God’s Interventions in Our Lives

God uses angels, other people and every possible means to impact our lives.

I am convinced angels often appear to us if we are given the grace to see them, as Hebrews tells us.  

Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels.

Hebrews 13:2

When our children were very small and our parish church hadn’t been built yet, our Sunday Mass was celebrated in the local high school multipurpose room. One Sunday, the children were making a lot of noise, so we stood against the back wall to quickly take them outside if they got distractingly loud. 

I was feeling depressed about my children’s behavior and my skills, or lack of them, as a father. During the “Our Father,” we held hands as a family, my left hand grasping my wife’s hand. My right hand was free and I held it in the air. Suddenly, a woman grasped my right hand.

Where did she come from? She hadn’t been standing near us. The woman squeezed my hand firmly. My eyes were closed, but I decided to open them to look at the person holding my hand.

I saw a woman I didn’t know, whose appearance was different. Her eyes were on fire with love, with peace, with joy—all at once. Her smile was wide and loving, and her eyes penetrated me to the core of my being.

It was as if she was saying, “Don’t give up. You are loved. You are protected by God. Stay the course.”

I put a big smile on my face and closed my eyes. Toward the end of reciting the Lord’s Prayer, I realized no one was holding my right hand any longer. I looked up. The woman was nowhere in sight. 

I was standing by the hall door and quickly opened it to look down the long hallway in both directions. No one was there; but it had only been a few seconds. Was the woman an angel? 

Well, like most miracles, the question can be debated. For me, however, there was no doubt. She could not have disappeared so quickly if she were human. To this day, I have never experienced a look as intense as hers, touching me to the core of my soul. She gave me a message of love. A message of hope.

The Miracle on the Train Track

A friend of mind grew up by railroad tracks with a bridge spanning a deep valley. He often walked on the bridge tracks when he thought no train was coming.

One day he was on the bridge, not paying attention, when he heard a loud voice, “Look behind you.” My friend turned around and saw a train traveling fast, directly toward him.

He had no choice but try to reach the side of the tracks and hang on without being run over or falling down into the valley. Truly a miracle happened that day. My friend reached the side of the tracks in time and pulled himself to safety.

To this day, he knows the voice had to have been that of an angel because he was all alone, with no other person in sight. That intervention saved his life.

A Friend’s Call 

My final example of miracles through intervention occurred when a friend was told by the Lord to phone me immediately.

I had just found out terrible news about one of my children, and I was totally distraught. The time was about noon. I was at a business meeting and I did something I almost never did. I left the meeting to return to my hotel room.

Once inside, my cell phone rang. It was my friend. Coincidently, he was also on a business trip, but he was in Paris, France. It was 9 p.m. in Paris. He told me God had given him a message to call me immediately and tell me that everything would be fine.

Incredible! Once again—a miracle or just a coincidence? For me, definitely God’s intervention. A miracle!

Trust in Jesus and expect and experience miracles!