An Angelic Encounter

As a Christian do you ever find yourself in full on pout mode when you feel like you are stuck in a rut? I know I used to be the queen of pouting...or at least my husband said I was entitled to the crown. Haha! I mean, we still believe in the Trinity, we believe in God and that He can do all things but we are stuck in state of nothing happening and therefore we start to ask a lot of questions. Mine always centered around what am I hear for and what's my purpose.

This story centers around a time that I had been contemplating my purpose, what was I here for, and why hadn’t I experienced a great encounter like Moses or Abraham. I am serious when I say I would go outside and wait for a bush to catch fire and talk to me.  I would sit in my bedroom and talk out loud to God and then wait for Him to show up in the physical.  I would stubbornly tell God that I wasn’t going to move until He came to see me and then suddenly my three kids would barge into my room and I was forced to get up and attend to their needs. I didn’t give up though; I wanted more and I wasn’t going to stop praying until I got it. 

Looking back it seems so silly of me to make such demands of the Creator of our universe.  God has done so much for me in my life and has shown himself to me in so many ways that I wonder why I yearned for more. I guess it was because many of those things happened before I completely gave my life to Him and now that I had I was expecting literal mountains to move. Looking back to the days I only believed in God but had not yet submitted to His authority over my life I remember His miraculous interventions. There aren’t any explanations for these coincidences except God himself was there.

 I remember a time during my senior year of high school when I was coming home from work in a huge snowstorm.  My cell phone was dead and I didn’t have a car charger. It was 1996.  It just so happened that the parents of a good friend of mine, were a couple of cars ahead of me on the road, headed home. When we were forced to stop because of a car that had slid into the ditch a little ways in front of us I got out and asked them to call my parents and let them know where I was and that I should be home within the hour and if not they could come looking for me.  They made the call and my parents and I were both grateful.  Soon after the call the ditch bound car got pulled out by a big truck with chains. They cleared the way for the rest of us to get by and continue our crawl home.  The snow was coming down thicker now and it was sticking to everything. My windshield wipers did not have a setting fast enough to keep the white powder from blocking my vision and I am pretty sure had I been racing a snail the snail would have won. I was scared, alone and it was getting dark. I finally made it to the extremely sharp turn that would put me on the street that would lead me home. I was only 17 and not a seasoned driver. This was also my first time driving in the snow so when I went to make the turn I hit the brakes, over corrected and the back end of my car slid into the ditch. I did know enough to know that pressing the gas and spinning my tires would not get me anywhere except deeper in the ditch. I sat there hoping the big truck with chains would come by and pull me out like he did the other car.  No one passed by.   I was close enough to walk home at this point but the snow was coming down extremely hard, the wind had picked up and I was in my dressy work clothes, not my sleigh riding gear. I decided that I would just sit and wait until my parents came looking for me.

All of a sudden the rear end of my car lifted out of the ditch and I was back on the road.  It blew my mind! I am not sure I even have the vocabulary to explain the feeling that rushed through me when this happened.  I wasn’t scared, I felt peace and gratitude. I was blown away. Even though my walk with God at that time in my life was almost non-existent I knew it was Him.  I didn’t know why, I didn’t question it, I just accepted it and as soon as I got home I told my parents what had happened. My mom hugged me with tears in her eyes and smiled that smile that all moms have when their children are safe.  If I had only known that this was just one of the many encounters my Creator and I would share.

Many...many...many years later I am embarrassed to say I forgot my angel in the snow encounter.  I had become so busy with my current life I never took time to look back.  I was now walking hand in hand with Jesus I still had (have) a lot to learn.  I had so many unanswered questions and like I stated earlier I was stuck in a rut and throwing all kinds of questions at God.

We had recently watched Jesse Duplantis’ DVD “Encounters of the God Kind” during our Wednesday night Bible Study. This video brought back to my remembrance that time when God rescued me during the blizzard. This video also fed my desire to have another physical/supernatural encounter with God. I had started asking questions like  “God, am I on the right path? Are you really here with me? Why can’t I see you?”  I wanted the experiences Jesse had for myself. I had always heard that God was not a respecter of persons and that what He did for one He would do for another and what He had done for Jesse Duplantis I wanted Him to do for me.

