Leader of the Pack At 13 years old, Douglas felt confident enough to run his trap line alone in the snow-covered Tennessee mountains. Although his father warned him about the dangers of going out into the mountains alone, Douglas grabbed his .22 caliber rifle and went on his way. It wasn’t long before he found […]
Four years ago, in the dreary lull that comes with the New Year, I was battling a familiar foe: depression. I’d gone into town to run a few errands, but the looming gray hills only added to my gloom. I bought beer and put gas in the car. Squeezing the metal handle of the nozzle, […]
Somehow I’d gotten through school without ever reading Wilson Rawl’s Where the Red Fern Grows, or even seeing the movie. It was up for discussion at our last mother/daughter book group, so I finally got the opportunity. My sensitive 13-year-old daughter resisted reading the book till the very last minute, dreading it would be too […]
I squinted. Was that a pothole? Turning the wheel, I guided the car around potential danger. It was early, still dark, and the back roads that wind over and around our creeks in Fredericksburg, Virginia, were tricky even in daylight. The children were at home, still asleep, but I was driving to meet my carpool, […]
Twelve fifty-eight P.M. That can’t be the time, can it? I thought, squinting at the clock by the bed. Two months ago I would have been up for eight hours by now. I’d be deep in some project for Angels on Earth, where I worked as an editorial assistant. Times had changed. Now I was […]
One of the most awesome miracles Jesus performs in the Gospels is the Calming of the Storm at sea. Awestruck, the disciples famously say: “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” (Matthew 8:27). The stories below demonstrate that God works incredible wonders by land and by sea, sending […]
For most of my life, I lived in a region that experienced all four seasons—winter, spring, summer and fall. For the last few years, however, I’ve lived in the desert where the seasons are warm, hot and hotter. Regardless of where you live, or even the date on the calendar, you may be entering a […]
Who comes to our rescue when we’re lost? Who nurses us back to sanity and peace of mind when we have been stressed and tempted and asked to do what we think we can’t do? How do we get back to where we want to be and belong, back to the godliness inside of us? […]
Something was wrong with my son David. He was a big kid, eight years old, 150 pounds, but he had lost his appetite. He’d stopped telling jokes, too, stopped being his usual happy-go-lucky self. His jaw hurt for no discernible reason. He began throwing up. We thought David was suffering side effects from his medication […]
In 1982, I was a severely depressed thirty-two-year-old in a loveless marriage who also suffered from chronic anemia and had just been told I would never bear children. I wanted to end the pain forever, so I attempted suicide. I didn’t believe in God, Jesus, or angels, much less an afterlife. But suddenly, in the […]
The dinner tray sat beside my hospital bed untouched, the food getting colder by the minute. I’d been in this room at Methodist Hospital in Minneapolis for 10 days now, recovering from a broken pelvis and fractured ribs after an auto accident. The pain that permeated my body was constant and intense. At times I […]
Our new house was perfect for everyone in my family—even our pet turtle, Squirt, who’d been living in a one-gallon tank. Once, our dog snatched him right out of it. Luckily the only damage was a small v-shaped chunk taken out of Squirt’s shell. Squirt would be much happier in the one-hundred-gallon pond outside our […]
During a hospital stay, I left my body for nine minutes and went to heaven. I was instantly aware of two beings in front of me who were to my left, and I knew right away they were angels. But they weren’t just any angels–they were my angels. I recognized them immediately. There was so […]
Today’s guest blogger is Tanya Richardson “I heard an angel expert on the radio the other night,” my husband, Mike, told me. “You gotta listen to the show!” At the moment I was standing over the kitchen sink, my hands covered in soapy water. We had a big Saturday ahead of us: laundry and then […]
I’ve had a parade of wonderful guests at the Honey House—my turn-of-the-century bed-and-breakfast—but my granddaughter would always be the most important. In fall 2004, seven-year-old Shelby came to live with us while her father’s unit was in Iraq. We became fast friends, lounging outside, hidden in our grove of palm trees, reading about Winnie the […]
I’ve always thought that people who play the lotto are wasting their money. I mean, there are so many worthy causes where that money could be better spent. The Garden of Angels charity that I started in 1996, for instance, which provide abandoned infants who don’t survive with a proper and respectful burial. For eight […]
