My niece Christine was married this past weekend, and our family drove down for the event.  When the little yellow light went on in the Honda Pilot warning us that our gas level was low, Linnea reminded me of two related incidents where angels showed up several years ago.

We drove our GMC full-sized van to St Louis after a volleyball tournament in Grand Rapids to attend the party for my parent’s 50^th wedding anniversary.  This was back in the day when you could fold the back seat into a small bed and sleep while travelling; none of the Click It or Ticket stuff was in play. 

After spending the night somewhere in central Illinois and having a lovely breakfast, we headed to the big city well fed and well rested. The weather was great; the traffic was light; the only thing missing was enough gas to get us to Webster Groves.  Fortunately a highway exit appeared just as the van started coughing.  We cruised down the ramp, around the corner, and into a St Louis city neighborhood, where we stopped in front of a block of brownstones.  Cell  phones and GPS did not exist, and  the TripTik was no help in finding a gas station, but when we got out of the car, a friendly African American woman and gentleman greeted us.  It turns out the gentleman was a Deacon (or his name was Deacon, I am not sure which) and had been visiting the woman at her home.  We had a pleasant conversation about running out of gas, 50^th wedding anniversary, heading to Webster Groves, and the church we go to – this was probably more than they wanted to hear. 

In a conversation between these two patient angels, the kindly woman says to her friend, “Deacon, why don’t you drive these nice folks around the corner to the gas station?  I would take them but I got that club on my steering wheel so my son won’t drive it.”  It is amazing the quotes you remember in times of duress.  Deacon took Jesse and me to the gas station; we purchased a container and gas; Deacon drove us back; we poured the gas in, started the van, and were on our way.

Later that same trip we went to an afternoon St Louis Cardinals baseball game.  My sister Cindy and her husband Mark are huge Cardinals fans.  (I was quite conflicted when the Tigers played the Cardinals in the 2006 World Series.)  We parked the van in a lot near the stadium, walked over and enjoyed a Cardinal victory.  I was a worried on the walk back to the parking lot because I could not find the van keys.  Hoping they were in the van, I hurried ahead and found the van engine was still running!  The doors were all locked and the attendant had tried to turn the thing off, but it just sat there for three hours while we watched baseball!  At least this time we did not run out of gas. 

The angel this time was the same just-married niece, Christine, who was six years old at the time.  The custom van windows on the side behind the driver had a small section at the bottom that could be opened for ventilation.  The latches on those window and screen parts did not quite latch, so a little bit of pushing and sliding allowed us to open up a small hole into the vehicle.  Christine was just able to squeeze through the window and open the locks on the doors.  We tried to recreate the event a couple of years later and Christine was too big!  It just lets you now that angels come in all sizes and are the right size at the right time.