I finally looked up the scriptures for myself.  (Acts 10:34, Romans 2:11, Matthew 7:7) These scriptures lead me to the prayers where I would ask God to do for me what He had done for so many others.  The bible and the promises in it are meant for all of Jesus’ believers. Fully believing His Word I continued to read and study and pray. I told the Lord that if He would do all those things for Jesse Duplantis then He would also do them for me. His Word declared it.

I prayed and asked God visit me. I wanted the experience of the mighty rushing wind that Jesse had experienced. I also wanted to visit heaven like Jesse had. I prayed and sought God for what seemed like a long time but in reality it was just short of two weeks.  I sought God every day and every night before I went to bed. I would lie in my bed at night with the covers pulled half way up over my face and ask “is tonight the night you will visit me Lord?” I waited in expectation.

Have you every prayed with doubt and expectation at the same time? It seems like the biggest oxymoron there is. There I was praying day after day and night after night, waiting for God to come and visit me while still doubting that He would. I know that if you have ever experienced this in your walk with the Lord then you know exactly what I am talking about, but if you haven’t it is hard to put into words.  The only thing I can say to vouch for myself and my doubts is that my heart was seeking the Lord.  This is where I really say I was pouting not doubting. I wanted confirmation that I was on the right path. 

Finally, God answered my prayer. It was just like most nights around the Samuel house. The kids were in bed, Molly our boxer was snoring, the cats had gone out for their night time rendezvous and Tom and I were cuddled up in the middle of our king size bed.  I am assuming it was the middle of the night or the wee hours of the morning when it happened because it was extremely dark, yet I could see. I suddenly woke up out of a sound sleep and sat straight up. I was wide awake. Standing in front of my bedroom door which is on my side of the bed was a man. He was as tall as our ten foot ceiling. He had a black cloak on with a rope tied around his waist like a belt.  His face was covered by an over sized hood but his hands peaked through the long  sleeves.  His presence did not scare me. I knew immediately God was answering my prayer. I was excited and in awe. I quickly peaked over at Tom and he was fast asleep. He did not move and I did not wake him.  I stared at the messenger as he walked towards me.  He held a bible in his right hand and he dropped it beside me on my bed. I felt the weight of the bible as it fell onto my bed. He spoke, “Read John 14”. Those are the only words he spoke. After he said it he began to walk away. I tried to speak. I couldn’t. My plea for him to stay came out like mumbled baby noises. He spoke again, “Read John 14”. After articulating in my head what needed to come out of my mouth I pleaded with him, “Please stay, I have so many questions!”  Again he spoke, “Read John 14”. Then out of nowhere, I became extremely sleepy. I felt a heaviness come over me likened to taking NyQuil. It was peaceful but overpowering, I could not fight it. I was still aware of his presence as he was leaving. I fell into my pillow and I can still remember how it formed around my face.  It was soft and comforting.  My eyelids closed and I was immediately asleep. I slept straight through until around 7:00am. When I woke up I grabbed my bible, ran to the kitchen, skipped making coffee and hastily turned to John 14. Tears filled my eyes so fast the words quickly blurred. I wiped and read as fast as I could.

                 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God^[a]; believe also in me. ² My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. ⁴ You know the way to the place where I am going.”

This is only four verses out of 31, but the whole chapter spoke to my heart.  That is how God works. The entire bible is a love story from Him to you. There are certain times in your life when you need very specific scriptures.  When you faithfully seek Him and His word, He will give you what you need when you need it.  John 14 was exactly what I needed at that specific time in my life.  It filled me with hope and renewed my faith and it also confirmed everything I believed. It answered so many questions that I had at the time.  It told me I was going to be okay and that everything I was feeling and thinking was not new and that others who walked right next to Jesus had experienced the same things. It gave me peace that I have carried with me to this day.  You may not need John 14 today, but there is a scripture that you do need. Ask God to lead you to it. I pray it will do for you what John 14 did for me. 

I know that both of my angelic encounters were as real as real can be. I believe God's Word when it says "ask and it shall be given, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened..." and I also believe that more than anything God sees our heart and He knows what we need better than we know ourselves. When the Word says "seek ye first the Kingdom of God" it is saying seek God, His Word, His plan for our life; don't get side tracked with seeking materialism and the things of this world. The things of this world will pass away, but God and heaven are eternal. Seek them and you will find yourself out of the rut and on the mountaintop.