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hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without
knowing it. Hebrews 13:2
Since
we had been left alone, each winter seemed colder and longer than the one
before. The Carolina
So I did the best I could. And God knows I did the best I could trying
to hide my hurt, and the anger that seethed inside of me toward my
husband. But even after five years, it
was still very alive, and Harrison had eventually
picked it up from me. His
twelve-year-old mind did not understand much more than the simple fact that
daddy had left, but his feelings seemed every bit as strong as mine. I caught him cursing his father when he had
to brave the snow to get wood for the stove, or when he was cleaning the
remains of a fire and preparing a new one.
Sometimes, when it came time for this
chore, he would just sit in a chair or on the floor, silently refusing to do
it. Out of sympathy for his state of
mind, I would do it for him, wishing that he would be able to forgive Joe and
move on. But as I stumbled through the
biting cold on my way to and from the woodpile, I would find myself cursing
too. So in that way, and in many others,
we had to live with a man who was not living here anymore.
And then, on one cold night during
the holiday season, on the same date that he had left, Joe came back. Not the same Joe that had left us, however,
but someone—or something—different.
Harrison and I were at the table,
making paper ornaments for the Christmas tree, when we heard what sounded like
a knock on the door. We weren’t sure
because of the crackle of the fire, and the wind whipping outside, so we sat
still and listened for another. When it
came, I headed for the window to see who it was, while Harrison
asked if he should get the gun. I
squinted my eyes at him and told him no, then peeked out the window.
In
front of the door was a large shape that I didn’t recognize, but something
inside told me it was okay. For some reason
I felt a strange peace about opening the door.
So I did, and was greeted by a huge man in a long, fur-collared
coat. He was pressing the ends of his
long curly hair against the top of his ears in an attempt to protect them from
the bitter wind, but was smiling nonetheless.
“Good
evening, ma’am,” he bellowed in a deep voice.
“I know that we are strangers to you, and perhaps my companion here is a
stranger of the worst sort, but we would be very grateful if you let us in.” This speech seemed to have been prepared, and
he went on. “You know the Good Book says
to show hospitality to strangers, because you might be entertaining angels
unawares.”
He
winked at me, very obviously.
“Your
companion?” I asked, glancing back at Harrison
to make sure he hadn’t gone for the gun.
“Yes,”
said the big man, gesturing to his left and behind. But then he spun around when he noticed no
one was there. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he added
with a nervous laugh. “You can
understand why he would be hesitant.
Wait a moment.”
He
trotted back toward a pickup truck that was parked a hundred feet from the
house, but was hard to see in the darkness.
Then he redirected himself toward the woodpile when he caught sight of
another man, who was coming from there with his arms full of kindling. I couldn’t recognize the smaller form in the
dark, but again something inside told me that it was safe to let these two
in. So I retreated back to the table,
sat down in a chair, and brought Harrison near
me, wrapping my arms around him.
Momentarily
the big man appeared in the doorway, furiously wiping his shoes on the rug and
shaking the snowflakes out of his mop of hair.
“Thank you,” he said merrily. “I hope you’ll have an open mind.”
Then he moved further into the
house, and I gasped as his companion stepped into view. It was Joe, but it wasn’t Joe. The man looked like my husband, but he was
cleaner, healthier. Sort of like a better-bred
brother, although Joe had never had one.
I watched as he wiped his feet off carefully (something Joe would never
have done), and then quietly carried the wood over to the stove, where he
proceeded to improve the fire.
“Words may be difficult for him,”
the big man said, taking a seat near us without being offered one. I began to be worried that the wooden chair
might collapse under his great bulk.
Staring at the man working on the
fire, Harrison suddenly squirmed out of my
arms and ran into his bedroom.
“Excuse me,” I said, and moved after
my son.
“Tell him that I’m a minister,” the
round man said. “Maybe that will help
him feel better.”
“Oh,” I said, and nodded.
I went into the bedroom, and closed
the door behind me.
“Is that dad?”
“I think something strange may be
happening,” I answered. “You know how
you learned about angels in Sunday School?”
He nodded. “Well, that man—he’s a
minister, by the way—he said something about entertaining angels when he was at
the door. Maybe this is a test for us,
or a way for us to put this all behind us…”
“You think dad is an angel?” the boy
asked, then added quickly: “Is he dead?”
“I don’t know what has happened to
your father, but that man seems different than your father. I lived with him for years, I should
know. So I think maybe it’s an angel,
made to look like Daddy.”
“Can they do that?”
“Well, we know angels can take on
human form, so I guess they could take on the form of a particular human.”
“Weird,” the twelve-year-old said,
rolling his eyes.
“Maybe this is God’s way of helping
us to forgive him,” I offered. “So we
can move on with our lives.”
“Okay,” he said, his mouth still
hanging open. “Who’s the fat guy?”
“I don’t know, maybe he is some kind
of special pastor, who works with angels.”
“Okay,” said the boy again.
“So let’s go out there. Whatever it is, we’ll face it together.”
“Should we wake up JoJo?” Harrison asked.
“No, she wouldn’t understand.”
“Mom, I don’t think I understand.”
“Let’s just let her sleep.”
“Okay.”
