For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. —Psalm 91:11 (nkjv)
Barbara is my earth angel. She is the first person I call when something has gone awry or if I need prayerful support and the hand of a friend. But today her words stopped me short when I called her for prayer for an upcoming inspection at work.
“I don’t know what good I can be,” she said. “I feel like an angel with only one wing.” She gave a little laugh, but I could tell her comment did not come from a funny place. Barbara had recently retired from her job as a secretary in the chaplain’s office of our veterans hospital. “I don’t feel like I help anyone anymore.”
The odd thing was I felt the same way. Life had gotten to be too much; my heart felt tattered by life.
When I discovered a pair of carved wooden angel wings at a gift shop, I knew exactly what I would do with them. I’d give one to Barbara and I’d keep one, with the words of Luciano de Crescenzo close in thought: “We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.”
