Angels In Mississippi

There are angels in Mississippi.

“Of course there are,” you say. "There are angels everywhere." I know that too. They’ve followed me around all my life, keeping me safe on airplanes that fly across the world, and staying close to me at home when there are tornados outside. I have never doubted there are angels. I’ve always known they hover close. It’s just that I have never needed them quite as much as I have recently. 

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Psalm 91

Thou shalt not be afraid

for the terror by night;

nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

...

For He shall give His angels

charge over thee,

To keep thee in all thy ways.

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There are angels on the Mississippi River, protecting a tired and struggling body from the waves and undercurrents. And, did you know, angels can swim, too? They dive under the water and float alongside, holding one up when their strength is finished. 

They were on the shore that day, wrapping me in their wings after I struggled to make it back against the current. They didn’t leave, even as I fell to my knees and begged God to help us, to help her, to send protection from the river.

Running along the shore for help, I looked back to make sure she was still afloat. I watched as her head bobbed further and further away. I screamed her name when I looked back and didn’t see her. But every time she went under, something brought her back up again. Was it sheer willpower? Or, was it the angels? 

I said a prayer of thanks as she reached the buoy downriver, and asked for strength for her to be able to hold on. The angels stayed near as I screamed for help and said the 23rd Psalm aloud to myself over and over again, just to keep calm. 

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Psalm 23

The LORD is my Shepherd,

I shall not want… 

I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me,

Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me…

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I watched from the shore as her husband floated out to her after playing every scenario in his head. How can we help her? There is no lifejacket, no phone, no boat. They have all floated away. There is nobody on this river, for some reason– no passersby to flag down. In an instant, he decided to hook his arm through the Yeti cooler and let the current take him to her.  At least she wouldn’t be alone on the buoy, I thought. Maybe this will give her courage and help her hold on. 

I watched as he fought his way through the current toward the buoy and her. How did she just land on the buoy without even having to swim like he did? And as I stood alone on the bank, my eyes flitted between the buoy and the water: the buoy, to assure myself I could still make out their distant, blurred figures hanging on: and the water, to try and spot a boat that could save them. I prayed out loud that someone would pass by. “It is Saturday!” I told God. “Why isn’t anyone on the water?” 

And then, a rescue. There were angels on that towboat that day, too. I’m not sure if they were the type with wings, or if they came in the form of ebony-skinned men from New Orleans who lowered their skiff and drug her from the water. When they came to pick me up, I could tell her strength was gone. 

“Something told me to look, to look in the water,” one of the men said as soon as we were all accounted for. What was it? Was it intuition? Curiosity? How did they see two tiny figures, clinging to a tiny buoy in the middle of the great big channel? How did they see it from their hulking towboat? Perhaps there was Someone who turned that man’s head and directed his attention to the buoy floating in the current.

No, not "perhaps." There is doubt in saying “perhaps.” I am certain God helped us that day on the river; because I asked Him to and told Him I believed He would.

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Isaiah 59:1

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; 

neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear.

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Two days later, Aunt Pam and I stood outside a tire shop in West Point. I had hit one of those famous Mississippi potholes right as I left J’s house in Leland. I didn’t notice the bubble on the tire until I was a hundred miles down the road. Dad told me to just go carefully and change the tire the next day. It felt a little silly asking God to help my tire after all He’d done for us on the river, but I figured He wouldn’t mind. This was light work compared to the day before. 

“Welcome to Mississippi,” the man said after I explained why I was standing in his tire shop. We went outside to inspect the damage. He poked and prodded around before shaking his long-haired head and saying, “You must have had a guardian angel with you. I can’t believe that thing didn’t blow.”

And so, there too are angels on HWY 82 between Leland and West Point. In fact, they are everywhere, in greater number than you or I even realize. 

When I was little, there was a picture hanging in my bedroom. In the picture was a little child– I don’t remember if it was a boy or girl– stuck on a rocky cliff. There were clouds painted overhead, and I could only imagine the fear that child must have had. Except, when I looked at his face, there was only calm written there. But why? There was an angel in the corner of the picture. His wing was outstretched, covering the child in his embrace. 

Some nights, when the thunder shook the house and the wind howled and I thought I was too big to run to Mom’s room, I would bravely turn on my lamp and look at the picture on the wall. I imagined that the angel from the picture was big enough to fill my whole room, and I would be alright. 

And I learned a valuable lesson that week. There are angels in Mississippi, too. In fact, they’re everywhere; and they're there for you also.