Tender Touches
The touch of love can be subtle, just a hint that someone else is there to help, just a small whisper or caress. Or it can be something physical but invisible. In some cases, this touch is firm, almost a grip--but with nothing seen, nothing "proved."
Jean Biltz was expecting her fifth child in a few months. On a cold spring morning she awakened in her Wichita home early and, after making the coffee, went outside to see if the milkman had made his delivery.
During the night the back porch had become glazed with ice, and as Jean stepped onto it, both her feet slipped out from under her. There was no railing on the stoop, nowhere to catch hold and keep herself from tumbling down the stairs. Almost in slow motion, Jean saw herself falling...falling... perhaps losing her unborn baby.
Then all of a sudden, two strong arms caught Jean and stood her up straight against the door. Thank heaven her husband had awakened early and was at the right place at the right time! Her grateful heart still pounding, she turned to him...but there was no one there at all. The door stood open, the kitchen beyond was empty, and even the snow-covered yard was silent, except for a little sigh in the wind.
Jean's baby was born strong and healthy, and today is the father of eight.
**********
Someone touched little Tess with the same degree of protection. She and a friend had been playing in a Tennessee yard, and it was time for Tess to go home. Saying good-bye to her playmate, Tess ran toward a backyard precipice and took a flying leap across it, as she usually did when going home. But although her feet definitely left the ground, she felt hands on both her arms pulling her firmly back, and she landed on this side of the ravine.
What was going on here? Puzzled, the child backed up and ran again, trying to jump the chasm a second time. Again the hands caught, held her, then set her gently down. But her playmate had gone in to dinner--and there was no one anywhere in view.
Perplexed, Tess walked to the edge of the ravine and looked across. There, coiled in the exact spot where she would have landed, was a rattlesnake.
**********
The "tender touch" was even subtler for Emily Frank-Pogorzelski. It was early evening--a fatiguing and frustrating period of the day for all mothers-- and Emily was preparing dinner. Dana, her toddler, was riding her toy horse around the kitchen. Several times Emily almost tripped over Diana and her clackety toy. Emily's patience was wearing thinner by the minute. Finally, in exasperation, she reached down to give the horse a hard push, to roll her daughter away from her.
"Suddenly I felt my whole arm stop in midair, like some sort of invisible block," Emily says. "I didn't feel another hand or a grip, but actual paralysis, which extended from my shoulder all the way down the upper extremity. I was aware that the power (or lack of it) was coming from something outside myself." Nor did her arm feel "asleep" or tingly; she could move it anywhere except toward Diana's horse.
Emily looked up, bewildered. And in one of those micro-seconds that seems eternal, she realized that the cellar door was open. Had she pushed Diana, the little girl would have shot across the floor, through the door-- and down the steps to the stone floor below.
**********
Mary Stebbins, another young mother, was also having an aggravating day, and her anger over a situation with some noisy neighbors was threatening to get out of control. Irritated, she huffed out of her bedroom and stomped down the hallway toward the kitchen. In her path was the open door to the basement, blocking her way. "As far as I can remember, none of the family was in the kitchen. In fact, I thought the area was deserted," she told me.
Wanting to vent her anger, Mary reached out to give the basement door a satisfying slam. But oddly, a strong pressure prevented her from doing so. The "pressure" seemed like a mass of invisible matter, a pillowy sort of "something" that gave an inch or two with the force of her hand, but then seemingly ran into another block, which thrust Mary's hand back. She simply could not finish the push.
Puzzled, Mary looked around the door, and gasped. There was her two-year-old daughter at the top of the basement stairs. Had Mary slammed the door, it would have smacked the baby and, losing her balance, the child most likely would have plummeted down the stairs to the cement.
**********
In every case, the recipients felt trembly as they realized what could have happened, then elated that everything was all right. Emily experienced an additional emotion: reassurance. "It was as if the wonderful being who stopped me from making a grave mistake was saying: 'Okay, you were impatient, but so what? Don't dwell on it. Go on from here.'
"I don't know if the being was my angel, my child's
angel, or a combination." Emily says. "But there are times when I feel a loving
spirit so close behind my right shoulder that I could touch her with my fingers. We are
fortunate to have such spirits helping us--and sometimes saving us from ourselves."
--taken from Where Angels Walk by Joan Wester Anderson