The call from the hospital came in the morning. Our son, Chad, had been in a terrible accident, his car totaled while he drove in the fog. He had stitches in his left temple and a fractured ankle, plus a bruise on his chest from the seat belt that saved his life. My husband, Randy, […]
“Be prepared for the worst,” the fire chief warned us that January night last year. “There’s been a lot of damage.” A little after midnight my neighbors and I had been forced out into the cold by a blaze in our apartment building. Now, hours later, the fire extinguished, it was finally safe for us […]
For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. —Psalm 91:11 While shopping at the estate sale of a woman who was moving to a retirement community, I happened upon the prettiest gold pin nestled inside yellowed tissue paper in an old, red and gold gift box. The […]
I don’t write about angels too often (I leave that to my Angels on Earth colleagues!). But recently something angelic happened that I just have to share. Two weeks ago, my sisters and I went to my parents’ house for Father’s Day weekend. I was feeling under the weather. I had just started a new […]
“Sing, Dari! Loud as you can!” Normally my four-year-old daughter loved to sing. Now she just stared, uncomprehending, at the nurse. I squeezed her hand for comfort. The nurse wanted her to sing so she would take deep breaths of anesthesia. I understood that, but how could I explain it to Dari? The doctor had […]
”Dad, we want you to come home.” Even through the poor Skype connection I could see the tightness of Karin’s face, hear the stress in her voice. “I can’t do it, sweetheart. Everything’s closed. Flights are canceled. The whole country is shut down. Don’t worry. I’m fine.” “But we’re anxious and wish you were back […]
From the very start, God began using angels in a special way; he began sending them on “missions” related to the newborn universe and its strange two-legged inhabitants—human beings. What was the nature of these missions? Well, according to the Bible, there were many different kinds. First and foremost, angels served as God’s messengers to […]
From her perch atop El Panecillo hill, the 148-foot winged Virgin kept watch over the city of Quito. I lingered in her shadow long after my classmates had snapped their photos and left. When the coast was clear, I stuck a crumpled note into a crack at the base of the statue. I’d scribbled five […]
Modesty and spiritual power: Every Bible reader knows that these two qualities go hand in hand. Though it isn’t always easy to conceal their splendor and force from mortal eyes, the angels of the Bible often like to work incognito. Think of the three shining strangers who visited Abraham at Mamre, for example, or the […]
Spring cleaning doesn’t have to happen in the spring. That’s what I told myself as I looked around my workroom one chilly afternoon. It was looking pretty cluttered. My desk was covered with papers and bits of my many craft projects: yarn, crochet needles, straw, fabric, thread. It needed tidying up, but I could think […]
The house Marv and I had called our home was deathly silent as I moved aimlessly from room to room. Our three grown children had gone back to their lives. The same with my friends. Five days after the funeral there was only me, alone with my thoughts. No one to tell how much I […]
My family moves a lot. We’ve lived in 10 different houses in the last 19 years. My husband Mike’s career had taken us from Puerto Rico to Pennsylvania, and to our newest home near San Antonio, Texas, to name only a few of our stops. I have relocating down to a science, with garage sales […]
We’ve been working on a great rescue story set on the beaches of Pichilemu, Chile. Without giving too much away, I’ll just say that a young surfer in trouble finds angels of the sea. It’s not the first time we’ve come across such an underwater miracle at Angels on Earth, and it makes me think […]
Every kid dreams about growing up to be a superhero, but not many expect that dream to come true. My twin brother, Travis, couldn’t believe it when I told him mine had. “What do you mean you’re going to be Captain America for real?” he asked. Superheroes had been important to me since I was […]
All six of my children had been born naturally, in the comfort of our home. I knew the natural ways to induce labor—walking, evening primrose oil, a bowl of pineapple chunks, a warm bath. I was a pro at breathing rhythms and the most comfortable delivery position. By child number seven, I knew what I […]
My husband, Don, and I pulled into the high school parking lot that cold December afternoon. It had been 20 months since the shootings. Twenty months, and still I could hardly bear to look at that building. Sometimes it seemed like only 20 minutes since the April day in 1999 when we waited with the […]
