Encounter with angels?

[JM]

Do you believe in angels? A group of female missionaries in a restricted country certainly do. Their story was forwarded to ANS, but their location has been withheld to protect their identities.

The overnight hotel stay provided some rest after the 32-hour train ride and an opportunity to prepare for the 38-hour ride still awaiting them.

The team was excited to be ministering in this giant restricted country. They pulled their heavy roller bags down the long ramp, taking them under the railroad tracks. They joined the mass of people waiting at the gate to rush up the two flights of stairs onto the platform, each anxious to be the first on the train to secure their always oversized luggage.

The gate opened, and the mad rush began. One of the women struggled to remain upright as pressure came from every side. She lifted her bag up one step. Then struggled up another. She knew she was not going to survive this ordeal.

Breathing a silent prayer, she realized her bag suddenly became light. She turned to see that a middle-aged gentleman, dressed in a trim, dark colored business suit had grabbed hold of the bottom handle of her bag. With a smile and a mouthed "thank you," they easily climbed the steps.

At the top of the stairs, she felt the bag let down on its rollers. She turned to offer another "thank you." He smiled and was lost in the crowd. Melody thought it a bit strange that this man had no luggage. You just don't venture onto a 38-hour train journey without at least a small bag. But thoughts of finding her car quickly filled her mind.

The group boarded the train. Their bags were stowed. As they sat on the lower bunk of their compartment, one of the women remembered her encounter with the strange gentleman. And she shared her story.

The other four women brightened and jumped up and down in their excitement. They could not contain themselves. With one voice they exclaimed that the exact same experience was theirs to tell.

Separated from each other in the mass of people climbing those stairs, they each began their struggle up one step, then another. Each load lightened as a middle-aged gentleman, dressed in a trim, dark colored business suit reached for the bottom handle of their roller bag. And after a smile and "thank you" by each lady, the gentleman disappeared into the crowd.

It is one thing to read in the Bible that there are angels. It is another thing to believe that there are angels available to minister today. It is an encounter of yet another dimension to realize that five angels were dispensed to assist these ladies with their luggage.

[Upfront Atheist]

Originally Posted by JM

...
It is one thing to read in the Bible that there are angels. It is another thing to believe that there are angels available to minister today. It is an encounter of yet another dimension to realize that five angels were dispensed to assist these ladies with their luggage.

Especially when another feasible explanation would be that he was just a nice, helpful man. I know that sometimes it appears that nice people who help other people for no other reason than because they need help seem to be rarer than angels, but they are out there and there are more than you may think (helpful people, that is; angels are open to debate...).

[Someday]

I have a personal reason to believe there are angels, but I don't really want to go into specifics. I will say only that this developed while I was still a strong agnostic, and I doubted then that it had anything to do with the Christian God. But it was one of more than a few things in my life that did not allow me to become an atheist.

Take my comment for what it is. I don't expect anyone to believe me. I expect the opposite, especially with my reluctance to speak about it.

Blessings

I believe that there are both spiritual beings who do God's bidding and those who work for the other side.

Now I'll tell you a story that happened to my husband regarding those God uses to protect and look out for us sometimes. This happened only a few years back on one of my husband's cross country motorcycle/camping trips. He woke up one morning in his tent and remembered a dream he'd had (and he seldom remembers dreams). This dream was of angels but the peculiar thing about these angels was that they using old fashioned flashlights in the dark--the old kind that had a huge battery with a handle on top.

So he gets on up and ponders why angels would be using old flashlights as he continues his travel all that day riding until it was close to dark. When he stops to gas up, he forgets to completely fasten one of the saddlebags on the side of his motorcycle. As he drives on down the road, he feels something is wrong and pulls over. He discovers the lid had opened up and everything he had packed in the saddlebag is now scattered across two lanes of the road and along the grassy side.

In dismay he begins trying to safely pick things up wandering back and forth. To some passerby he appeared to be disoriented and they turn their truck around to come back and see about him. This person happened to be an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) getting off work who also calls some of his fellow EMT's who converge on the location. My husband explains to the first guy that all his stuff has fallen out of his bag and he's trying to recover it.

So the EMT guy and all his friends goes to the main truck and pulls out their flashlights to help my husband find his stuff. Yup, you know what they were using--every one of them had the old style flashlights in their hands as they searched. And they found every last thing he had spilled down to a single postage stamp!

In this case, these "angels" were humans and God gave my husband a special "head's up" in a dream so that he would know for a fact that God had done it especially for him that day.

[Upfront Atheist]

Originally Posted by Someday

I have a personal reason to believe there are angels, but I don't really want to go into specifics. I will say only that this developed while I was still a strong agnostic, and I doubted then that it had anything to do with the Christian God. But it was one of more than a few things in my life that did not allow me to become an atheist.

Take my comment for what it is. I don't expect anyone to believe me...

I'm not quite sure if you meant believe or if you meant agree; I certainly believe you, as my ex-girlfriend held a fairly similar view (based on what you have told us) in that, although not a Christian, she believed in angels and their influence on people's lives. I don't know if this ever developed into her being a Christian as, unfortunately, we lost touch some years ago.

[Someday]

Upfront,

I meant essentially that I don't expect anyone to believe I had a specific reason to believe in angels.

Someday