ANGELS

I’m a sunrise/sunset addict. I sense the reality of our Sovereign God most palpably then. This seraphic sunset picture was taken the last year of our fulltime RV life from atop a cliff above the Oregon shore–Cape Perpetua. It only partially captures the reality of being there, but still speaks volumes to me of God’s omnipotent grace in my life.  As we stood there marveling at that angelic reflection I recalled traumatic times past when the Almighty’s angels saved me from my enemies, and even more times from myself. They were about to do it again and this extraordinary sunset was, in hindsight, a sign that they were still on duty in my life.

A few days later, as we were cruising down the coast on one of California’s potholed freeways, I heard a loud metallic thump. Nothing else felt amiss but I pulled into the next available rest area. I could find nothing wrong in my inspection of the rig, but continued to worry as the potholes seemed to be getting more numerous. So we spent a few days visiting family in San Francisco, discontinued the rest of our coastal cruise in California and headed due east to get out of the state and it’s crumbling highways.

When we got to Missouri a few weeks later, I took the rig in for a routine maintenance check and the mechanic found the source of that noise back in California. He escorted me to his shop, invited me to get down onto his creeper and told me where to go under the rig to see the problem. One of four leafspring snap shackles was broken. He insisted that I not take that rig back on the road until it was fixed. We had come halfway across the continent with that six-ton fifth–wheel attached to its running gear at only three points. The angel that had manifested himself in that Oregon sunset had kept me from pitching the whole rig off the mountain on one of those steep switchbacks in Colorado, or flinging it off the running gear on any of the myriad curves on America’s highways.  My hiding place under the rig became my prayer closet as I envisioned the disaster that might have been and thanked a merciful God. I walked away from that rig, called a Sabre, fighting the same week-kneed gait I had when I walked away from my Super Sabre after a hairy sortie.

One of my prayers during our vagabond years was that God would indicate when it was time to quit hauling that big rig down the road, and He surely talked loudly to me in Missouri. My meticulous pre-flight RV inspection every time prior to taking the road had failed.

That winter, as we remained stationary in our favorite RV Park in SW Florida and pondered our future, God spoke again and removed all doubt. The doc heard the sound of a broken washing machine in his stethoscope, and a few weeks later he overhauled my heart with recycled cow parts. When I was fit to drive again we came north to Mason, Ohio, to be near family for the duration of our days. The Isaiah 6:3 Tour, the most blessedly joyful 6.5 years of our lives, was over. I sold the RV and traded my beloved diesel truck in for an economic sissy car. In the last seven years of immobile sticks-and-bricks living, we have been as content as two old wandering sinners-saved-by-grace could be. Don’t tell me “angels ain’t real.”  As the Lord of Hosts lives, they’re His frontline troops.

See you in church.