rock. I hope everyone in the world has guardian angels as good and as skilled as mine.

We’ve had two to three weeks of nearly constant gale-force winds and sometimes blinding rain here in our part of Scotland. The wind has been strong enough to move things. A few nights ago when I walked Savannah during a lull in the storm I tripped over a large roll of chain link fence that had blown into the sidewalk. With streetlights out, it was invisible. I’ve had a back surgery, a knee replacement, and a hip replacement. Falling is not medically recommended. My guardian angel caught me and kept me upright. I was so close to going down that I still don’t know how he did it.

Today, I went to turn out of the parking lot into the main street and a car that did not have its turn signal on abruptly cut directly in front of me. I missed it by mere inches. Then I drove up the steep hill toward our road and a dog ran out into my lane of traffic. (A lot of fences are down.) I had to come to a complete stop to keep from hitting it. Whew! Good job, Guardian Angel. Thank you.

When son Luke was nine, we went exploring in the Nevada desert in our little Ford Courier pickup truck. “Mom, stop,” Luke warned as I took a winding dirt road along a deep gully. “You’re going to get stuck.”

Being the parent—I was right. Right? Being the parent—I was in control. Right? Wrong. The back wheels skid off the road going around a steep bend and slipped down the hill half-way to the bottom. Oops! No one even knew where we were—and cell phones hadn’t been invented back then. Luke and I prayed. Then we began walking through the trackless desert back the way we had come. An old man on a walking stick met us and asked what happened. I explained. “Stay with your truck,” he instructed. “I’ll be right back to pull you out.”

When God answers a prayer—He answers in a big way. The man came back in a dump truck and pulled us out. A couple of days later, Luke and I baked cookies and bought a thank you card to take to him. We couldn’t find him. No house, no driveway, no dump truck…nothing but miles of empty desert. God had sent us an angel—who drove a dump truck.

Years later here in Scotland, I was in Inverness waiting for a bus to go to the retail shopping center to get the only kind of food and dog treats that our collie Angel Joy could eat because she had been ill. It was a freezing day of sleet and snow. I had moved from Texas to Scotland—and had not adjusted to the 40-degree drop in temperature. (Truth be told—I still haven’t.) There were so many people waiting for buses at the bus stop that I couldn’t even shelter under the roof with everyone else. I was so cold and miserable that I honestly felt like forgetting everything and just going home. Before I could act on that impulse, a bus chugged up and stopped—not in front of the bus stop—but in front of me. It looked like a bus from a third-world country. It was not painted the color of the Inverness City buses and it was old and battered. It looked like the bus out of the 1964 “Moon Spinners” movie starring Hayley Mills and set in Crete. I was amazed that none of the other people headed for the bus. There was no sign on the front of the bus indicating where it was going. The door opened. “Do you go to the retail park?” I asked. The driver smiled at me. “Anywhere you want to go, little lady.”

I was the only person on the bus. Briefly, I wondered if I were being kidnapped—but who would kidnap me? I wasn’t worth any money. For just a few coins, the bus rattled off down the street and deposited me at the retail center a few minutes later. I never saw that bus in Inverness again. Some angels drive buses.

Not everyone believes in angels. Sad. Their guardian angels must not be as good as mine.

“For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.”Psalm 91:11.

“So not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.” Hebrews 13:2.

You never know where you’ll meet angels. Some drive heavy equipment.

Amazon.com: Stephanie Parker McKean: books, biography, latest update

Not Worried

GregEb (2)

I lived through Spanish Influenza when I was four. My sister Leslie and I were so sick with exodus from both ends that we lived in the bathroom.

My horse kicked me in the face. I spent my birthday and Christmas in the hospital. I’ve been thrown from horses. Once our pony bolted, tossed me over his head, and landed on me. Leslie was happy. I protected Smokey from broken legs.

I’ve survived a poisonous snake bite and an attack by an African lion. I ran across a fallen log over a creek not realizing a black bear was under it. I nearly fell into a rattlesnake den when I was hiking. I escaped from growling Texas feral hogs that threatened to attack.

I survived child abuse, rape, and two forced backwoods abortions before I was fifteen—both of which put me in the hospital after I nearly bled to death.

I spent seven years as a single parent working up to three jobs at a time. I traveled from coast to coast in a pickup truck with all my belongings in the bed. My son Luke and I climbed up on top of the mattress on top of the load to sleep at night when we stopped at rest areas. I couldn’t afford a motel.

More recently I underwent major spinal surgery.

I am not afraid of Coronavirus.

While 125,000 babies are being murdered in abortions daily around the world—I refuse to worry about Coronavirus.

There are 365 “Fear Nots” in the Bible, one for every day of the year.

“Because you have made the LORD your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; for He shall give His angels charge over you.” Psalm 91.

Coronavirus does not scare me.

https://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

Mysteries

I love mysteries. That’s why I write them.

