I spy an angel

I was hurrying to my car on the way to an appointment when I glanced over my shoulder back toward our house. As my eyes ran across our front lawn, I realized there was an indentation in the snow.

Someone—and I was fairly sure I know which someone—had left an angel in our snowy front yard. I hadn’t noticed it when the yard was covered in snow, but now that the snow was melting away, the angel shape stood out.

Our sons are old enough now that they often enjoy the snow while I stay inside. Life is busy and full, and our most recent snowfall happened on a bitterly cold day. I stayed inside, ready to make hot chocolate, while our boys played and maybe shoveled a bit. There was hardly enough snow for them to play.

But one of them dropped down in the snow and made an angel.

It made me smile to see the snowy shape and realize it had been there for days before I spotted it. How often do people do things that we don’t notice? How frequently are people around us acting like angels and we don’t realize it right away? Later we recognize what they’ve left behind. We realize what they did.

Sometimes it’s only later, with a little distance, in the chilly light of a winter sun that we can see with greater clarity and recognize the impact of someone’s actions. And sometimes it’s only later that we realize we were visited by actual angels.

“Make yourself familiar with the Angels, and behold them frequently in spirit,” said St. Francis de Sales. “Without being seen, they are present with you.”

We might not always notice the angels around us, but they’re always there.

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