Angels On Duty

Several years ago we packed our cabinet shop equipment and a few personal belongings in our work truck and headed for the US border.

Up until this point I had  lived nearly my entire life in a small town in northern British Columbia, Canada. This had been my world and the only world our children knew. We now were pulling up stakes and beginning our 1000 mile trek to Oregon, USA.

Our emotions were mixed. After pausing for a prayer of protection we waved our last goodbyes and pulled out of my parent’s driveway. A large lump lodged in my throat, but I sat up straight and swallowed hard. We had a long road ahead of us.

I drove our car pulling a utility trailer and my husband drove our truck loaded with heavy equipment. We soon settled into a comfortable caravan. I took the lead, that way if I needed to stop we wouldn’t be separated. We traveled this way for over seven hours.

Late in the afternoon we stopped for fuel. After stretching our legs and returning to our vehicles we headed for the highway. For what can only be explained as a heavenly intervention, I motioned for my husband to go first. As he pulled ahead the thought crossed my mind that I should look carefully at his front tire. What I saw launched my heart into my throat! There was a giant bulge on the inside wall of the tire on the drivers side! I honked the horn and flashed my lights. At last I got his attention and he pulled over.

At first he didn’t see anything. I was puzzled as I was sure I had seen a bulge on the tire. Sure enough when he crawled under the truck to look he found, on the top of the tire completely out of view, a huge bulge!

We limped our way to the next town and pulled into a tire shop shortly after closing. Two young men remained and graciously provided us with new tires.

As we traveled into the night in blizzard conditions we were surrounded by vivid reminders of what could have happened. The road wound through unforgiving terrain. We passed sharp drop offs and sections of single lane traffic that crowded steep embankments. Directly behind my husbands seat were thousands of pounds of equipment that would have surely slammed through the cab of the truck had there been a hard impact. If I had missed the opportunity to look, or if the bulge had been positioned out of sight, it was almost certain my husband would not have escaped death.

We closed that day with prayers of thanksgiving knowing the angels had surely been with us that day.

“For He will order His angels to protect you wherever you go.” Psalm 91:11 NLT