One of my recent blogs showcased a mystery about the “angel bus.” I was in downtown Inverness waiting for a city bus that never came. The overhead sign kept promising the bus would arrive—but it never did. It was freezing with sleety rain and my fingers were numb and throbbing even inside gloves. Finally an old white bus with no city markings and no lettering at all limped to a stop in front of me and the door opened. When I asked the driver if the bus went to the retail park, he said, “If that’s where you want to go.” I got on the bus. It was empty. Momentarily, I thought I had been kidnapped, but quickly dismissed that idea. I’m too poor to garner a ransom. The old bus deposited me at my location. I’ve been back to Inverness several times since then. I have never seen that bus again. To me, it will always be an angel bus.

Now the mystery of the angel glove—or more aptly—the glove that an angel returned. This close to Christmas, with extra services and visiting, the last thing a pastor has time (or money) to do is rush into the city to buy a pair of new gloves, yet one of Alan’s gloves was missing. We hunted for it in the house. We crawled around on our hands and knees searching the car. We walked the cement slab path between the car and the house several times. We looked under the rosebushes. No glove.

Yesterday, after several days of vainly pursuing said lost glove and trying to figure out a good time to go into town to buy a new pair before the forecast winter weather mix hit—we found the missing glove. In plain sight. I was returning from handing out Christmas cards and cookies when I spotted the lost glove right beside the cement slab path where we had searched so diligently. We use that path several times a day.

Doubters will claim that neither Alan or I are getting any younger and that at our age, the eyes can fail. Doubters will claim that it’s a busy time of year and we were just too rushed to look as conscientiously for the lost glove as we thought we had. If doubters are happy walking around under their weight of normalcy, that’s fine. But I love mysteries! I love solving mysteries. My solution to this mystery is that the glove was indeed lost. Alan had accidentally dropped it somewhere between our house and Inverness. God realized our low ebb of money and energy—and He sent an angel to bring it back to us.

God loves His human creations so much that He intervenes in their daily lives to bring them joy. He sent Jesus to us as a gift for eternity and the angels sang over His birth with joy. Our Christmas glove brings us joy. I have my angel bus—Alan has his angel glove.

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Angel Bus

It wasn’t until I wrote about the experience later in the day that I was struck by the thought…had it been an Angel Bus?

Our rough collie has digestive problems and can only eat prescription dog food. As long as she eats that dog food – and that dog food only – she does well. Because of Angel Joy’s chronic illness, she can tolerate only one type of treat, which most stores don’t stock.

angel joy seaweed

I took a bus to Inverness, Scotland, and waited at the bus station at the designated stand for the connection needed. It never came. It was cold, rainy, and windy (imagine that in Scotland!), and my fingers and toes were growing numb. I finally asked the driver of another bus if his bus went to the retail center. He told me I would have to walk to the stand in the town center. So I went…and that bus never came. It was announced on the flashing sign and I waited through 30 minutes of changing promises that it was arriving in three minutes, two minutes, etc., but it never arrived.

Without leaving the stand where the sign promised a bus would arrive imminently, and walking some distance in the rain (it hadn’t been raining when I left home, so I was unprepared) to my bank, I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. But I was so cold and miserable that I decided I would either take a taxi – or just go back home without the treats.

Then an old white bus limped to a stop in front of me. It was not painted or marked like a city bus. It resembled a bus from a third world country, like the one in Walt Disney’s 1964 “The Moon-Spinners,” with Hayley Mills. The door opened. I peeked inside the empty bus and asked, “Does this go to the retail center?”

The driver smiled (a rarity for Scottish bus drivers) and said, “If that’s where you want to go.” So dismissing the idea that I might be kidnapped as writer’s imagination (I don’t make enough with my writing to be worth kidnapping), I climbed aboard the empty bus and arrived at the retail park. When I was ready to leave, there were a plethora of city-marked buses coming to collect passengers and take them back to the main bus station.

Had it been an Angel Bus? Hebrews 13:2 advises, “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.” And Psalm 91:11 says that God will give His angels charge over us to keep us in all our ways.

Not all angels take a human form. I remember the lovely golden retriever that followed Luke home one day and stayed on our porch all night. The dog tackled a drunk intruder and chased him away…then vanished. We could never find the dog or the dog’s owner to thank them.

I think of two of my high school English teachers as angels. Both encouraged me in my writing, no matter how many misspelled words I had or how messy my handwriting was. Miss Greene’s statement, “Stephanie, I believe I will be reading your books someday and teaching them in my literature classes,” kept me going for years no matter how many rejection slips I got on manuscripts. I wanted to prove Miss Greene’s confidence in me had not been misplaced.

Was it an Angel Bus? I’ll never know for sure, but I do know it’s important to be angels to other people. Who can we encourage today? Being an angel is as important as entertaining one.

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0