THE ATHEIST CHILD There was an atheist couple who had a child. The couple never told their daughter anything about the Lord. One night when the little girl was 5 years old, the parents fought with each other and the dad shot the mom, right in front of the child. Then, the dad shot himself. The little girl watched it all. She then was sent to a foster home. The foster mother was a Christian and took the child to church. On the first day of Sunday School, the foster mother told the teacher that the girl had never heard of Jesus, and to have patience with her. The teacher held up a picture of Jesus and said, "Does anyone know who this is?" The little girl said, "I do, that's the man who was holding me the night my parents died." THE DIVER A young man who had been raised as an atheist was training to be an Olympic diver. The only religious influence in his life came from his outspoken Christian friend. The young diver never really paid much attention to his friend's sermons, but he heard them often. One night the diver went to the indoor pool at the college he attended. The lights were all off, but as the moon was bright and reflected through the windows, there was just enough light to practice by. The young man climbed up to the highest diving board and as he turned his back to the pool on the edge of the board and extended his arms out, he saw his shadow on the wall. The shadow of his body was in the shape of a cross. Instead of diving, he knelt down and finally asked God to come into his life. As the young man knelt praying, a maintenance man walked in and turned on the indoor spotlights. The pool had been drained for repairs. MIKEY Howard County Sheriff Jerry Marr got a disturbing call one Saturday afternoon a few months ago. His 6-year-old grandson Mikey had been hit by a car while fishing in Greentown with his dad. The father and son were near a bridge by the Kokomo Reservoir when a woman lost control of her car, slid off the bridge and hit Mikey at a rate of about 50 mph. Sheriff Marr had seen the results of accidents like this and feared the worst. When he got to Saint Joseph Hospital, he rushed through the emergency room to find Mikey conscious and in fairly good spirits considering what had happened to him. "Mikey, what happened?" Sheriff Marr asked. Mikey replied, "Well, Papaw, I was fishin' with Dad and some lady runned me over, I flew into a mud puddle, and broke my fishin' pole and I didn't get to catch no fish!" As it turned out, the impact propelled Mikey about 500 feet, over a few trees and an embankment and in the middle of a mud puddle. His only injuries were to his right femur bone which had broken in two places. Mikey had surgery to place pins in his leg. Otherwise the boy is fine. Since all the boy could talk about was that his fishing pole was broken, the Sheriff went out to Wal-mart and bought him a new one while he was in surgery so he could have it when he came out. The next day the Sheriff sat with Mikey to keep him company in the hospital. Mikey was enjoying his new fishing pole and talked about when he could go fishing again as he cast into the trash can. When they were alone, Mikey, just a matter-of-fact, said, "Papaw, did you know Jesus is real?" "Well," the Sheriff replied, a little startled. "Yes, Jesus is real to all who believe in him and love him in their hearts." "No," said Mikey. "I mean Jesus is REALLY real." "What do you mean?" asked the Sheriff. "I know he's real 'cause I saw him." said Mikey, still casting into the trash can. "You did?" said the Sheriff. "Yep," said Mikey. "When that lady runned me over and broke my fishing pole, Jesus caught me in his arms and laid me down in the mud puddle." NO BRAKES! A friend of mine was driving through an intersection one day and his little four-year-old son was in the car with him. The car door flew open, and the little boy rolled out of the vehicle right into the middle of traffic coming from four ways. The last thing my friend saw was a set of car wheels just about on top of his son-moving at a very fast rate of speed. All he knew to do was cry, "JESUS!" As soon as he could bring his car to a halt, he jumped out and ran to his son, who was perfectly all right. But the man driving the car that had almost hit the child was absolutely hysterical. My friend went over to him and started trying to comfort him. "Man, don't be upset!" he said. "My son is all right, he's okay. Don't be concerned about it. Just thank God you were able to stop!" "You don't understand!" the man responded. "I never touched my brakes!" THE MISSIONARY A missionary on furlough told this true story while visting his home church in Michigan... While serving at a small field hospital in Africa, every two weeks I traveled by bicycle through the jungle to a nearby city for supplies. This was a journey of two days and required camping overnight at the halfway point. On one of these journeys, I arrived in the city where I planned to collect money from a bank, purchase medicine and supplies, and then begin my two-day journey back to the field hospital. Upon arrival In the city, I observed two men fighting, one of whom had been