I may have been around six years old when I first gave my heart to Jesus; I had been a sickly kid and knew what it meant when my mom taught me to pray "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." I had been in and out of the hospital a few times with pneumonia, asthma, double-pneumonia, and a whooping cough that mom says just wouldn't lend anyone to believe I was human! Being born about a month premature, weighing in just under six pounds and having to fight for every breath may have contributed to my characteristic meanness because I just won't give up or give in. I don't know how! I'd rather fight my way through a mess than let it take me over, and I sure won't let you or anyone else know I'm dying if I am, I put that sort of nonsense to rest and speak only to God about it. He's in charge, isn't he?
Around the same time I gave my heart and soul to Christ I began asking questions of the preacher, my Sunday School teacher, my mom, granny, and anyone else who I thought may know the answer to the hard questions a little squirt can have. "Where is Heaven, anyway?", "Was I alive in Heaven before being born here?" I tend to dream that I was alive and well up in a place much like people describe as Heaven, and I was with a little boy, we were playing and dancing, and I slid in and out of the colors of the Rainbow with him. I'd pop up and have a different color all over me, and we loved that game. He had to be blue, I must be gold. That was the thing, that was the rule - - but he's not Sam. He's probably my best friend and I'll see him again as we both Wait to Fly.
After I became a Christian and got a few answers to my questions, I asked another question about my own personal Guardian Angel because I could feel him over my left shoulder and around my back. He was always there even though I could never actually see him. The thing is, he was the same angel that I knew and felt in Heaven, and even though I didn't see him there either, he was always there helping me and he could be described openly as being the wind, the thing that lifted me, the power behind my belly laugh, he was always there with me. I don't think he even left for a minute between the time I realized I wasn't saved and the time I accepted Christ because the two moments happened almost simultaneously - - what a blessing! I didn't ever, not even for a day, go without knowing Jesus!
"What's his name?" I asked my Sunday School teacher. "Who?" , she asked. "The angel on my back, the one I talk to. What's his name?" She wasn't the sort of teacher to shush me, and to tell me to go out and play with the other kids, not to bring up matters that couldn't or shouldn't be discussed. She leaned into me and said softly, "Well, he's your angel, I suppose you can call him whatever you want to call him. He probably has a name already, but you can name him whatever you want." That answer must have satisfied me. I immediately began calling my angel - - some would say my imaginary friend - - "Sam". He was Sam now. He was there, he had always been there, he was quiet, but his silence could be quite loud at times when he needed me to pay my utmost attention. He wasn't a frilly silly tiny-wing-flapping angel that had a little halo light and a plastic harp...he was big. I didn't know how big, and I wouldn't know how big until 1981; some 15 years after he and I were on first name terms.
July 27, 1981 rolled around and as usual in Oklahoma, it was hot. I was driving my little V.W. Bug to church so I could board the bus and head off to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a retreat with about 50 others from both the singles groups and the young married groups of our church. I was single. As I sat parked in my car at the light on the main drag of Bethany, Oklahoma waiting on the light I felt a pretty good bump -- it was like something hit my car from behind and maybe it even pushed me forward a bit. I remember looking down at my hands because they weren't on the steering wheel and before I knew it a man in a ball cap and overalls was opening my door and yanking me out of the car! "Where is the man?" he asked frantically, as he stood holding me (actually hugging me) and pointing to the backseat of my car.
MY CAR!!! Oh my gosh!! My back bumper was crinkled and was poking into the back of the drivers seat! The left back fender was gone, the wheel blown out, and the entire left side (driver's side) crunched and crushed in what can only be described as a heap of junk metal. "There wasn't anyone else in my car, I was alone." I answered the man - - turns out he was the driver of the Mack dump truck that had literally ran over my car because he wasn't paying attention and when the light turned green up in front of him he just moved forward, not realizing there was a car in front of him. Insisting that there was a man in the backseat, and hugging me tighter than medical professionals would advise these days for someone who had just been pulled from the ruins of a wrecked vehicle, the man was adamant that there was a "White man....a...white....wait, he was white. He was like chalk white, alabaster white. He was...he was huge." As the man slowed down his description I knew what (who) he had seen. "Oh, that must have been Sam. He's usually on my left side and around my back." I said this to the poor man as if anyone and everyone hung out with their Guardian Angel on a daily basis...."He's fine, he's behind me. He's OK. You didn't hurt him."
This was of course, before cell phones, so the two of us walked to the drug store just to the left of where we left the vehicles. We called the Bethany police, and we called my dad, who came up from home just a few miles away, and he went on to take me to the church. The busses were kind enough to wait on me! I was really excited about that. I don't think I gave my car much thought to be honest. I knew my dad had it under control. I just went to Santa Fe and hung out with great people. Glen Campbell the singer gave his testimony that weekend, and I came face to face with a mountain lion for the first time in my life that wasn't at the zoo! Again, I didn't really get scared, I just walked away quietly and told my friend not to go up that way -- mountain lion. To say that now makes my eyes pop out just a little. I just wasn't the type to freak out I guess.
Sam made another appearance a few years later, and I could go into all the times we've met face to face, or I've spoken to him through a dream state only to realize I wasn't really sleeping. Angels are not to be worshipped, they are to be spoken with, appreciated, and even questioned, but never worshipped. I was having that discussion with Sam in my dream state one evening and as I leaned over and said something like ...."you know Sam..." he stopped me; he put up his hand (which if I'm honest is about the size of a pizza pan) and he said sweetly, "Judy, my name is Theonopholous, just so you know." LOL...OK! Well, I did think that Theonopholous was a pretty cool name, not gonna lie, but he had been Sam just a bit too long for me to start calling him Theo at this point! Sam it is! Every now and again I'll lean back a bit and whisper a thank you to the being that he is - - and I've even used his real name once or twice, but just like no one really calls me Judy, the name I was born with, I don't use his real name either. He's always and forever Sam.
Sometimes I wonder if when we get to Heaven if he'll still hang out with me. We won't need guardians at that point. He must know his days and nights of employment are coming to an end - - but there's just that glimmer of hope that I have that he'll choose to hang with me in eternity and we'll dance and play on that Rainbow again with my buddy and maybe with his guardian angel. I wonder if Sam knows that particular angel. I'd ask my Sunday School teacher, but she's gone now - - then again, if you think about it, she's up where the REAL answers are! I may have to ask her tonight.
Be blessed. Remember what the Bible says about angels -- often times we as humans entertain them and we aren't even aware of it. Well, often times...we are aware of it.
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