Mr. Rogers was sent to me in book form to comfort me as I mourned a loss. I read that sweet book over and over.
One passage in Mr. Rogers’s book stayed with me: When he was a little boy, his mother told him to always look for the helpers in any tragedy—in war, in accidents, in gruesome acts that humans commit against each other. Look for the helpers, his mother told him, you’ll always find them.
Aha, I thought, those are the angels. The friend who calls unbidden when you don’t know where else to turn; a second chance at a relationship; a traffic cop easing the gridlock downtown; an efficient and friendly clerk at the tax assessor’s; a song that speaks for you when you can’t find your own words; a dream that prompts you to call someone who needs you; a moment of grace when you’re steeped in grief. Without faith, an angel can look like a coincidence.
This message is adapted from “Calling All Angels: Grace in an Unlikely Package” written by Clare La Plante in the September 2004 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine.
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