Amy Newmark - Chicken Soup for the Soul: Angels All Around: 101 Inspirational Stories of Miracles, Divine Intervention, and Answered Prayers

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Angels All Around

101 Inspirational Stories of Miracles, Divine Intervention, and Answered Prayers

Amy Newmark

Published by Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC www.chickensoup.com

Copyright 2019 by Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

CSS, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and its Logo and Marks are trademarks of Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the many publishers and individuals who granted Chicken Soup for the Soul permission to reprint the cited material.

Front cover photo of man on path courtesy of iStockphoto.com/ppart (ppart)

Front cover, back cover, and interior images of feathers courtesy of iStockphoto.com/ Gluiki (Gluik)

Photo of Amy Newmark courtesy of Susan Morrow at SwickPix

Cover and Interior by Daniel Zaccari

Distributed to the booktrade by Simon & Schuster. SAN: 200-2442

Publishers Cataloging-In-Publication Data

(Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

Names: Newmark, Amy, compiler.

Title: Chicken soup for the soul : angels all around : 101 inspirational stories of miracles, divine intervention, and answered prayers / [compiled by] Amy Newmark.

Other Titles: Angels all around : 101 inspirational stories of miracles, divine intervention, and answered prayers

Description: [Cos Cob, Connecticut] : Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC, [2019]

Identifiers: ISBN 9781611599930 | ISBN 9781611592924 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Angels--Literary collections. | Angels--Anecdotes. | Miracles--Literary collections. | Miracles--Anecdotes. | Providence and government of God--Literary collections. | Providence and government of God--Anecdotes. | LCGFT: Anecdotes.

Classification: LCC BL477 .C45 2019 (print) | LCC BL477 (ebook) | DDC 202/.15/02--dc23

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019940300

Changing your life one story at a time

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Dont believe in miracles depend on them.

~Laurence J. Peter

W hen our girls, Autumn and Emerald, were little, my husband Sam and I loved taking them to Drakes Creek Park in Hendersonville, Tennessee. We usually stopped en route to pick up a loaf of bread so the girls could feed the ducks by the side of the lake.

One afternoon, while feeding the squawking mallards, five-year-old Autumn kept getting too close to the water. I would make her move back, but before we knew it, she would be right back at the edge. Sensing that I was getting overly anxious, Sam suggested that I go check on my mom, who was sitting at a picnic table up the slope from the water. He was watching the girls.

Id gone about halfway up the slope toward my mom when I heard the unmistakable splash of a body entering the water. By the time I turned around, I saw my husband pulling our daughter from the water by one arm. Fearing the worst because of the jagged rocks that were just under the water at the edge of the lake, I ran back to them in a panic. As I reached them, I heard my unscathed daughter ask, Daddy, why did you push me when I started falling?

Sam, who was now kneeling in front of her, responded, Honey, I didnt push you. I was standing next to Emerald. When I looked over, you just kind of lurched out into the water. That man helped me pull you out.

Autumn replied, Daddy, I felt a push on my back after I started falling.

Gently, Sam placed his hands on her shoulders, looked straight into her eyes, and said, I promise you, Autumn, I did not push you. Then he pulled her into a tender embrace. Looking around for a moment and then turning to me, he said, Hey, Jack (he always called me that unless we were arguing), wheres the guy who helped me pull Autumn out of the water?

I looked at him quizzically and replied, Honey, what are you talking about? There was no one but you who lifted her out.

Jack, there was a man who grabbed her other arm and helped me pull her out. I couldnt have gotten her out by myself.

Just as I was about to respond, a lady approached us holding a baby blanket exactly like the one that had been Autumns favorite as a toddler. She said, I saw your little girl fall in, and I thought yall could use this to dry her off. I reached for it and offered thanks at the same time that Sam asked her if shed seen where the man went who had helped get our daughter out of the lake. The woman responded, Sir, I didnt see nobody but you get her out. Sam asked her if she was sure, and she assured him she was positive that shed seen only him.

A few minutes later, when we reached my mother whod seen everything from her vantage point at the picnic table she told us the same thing as the woman with the blanket. She hadnt seen anyone help Sam pull Autumn out.

We knew wed had an angelic intervention. The jagged rocks under the water went in six or eight feet so it was a miracle that Autumn somehow fell right past them into the safer area. The push she felt propelled her right over those rocks, so she didnt get even a scratch. No one but Sam saw the man who helped, except Autumn felt his push.

Ive never forgotten that miraculous encounter. And when Autumn gave birth to her daughter two and a half years ago at the age of twenty, I gave her the little receiving blanket that the woman at the park gave us the day the angel saved her from serious injury or even death.

Jackie Carman Blankenship

A guardian angel walks with us, sent from up above, their loving wings surround us and enfold us with love.

~Author Unknown

I t was the morning after my twenty-fourth birthday. Instead of catching up on lost sleep from a late night out, I was sitting in the back seat of a car heading to the airport so my boyfriend could complete his yearlong deployment to Afghanistan.

There were five people in the car, but hardly any words were spoken during the forty-minute drive. We sat in silent understanding, each building up the courage to say goodbye to a person we all loved, unsure if there were any words that could make the goodbye easier. I replayed the first half of the month in my head, astonished that two weeks his allotted mid-deployment leave time had passed so quickly. Our relationship was fairly new, so my stomach was a knot of nerves.

When we arrived at the airport, we each obtained a security pass so we could walk our hero to the gate. As fate would have it, he had missed his original flight and was rebooked on a later one, giving us a little more time together. We gladly stole every extra second we could.

Sitting in the stiff airport seat, reality hit. I sat on his right side, our hands still clasped together, while his mom sat on his other side, her head gently resting on his left shoulder. None of us spoke, and I tried my best to push down the lump in my throat when I saw a tear slide down his mothers cheek.

That unleashed my own tears, but I tried not to let him see me cry. I didnt want him to feel guilty for leaving when I knew it wasnt a choice but a duty. He had made a promise to his country and the Army long before making any promises to me.