All Night, all day

"Do not neglect to show hospitality, for thereby some have enterained angels unawares" (ESV) Hebrews 13:2ty to strangers "
Angels watching over me, my Lord.

I believe in angels! Put another way, angels are "for real."  I know angels are alive and walk (fly in or around?)  the earth today. I didn't always.  Younger, I subscribed to the beliefs my parents' religion precribed. "Yes," angels did live in the "old days" of the Old Testament.  Especially in places like Sodom and Gomorrah. 

But not in "this Dispensation," whatever that meant to a pre-teen! There would be no need, their denomination taught, for them 19 centuries later, to be walking (flying?) around.  No matter how they looked or the form they took! Come on, get serious!

However, listening to a Richard Smallwood vocal one Saturday morning, "Angels watching over me, my Lord," jolted my memory.  

For years, Saturdays have been the designated "chore day," mainly because weekdays meant I "met the Man!" I grew up in an era when "The laborer is worthy of his hire"  (Luke 10:7); "No work, no pay" (Proverbs 4:7);  and "Owe no man anything" (Romans 134:8)  circumscribed family and societal expectations.

So whether with clenched teeth or mute resignation, I got up at the same time every Saturday as I did on weekdays.  After all, work is work.

This particular Saturday didn't begin any differently than thousands before it, except for my attire.  Typically, I bemoaned my fate but tried to lightenit with gospel music.  I listen well, even if I "can't carry a tune in a bucket." Did my listening establish a visceral connection to slaves singing in cotton fields? I didn't know. However, I felt no shame.  I was alone, my two teen daughters off to "Tending my business and leaving yours alone!" Teenagers!  Oh, well.

Fnally, by early afternoon, with everything spick and span (no pun intended) I felt I'd' earned an afternoon nap.  My upper-level bedroom window faces the (residential) street but because of the way the home was built,  the eave prevented me from seeing the front door.  I could see only part of the steps leading to the front door, again,  because of the eave. 

Yet as I lay in twilight sleep. I clearly saw two young Black men.  They sat near the top step, leaning forward with elbows resting akimbo on their knees.  They may have been talking;  I couldn't tell. Dressed in jeans and polo shirts like most young people, they just sat, laid-back, and looking like they belonged there.  Hmm.  Surprisingly, the "scared of my shadow" woman I used to be, I felt no fear.

"They're Africans!" I realized.

I don't know how long I lay there before I drifted into sleep.  When I woke up and stretched, I began to  wonder where the young men had come from.  I looked out the window; they no longer occupied spots on the steps.  I wondered where they'd gone but felt no sense of urgency to find out.  In fact, I paid the incident "no never mind," as (Grand) Mama would've said.

"They're angels," penetrated my consciousness hours later.  "God sent them here to protect you and the girls," answered my unspoken "Why."

"Ohhh!"

From that Saturday over 15 years ago until now, fear for my safety, protection, or well-being vanished like smoke on a windy day.  I always sleep peacefully, even when the girls sleep over, and I am home alone.  Even before and after Kai, my beloved long-haired Dachshund, came to live with and "protect" me. And even now as he cavorts in Elysian fields with new buddies.  I know that I know that I know that even when I don't see angels, they're with me,; they're just patrolling the property.

I'm even learning to ask them to bring joy in the face of life's unexpected punches, Perhaps that accounts for a new-found serenity that envelopes me.  "All night, all day. Angels watching over me, my Lord.  All night, all day. Angels watching over me."