I've seen an angel part 1

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Faithdancer

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I’ve seen an angel. It was after a catastrophic auto accident, when I was 19 or 20. I was hitchhiking with my girlfriend at the time (bad, I know, but this was long ago!). The driver of the vehicle, a big Cadillac, turned out to be drinking, and to be suicidal. After he had driven a little while he became increasingly agitated, started telling us that he was a doctor, his wife had left him, he didn’t care if he died, or who he took with him, he had a gun, etc. Then he pulled a small bottle out of the glove compartment and started taking pulls from it, all the while driving faster and faster. We were terrified, of course, begged him to pull over and let us out, but he refused.
Finally, he failed to negotiate a curve in the road (this was a winding country road), went off the roadway and hit a utility pole, with the car spinning and spinning. The highway patrol later told us they estimated he was going over 100 mph. Amazingly, the car didn’t roll, but finally came to a stop, upright. Cadillacs, apparently, are at least good protection in accidents.

I should mention that both my girlfriend and I were in the back seat, with our seat belts on. Our usual hitchhiking “plan” was that she sat in front, and I sat in back, so in case the driver tried anything funny I would have the jump on him. However, on this one occasion, as we got in the car she insisted that she sit in back with me. The driver laughed, saying it was okay, and my girlfriend was adamant, so I gave in. I’ll explain later why this turned out to be important.

Back to the event. During the accident, I had reflexively thrown myself over my girlfriend. We were getting thrown around, at one point her head hit the window, but my hand apparently partially absorbed the force, as I wound up with a cut on my finger that required stitches; the finger wasn’t broken, however. My girlfriend sustained a concussion and a fractured clavicle. The driver, however, who was also belted despite his suicidal intentions, wound up with, as I recall, a fractured femur/pelvis, ruptured bladder, and other life-threatening injuries.

After the car came to a final stop, I was able to get my girlfriend out of her seat belt and out of the car somehow. I carried her some distance away from the vehicle and set her down on the side of the road. As I stood up, there was a woman standing there. I don’t remember what she was wearing, some light colored clothing I believe, but I recall that she was blonde, and smiling. She looked me straight in the eye and said, “We have to get the doctor out of the car.” As I recall now, thirty odd years later, I just went with her obediently back to the car. At that point there was an engine fire and smoke was coming up from under the smashed hood.

I don’t remember exactly what else the lady said to me after that, other than giving me instructions on how to extract him. I seem to remember his door being jammed, and pulling him out through the window, I don’t recall all those specific details. What I am sure about is that both of us, the lady and I, carried the doctor back to where my girlfriend was and placed him on the ground. A moment later, people came running up, local residents I guess who had heard the crash. The emergency vehicles started arriving and with the gathering crowd I forgot all about the good Samaritan.

My girlfriend and I were both transported to the hospital, where I was released with stitches in my finger and sore heels in both feet, I presumed from the impact. My girlfriend was admitted, primarily for the concussion, I believe.

The next day I went to visit my girlfriend. After we talked about how she was doing for a few minutes, It occurred to me to ask her what had become of the lady who had come to help us, and helped me get the doctor out. My girlfriend just stared. The conversation went something like this:

Her: What are you talking about?
Me: You know. The lady who came and said we had to get the doctor out. The one who helped me carry him.
Her: What lady?
Me: What do you mean? The lady who was there!
Her: There was nobody else there. I watched you walk back to the car, pull the doctor out, and bring him to where I was. There was no lady, nobody. I watched the whole thing.

At this point the hair was standing up on the back of my neck. We just kind of stared at each other for a while, then changed the subject, as I recall.
 
Epilogue:

The CHP came to interview my girlfriend and I while she was still in the hospital. That’s when we found out the extent of the doctor’s injuries, that he was critical but expected to live. The officer told me that we were amazingly lucky, at that speed, to have survived.