seriously injured. I treated him for his injuries and at the same time witnessed to him of Lord Jesus Christ. I then travel two days, camping overnight, and arrived home without incident. Two weeks later I repeated my journey. Upon arriving in the city, I was approached by the young man I had treated. He told me that he had known I carried money and medicines. He said, "Some friends and I followed you into the jungle, knowing you would camp overnight. We planned to kill you and take your money and drugs. But just as we were about to move into your camp, we saw that you were surrounded by 26 armed guards." At this I laughed and said that I was certainly all alone out in that jungle campsite. The young man pressed the point, however, and said "No sir, I was not the only person to see the gaurds. My five friends also saw them, and we all counted them. It was because of those gaurds that we were afraid and left you alone." At this point in the sermon, one of the men in the congregation jumped to his feet and interrupted the missionary and asked if he could tell him the exact day that this happened. The missionary told the congregation the date, and the man who interupted told him this story: "On the night of your incident in Africa, it was morning here and I was preparing to go play golf. I was about to putt when I felt the urge to pray for you. In fact, the urging of the Lord was so strong, I called men in this church to meet with me here in the sanctuary to pray for you. Would all of those men who met with me on that day stand up?" The men who had met together on that day stood up. The missionary wasn't concerned with who they were--he was to busy counting how many men he saw. There were 26. THE POWER OF THE HAND My daughter, Kathleen, was 15, too young to seriously date but she had a boyfriend. One evening, when I was leaving to pick up my son, Paul, from baseball practice, she asked if she could just go with her boyfriend to pick up his little brother at a friend's house. She said they would come right back. I said, "All right, just make sure you wear your seat belt, and come right home." It was my father's birthday and my youngest daughter, Therese, was already at my father's house waiting for us to come over with the cake I had yet to pick up at the store. I left to pick Paul up at school, but decided to take the highway, rather than the shortcut along the back roads. After leaving the school, Paul and I ran in the store for the cake and some last minute goodies. As we were getting into the car, we heard and saw paramedics, fire trucks, three ambulances and of course a multitude of police cars. I got a sick feeling in my stomach and said to Paul, "Somebody needs our prayers, quick." I wondered if there was a fire or a bad car accident. At one of the intersections I had to stop to let more emergency vehicles through, and prayed, "Lord, those people need you right now, go to them and place your protective hand over them." We stopped at my parents to drop off the food, before going home to pick up Kathleen, but my father met me at the car and told us to postpone the party because Therese had fallen asleep. "Which way did you go to the school?" he asked, "Because there was a bad accident on the back road, I heard someone was killed. It happened just about the time you had to pick up Paul at the school and I know you always go that way. I was so happy to see you pull in, I had a gut feeling it was you." As Paul and I drove the short distance home, I could see our house was dark and when Kathleen is home alone, she always burned every light. As I turned off the ignition, tears fell, "It was Kathleen," I told Paul, "I know it." I ran in the house and checked our answering machine, no one had called. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that someone would have called by now. "Paranoid," that's what Kathleen always called me, and that's what I was telling myself, "Your just paranoid!" Then, the phone rang. It was her friend's mother, who worked in the emergency room of our local hospital. She only told me that the three of them were in an accident and were being transported to the hospital. I didn't call my husband at work, nor my parents. Paul and I just left for the hospital. As I pulled into the parking lot, one of the paramedics, someone we have known for years, met us at our car. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he said with tears streaming down his face. The next thing I remember, I was talking to the doctor in the hallway of the ER. He asked me if I believed in God, and with that my knees gave way. "No," he said, "you don't understand, do you believe in divine intervention?" I stammered, a weak, "Yes." Not having a clue what he was talking about. He smiled at me and asked, "Do you know what shirt your daughter is wearing, tonight?" Nodding no, he told me to go down the hall and look. "Your daughter is blessed with angels and so are you. From what the emergency personnel told me, there is no way that your daughter should be alive, let alone only have a few scratches." Kathleen was laying on a cart, waiting for more x-rays. When I