At 7:24 a.m. last Sunday, my BBF, Best Beloved Friend, who lives far from me in a mountainous region of the United States, texted pictures of her snow-covered vehicle with the message: \u201cHere we go again.\u201d<\/p>\n
She has sent a number of snowy pictures this year \u2014 they\u2019ve had a bad winter.<\/p>\n
At 9:05 a.m., she sent pictures of everyone in her grandparents\u2019 Lincoln Navigator: her 81-year-old grandfather, 76-year-old grandmother, mother, aunt and uncle. The message read: \u201cFinal pictures of us since we will most likely die driving to church.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s very funny, and we usually send pictures back and forth as we text. This was nothing out of the ordinary.<\/p>\n
At 11 a.m., as I was worshipping the Lord, I parted my Bible, searching for a topic for this newspaper column. It opened to one of the most powerful angel stories in scripture.<\/p>\n
At 11:13 a.m., she sent pictures of their bad icy roads.<\/p>\n
At 11:21 a.m., she wrote, \u201cStuck in a ditch with my family. Please pray. Oh, my goodness, I\u2019m crying. I\u2019m so scared.\u201d<\/p>\n
At 11:24 a.m., \u201cIf I die, I just want you to know I\u2019ve had the pleasure of you being my best friend. OK, I\u2019m really serious.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought this was so sweet and also funny.<\/p>\n
At 11:36 a.m., she said roadside service wouldn\u2019t be there for three hours. I told her to get an Uber. She said she wouldn\u2019t leave her family, and I responded, \u201cTake them with you.\u201d Her answer: \u201cThey can\u2019t get out\u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when I realized this wasn\u2019t a simple roadside incident and immediately reassured her: \u201cYou all have a guardian angel! Pray for your guardian angel to speak to someone who can help you!\u201d<\/p>\n
I prayed to God, sought my angel\u2019s help, and then contacted the fire department. I told her to dial 9-1-1, but her aunt discouraged her.<\/p>\n
I later learned they were on an icy single-lane road with a steep mountain on one side and a drop-off to death on the other, thanks to no guardrail. Fortunately, they had slid toward the mountain with the Navigator now nearly on its side up against a huge boulder. She was grateful it hadn\u2019t crashed the passenger-side windows, throwing glass everywhere.<\/p>\n
As soon as the wreck happened, her grandfather called their pastor and left a message.<\/p>\n
At 12:02 p.m., the sheriff arrived and roadside assistance soon followed. The Navigator had to be lifted, what they call a \u201crecovery.\u201d It couldn\u2019t be towed \u2014 that\u2019s how badly the vehicle was situated.<\/p>\n
Minutes later, I told her, \u201cThank goodness! All the angels got together!\u201d<\/p>\n
I believe that\u2019s what happened and confirmed the timing with her. It was sometime near 11:44 a.m. when their pastor discovered the message, called the sheriff, and secured assistance. In other words, he moved into action after we began praying to God and for everyone\u2019s guardian angels to put their heads together.<\/p>\n
I am not Roman Catholic, but I learned details about guardian angels from Pope John Paul II. And remember, just before I saw her text messages, God had led me to read one of the most powerful angel scenes in Scripture. It\u2019s about Assyrian King Sennacherib.<\/p>\n
The Britannica says Assyria had \u201cunited most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf,\u201d which means the brutal nation had conquered everything in the region. A formidable foe, the Assyrians were greatly feared. The Britannica cites a \u201cseries of strong Assyrian kings\u201d including Sennacherib.<\/p>\n
Archaeology found that Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem when Hezekiah was king but could not take the city. That\u2019s big!<\/p>\n
Historians suggest a plague struck the enemy army, but the prophet Isaiah wrote the exact reason in the 8th century B.C., long before any archaeological find!<\/p>\n
Isaiah told Hezekiah, \u201cTherefore this is what the\u00a0Lord\u00a0says concerning the king of Assyria: \u2018He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here\u2026 I will defend\u00a0this city and save it\u2026 \u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThat night the angel of the\u00a0Lord\u2026. put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning\u2014there were all the dead bodies!\u00a0So Sennacherib . . . broke camp and withdrew\u2026 One day, while he was worshiping\u2026 his god, his sons\u2026. killed him with the sword\u2026 \u201d (2 Kings 18:32-37).<\/p>\n
Pope John Paul II said, \u201cThe modern mentality does not see the importance of angels,\u201d but Scripture has one angel story after another. I am releasing \u201cReaching to God \u2013 The Angels Edition\u201d later this year.<\/p>\n
Ask for your angel\u2019s intervention as we did last Sunday. Once you begin, you\u2019ll never forget that your guardian angel has nothing better to do than help you.<\/p>\n
Contact the Rev. Mathews at RAMathews.com. Copyright \u00a9 2025 R.A. Mathews. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By R.A. Mathews At 7:24 a.m. last Sunday, my BBF, Best Beloved Friend, who lives far from me in a mountainous region of the United States, texted pictures of her snow-covered vehicle with the message: \u201cHere we go again.\u201d She has sent a number of snowy pictures this year \u2014 they\u2019ve had a bad winter. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1549,"featured_media":335896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,104,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columnists","category-faith","category-opinion"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n