When my girlfriend got out of the hospital, one day her mother drove us to the wrecking yard. We just had to see the car. When we found it, we were again struck speechless. The engine had wound up being pushed into the front passenger seat. My girlfriend would have been crushed, probably killed instantly, if she had been sitting there.

After the accident I told a few people what had happened. Sometimes people reacted with skepticism, told me that the lady was a projection of my subconscious occasioned by the extreme duress of the situation, that I had imagined the whole thing. Some people just looked thoughtful but didn’t say much. Over time, I stopped telling the story. Maybe I started to doubt that it really happened myself, or I just didn’t want people to think I was crazy. But now, after coming back to the Catholic church, I’m not afraid to tell the story, even to strangers. A few points linger with me:

I had stopped attending Catechism and Mass when my parents divorced and my mother remarried a Protestant, around age 7 or so. So I did have an early Catholic upbringing, had all the kids books like “The Littlest Angel,” etc. But- if I were to imagine an angel, hallucinate an angel, at age 19 or 20- why wouldn’t that angel have wings, be iridescent or something? Why would she look like a living person, if she came from my imagination? This was long before any of the television shows or movies where angels look just like living humans. My only reference points for angels when I was that age were media where angels had wings, halos, etc.

What prompted my girlfriend, at the last second, to absolutely insist on sitting in the back seat with me?

Finally, why is it so hard for some people, the skeptical atheists, to admit that science does not have all the answers, that there can be other planes of existence? Actually science is starting to question that, in terms of parallel and multiple universes.

The doctor lived. People said I may have saved his life, that he might have died from smoke inhalation, perhaps burned. I know that I didn’t do anything, and take no credit whatsoever.

I was directed.
 
That’s amazing! I believe it was the Holy Spitrit who prompted your girlfriend into the backseat. I think it was an angel.
 
You seem to have had a very miraculous experience throughout this crash and we should thank God for all that happened that day.

I think that atheists ignore the miraculous because in some situations they can easily just call you insane and ignore it. In other situations they look past what should be obvious and just say that it was chance. They don’t want to believe, they don’t want the truth, atheists usually just want to be right. This is why many can be shown evidence and simply ignore it in favor of their theory. We can only pray that the Lord will open their eyes and help them to see the truth.
 
People seem to have a hard time accepting the spiritual around us, even the “faithful” at times. I really don’t know why…:confused:
 
Thanks so much all, and I’m overjoyed to be taken seriously. Of course, I’m preaching to the choir here. But whenever I start doubting, that experience helps me to keep going. I have to believe I was put there for a reason that night, just like I’m here on earth for a reason, like all of of us are here for a reason.
 
Well, Samson, I think we do need to be a little skeptical and “test the spirits”. Practically all religions had spiritual aspects so we do need to be careful in saying what is definitely miraculous. I’d rather not worry about private revelations because it really won’t affect me. We should focus more on forming our will to God’s will and to loving others than on finding miracles. However, we should also thank God in situations like these whether we believe that it was miraculous or not.
 
Interestingly enough, when I was at our little library here in our little mountain town today, using one of their computers because I don’t have a printer, I had just logged off the forums here, looked up, and there was a nun sitting directly across from me. There was another sister there as well, who told me they have a retreat center nearby. But I had never seen a nun in town, in the three years I’ve lived here.

Well, just a coincidence I suppose, like our being on the side of the road that particular day and time when a suicidal doctor came driving by…or my girlfriend getting in the back seat with me for the first and only time…or my mother in a coma, supposedly in brain death yet passing the moment after the priest finished giving her the last rites… or my being involved in a different accident a while back (not my fault, fortunately!) in which the other cars were both destroyed while my car got a dent and a flat tire and after the police and ambulance came and went, I changed my tire I was able to drive it away…just a coincidence that I was on my way to church for the first time in years at that moment.,. A skeptic would say, these are all random events and I’m superstitious to read any connections into them.

Of course when atheist scientists see connections everywhere they are hailed as brilliant thinkers, at the forefront of fractal theory or string theory or whatever…
 
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