got to her, we both sobbed. As I was hugging her I had the urge to check her shirt, unzipping her jacket. I read the words, "Jesus Saves." I knew then what the doctor had meant. All three were treated and released. On the way home that night, Kathleen told this story: "It was really weird, about a quarter of a mile before the accident, I said, 'Wait, we forgot to put our seat belts on, my Mother will kill me.' Then a car was coming towards us in our lane, he swerved, and I knew we got hit on the passenger side of the car, where I was sitting. We got hit a total of three times because the car kept spinning in a circle. I felt his little brother's hand on my shoulder, holding me tightly in place. "But Mom, after it was all over, I could still feel the hand on my shoulder. I looked and his little brother had flown out the back window of the car, as we later found out, on the first spin. "It was an angel, Mom, I know it!" I knew it too, especially when we went the next day to look at the car, it had been split in half, right underneath my daughter's seat. The driver of the other car, witnesses said, was traveling 90-95 miles per hour and the point of impact at that speed was directly at Kathleen's door. The police report stated that the car door was found fifty feet away from the accident scene, with the seat belt attached. So when the door broke loose, "the hand" was the only thing that saved my daughter's life. The Lord, knew, long before I did that my child was in trouble, and I will always praise Him for saving her life and restoring mine. I have been meaning to write this story for the past couple years. Kathleen just turned 21. While I was writing this I smiled and cried, but it's all true. -- Barbara ANGELS AMONG US Barbara was driving her six-year-old son, Benjamin, to his piano lesson. They were late, and Barbara was beginning to think she should have cancelled it. There was always so much to do, and Barbara, a night-duty nurse at the local hospital, had recently worked extra shifts. She was tired. The sleet storm and icy roads added to her tension. Maybe she should turn the car around. Mom!" Ben cried. "Look!" Just ahead a car had lost control on a patch of ice. As Barbara tapped the brakes, the other car spun wildly, rolled over, then crashed sideways into a telephone pole. Barbara pulled over, skidded to a stop and threw open her door. Thank goodness she was a nurse--she might be able to help these unfortunate passengers. Then she paused. What about Ben? She couldn't take him with her--little boys shouldn't see scenes like the one she anticipated. But was it safe to leave him alone? What if their car were hit from behind? For a brief moment Barbara considered going on her way. Someone else was sure to come along. No! "Ben, honey, promise me you'll stay in the car!" "I will, Mommy," he said as she ran, slipping and sliding, toward the crash site. It was worse than she'd feared. Two girls of high school age were in the car. One, the blonde on the passenger side, was dead, killed on impact. The driver, however was still breathing. She was unconscious and pinned in the wreckage. Barbara quickly applied pressure to the wound in the teenager's head while her practiced eye catalogued the other injuries. A broken leg, maybe two, along with probable internal bleeding. But if help came soon, the girl would live. A trucker had pulled up and was calling for help on his cellular phone. Soon Barbara heard the ambulance sirens. A few moments later she surrendered her lonely post to rescue workers. "Good job," one said as he examined the driver's wounds. "You probably saved her life, ma'am." Perhaps. But as Barbara walked back to her car a feeling of sadness overwhelmed her, especially for the family of the girl who had died. Their lives would never be he same. Oh God, why do such things have to happen? Slowly Barbara opened her car door. What should she tell Benjamin? He was staring at the crash site, his blue eyes huge. "Mom," he whispered, "did you see it?" "See what, Honey?" she asked. "The angel, Mom! He came down from the sky while you were running to the car. And he opened the door, and he took that girl out." Barbara's eyes filled with tears. "Which door, Ben?" "The passenger side. He took the girl's hand, and they floated up to Heaven together." "What about the driver?". Ben shrugged. "I didn't see anyone else." Later Barbara was able to meet the families of the victims. They expressed their gratitude for the help she had provided. Barbara was able to give them something more; Ben's vision. There was no way he could have known--by ordinary means-- who was in the car or what had happened to either of the passengers. Nor could the passenger door have been opened; Barbara had seen it's tangle of immovable steel herself. Yet Ben's account brought consolation to a grieving family. Their daughter was safe in Heaven. And they would see her again. A Prayer For Angels: I prayed for Angels to guard you night and day. I prayed they would hover and keep harm away. If you hear the swish of wings or feel a gentle touch. I know God heard my prayer today and loves you very much.