We returned to the main room and the
same position we were in before. The man
who looked like Joe was now seated next to the fat man, but his head was in his
hands and it looked like he was crying.
It amazed me that an angel could be so human, but it convinced me more
than ever that this was not Joe. I
couldn’t remember ever seeing my husband cry.
“Well, this is a special night,” the
big man said, glancing around at the tree and other Christmas decorations.
“Why is that?” I said cautiously.
“Well, this is the night that the
spirits of a Christmas past will be exorcised.
At least we hope so.”
So that's the idea, I
thought to myself. We need to forgive
this creature masquerading as my husband, so we can put it all behind us.
“What should I say to it?” I
asked. “I mean, to him.”
The merry man looked at me askew,
but said, “Well, he has to say something to you first.” He then bopped the distraught man on the
shoulder with his hand.
“Joe” looked up, wiping tears from
his eyes, and asked us for forgiveness.
Something else my husband had never done. Despite myself, I started getting choked
up. I knew this wasn’t Joe, but it
looked so much like him, and I had so often dreamed of hearing those words…
“So now we say, ‘I forgive you?” I
asked the curly-haired man, who looked at me funny again.
“No, now you forgive him from
your heart. And you should also say
it to him.”
“Oh, so you’re saying that we
actually need to forgive Joe, and not just act it out with…him,” I said,
gesturing to the angel. Now the man
adjusted his colossal body in the seat, looking as irritated as such a jolly person
could be.
“Of course you need to forgive Joe—“
he started to say, but was interrupted by the other man.
“Lauren, Harry, I know that this is
hard—“ he said, but then he was interrupted too.
“I don’t like being called Harry
anymore,” the boy said. “My father
called me that.”
At this the smaller visitor returned
his head to his hands, and started sobbing again.
“Well, this is going well,” the fat
man said. “Where is your little
one? Perhaps she can break the ice, or
bridge the gap, or make the peace, or… whatever! Where is she?”
“Josephine is sleeping in her room,”
I said. “I don’t think she needs to be a
part of this.”
“Of course she does,” said the big
man. “She just might be your only hope,
because she hasn’t been tainted by the hate and bitterness in this house. In fact, I imagine this is the reason why God
made her like He did.”
“She was also the reason that Joe
left,” I spat, resenting his reference to how my daughter was made.
“Right,” he said, pointing at me and
smiling in a way that disarmed my aggression.
“And Joe is very sorry for all that.
Aren’t you, Joe?”
The other man nodded his head, which
was still buried in his hands.
I was now more confused than before,
but before I could ask any more questions, we all noticed JoJo standing in the
doorway to her bedroom, rubbing her eyes.
She was a beautiful blond-haired Downs Syndrome child, ten years old
going on three. Her father had left us
when she was five, largely because his selfish heart couldn’t stand the thought
of taking care of her for the rest of his life.
JoJo stumbled across the room toward
her Mama, but when her eyes cleared she caught sight of the smaller visitor,
and stopped in her tracks. Then she
yelled “Dadda!”and ran straight into his arms.
I stood to my feet, saying “That’s
not your Dadda, Jo.”
The fat man stood also. “What do you mean that’s not her Dadda?”
“It’s my Dadda!” the little girl
yelped, hugging the crying man.
“Is that her Dadda?” I asked the big
man.
“Of course it’s her Dadda,” he said
with a condescending frown. “Who did you
think it was?”
“I thought he was…an angel,” I said.
“An ang—“ the man started, then
pursed his lips, raised his eyebrows, and started laughing. He sat back down on the chair, and the whole
thing shook violently as he continued to be amused, well beyond propriety. Finally he calmed down, and said, “He’s no
angel, sweetheart. But he is a new man.”
“I reached the end of myself,
Lauren,” Joe said, recovered from his despondency by the embraces of his little
girl, who knew no bitterness toward him, nor unforgiveness. “I ended up in a homeless shelter, with no
one in the world and nowhere to go. This
is the short version, of course, but I found the Lord there.”
“Actually, the Lord found him,” the
other man corrected my husband, nodding and knitting his brow like it was a
very important point.
“I knew I had to come back, to make
things right,” Joe continued. “But I
felt so bad, I didn’t think I could face you.”
He snuggled with JoJo again, to refresh his courage. “That’s when I met the minister here. He was there at the shelter one day, and we
talked about my situation. He encouraged
me to come back, and even told me he would drive me up here in his truck. I don’t know if I could have done it without
him.”
“Well, I just wanted to help him
make it here to ask for forgiveness,” the big man said to me, and to Harrison . “But I
also wanted to be here to help you to forgive him.” He stared intently at us, as though
waiting for an answer.
“I do,” I said finally. “We do.”
I looked at my son, who nodded soberly, realizing as I did that we
should have done this long before.
“Well, it won’t be easy to keep that
promise,” the curly-haired stranger said. “But you can do it.” Then he rose and moved toward the door, and before
Joe and I could even talk about what was happening, we were seeing him
off. He refused our offers to stay,
saying that he had other people to see before the holidays were over.
He even left his truck for us to
keep, insisting that he would not need it.
He walked off up the road into the darkness, holding his hair against
his ears, but smiling despite the cold.
Are
not all angels ministering spirits, sent to serve those who will inherit
salvation? Hebrews 1:14
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