Angels in Our Lives

Sometimes we encounter angels but we are not aware of it.

The Book of Tobit has a vivid account about the Angel Raphael that simply amazes me. “…Raphael was an angel but Tobias did not know it.” – Tobit 5:4.

Somehow, in all ways the angel Raphael looked exactly like a human, had a name called Azarias, and was the son of Ananias the Great, one of Tobit’s kinsmen. (Extracted from Tobit 5:13). If you haven’t read it, I would recommend a read. You will enjoy the story.

I encountered an angel recently and the following is my account…

I had bought a train ticket for travelling from Butterworth to Kuala Lumpur Sentral on the recent Hari Raya Puasa holidays.

However, I was worried after I realized that somehow I had bought a train ticket that would depart at 0515 hrs in the morning. During normal times I would not be so worried because I supposed there would be Grab drivers readily available that I could easily contact whenever I needed to travel from my house to the station.

But this day happened to be the first day of Hari Raya Puasa, and the Grab App on my mobile phone stated that there might be a shortage of drivers on this day due to many drivers having gone back to their hometowns.

Whatever made me book online for the early train ticket? It was indeed a big mistake. I guess nobody wanted to admit the mistake now. Perhaps it was a miscommunication, or perhaps I was not thinking properly at the time of booking. Or I was in too much of a hurry to book because available seats were being taken up rapidly as people rush to “balik kampung”. Anyway, the damage had already been done and I just had to cope with the situation.

I posted in my whatsapp group asking whether anyone there knew any reliable grab driver that I could book for that time and day. I reckoned that if I could book him personally, I could avoid the risk of missing my train while waiting for any random grab driver to respond. If indeed there were less grab drivers operating, the waiting time could become too excessive as to cause me to miss the train.

Someone in my whatsapp group did responded to give me a contact number for a grab driver that she knows. Thankfully, I contacted the person and was able to establish communications with him. However because the time for the pickup was for the very early hours of the morning, that is, at 0445 hrs, and because my house was very near to the train station, he was reluctant to fetch me. Most likely he was not doing his rounds at that time of the day.

This also confirmed my fear that not many grab drivers would be working at that time of the day.

Then I got a message from another friend in the whatsapp group, “I can be your grab. I’ll kidnap you on Saturday at 4.45am and release at 5.00am at the railway station. OK?” I thought he was pulling my leg, but on further confirmation, he said he meant it.

Wow! That’s fantastic news! What a kind gesture! A friend in need is a friend indeed. To sacrifice his sound sleep at this hour, truly it was indeed an example of true love.

Which brings me back to the topic of angels in our lives. Sometimes we find them ever ready to render assistance when we find ourselves in dire need. Was my friend an angel?

To me, he behaved like one.

Written by: Thomas Yoon, www.divinemercylamp.com/yoon