Would God send an Angel in human form to speak to me?

The answer is YES! ABSOLUTELY! The Bible cleary states that this occurs in Hewbrews 13:2. "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for thereby some have entertained angels."

Something happened to me about 10 years ago that changed my life forever. I believe an Angel was sent to teach me something. I would hope that if a person were visited by an angel, they would never forget it and it would change their life forever. My angel wasn't glowing and he didn't have wings or even look the least bit heavenly. God has been directing me to share the story here.

At the time I worked for a financial manager (stock broker). This man and his wife were very well off. Together, their gross income was over $350K per year and they had well over $100K in the stock market. If anyone had means to give to the needy, they were the people to do so. Our office was just off a main street in Tulsa. Our office was a stand alone building so there was no office or lobby to go through to get to us. When entering the office, a person would be in a waiting room of sorts with a very nice conference room on the left and a half wall directly across from the front door. My desk was behind that half wall. My boss and another broker had offices that were adjacent to my space but my boss could not see the front door from his office.

In the past I had assisted a few stranded motorists and the like that came through the door. On each occasion I was rewarded with a tongue lashing and threats from my boss about using my time or, should I say HIS time on other people. So, I was well aware of my employer's feelings about helping others.

It was a very cold Winter morning. Normally, in Oklahoma the temperature never drops below zero. It will get down to the teens for a night or 2 but never actually below zero but this particular week it had been below zero for 2 nights in a row. A man walked in the front door and I got up to greet him. He looked so cold. I think he must have had on 4 or 5 layers of clothes. He wasn't dirty and he really didn't look like a homeless person. He had on a Carhart jacket, jeans and work boots. I asked him if I could help him and he looked at me as sincerely as a person can and said, "Mam, I am looking for some work - any work at all. I just can NOT spend one more night in the cold. I only need $4 to spend the night inside at the Y (YMCA) downtown. Is there anything here I could do to earn some money?"

It just so happened that I had a crisp $20 bill in my purse that I had retrieved from the ATM on my way to work. Now, in those days, it was very rare for me to have more than $5 - $10 dollars in my pocket at any one time so that $20 may as well have been $1000 back then. I thought about that money for a split second and argued in my head that I should just go get it and give it to the man. But instead, I reasoned that surely Sam would help this man by letting him clean the windows or something. I was wrong. Dead wrong.

I walked into his office and explained that a man was asking if he could do some work in order to earn enough money to stay at the Y. Sam got out of his chair, walked around his desk and headed towards the front office. When he got to where the man was standing, the man held out his hand to shake Sam's hand. Sam recoiled in discust (really) and told the man he would not touch him and then told the man to get out of his office and never to come back again. THIS is the moment I will never forget. I have never seen a more dejected, humiliated and embarrassed look on anyone. The man thanked Sam for his time, turned and walked out the door. I was stunned. I couldn't move. Sam proceeded to chew me out for even considering giving this man work. And at at that moment is where I failed. I didn't tell Sam that the homeless man was a far greater man that Sam would ever be. I didn't go to my desk, get my belongings and tell him what he could do with his job. I was a coward. All I could think about was me and what it would mean to my family if I quit that job.

About an hour later it was my half hour lunch. The minute the clock hit the hour, I grabbed my purse with the $20 bill inside, headed to my car and searched that entire stretch of road for that man. Not only would I have given him that money but I would have driven him the 5 miles to the downtown Y. I looked in every parking lot, around every business and anywhere I thought that many could be but he had vanished! I could not find him anywhere. I went back to work totally crushed but I have never forgotten that day nor will I. From that day forward, if someone asked me for money I gave it and I still do. Even if I only have a dollar, I will give it to them. Its not my place to judge them or what they may or may not do with that dollar. Jesus didn't say to give if you deem that they will use the gift appropriately. He said to give. Period.

It wasn't until later that it occurred to me that the man who came to my office may have very well been an angel. Lord knows the lesson I recieved that day could not have been any stronger if it had come from an angel. It truly changed my life and I will never forget it.

So, my words to you are this - do not be too quick to judge the person in front of you as worthless, non-important, a loser or whatever other judgemental thing you might think whereby you tell yourself you are far better than this person. I'm quite certain God is not going to send a King to get his message across. He is going to send someone that the world sees as lesser or even as having no value at all.

I still pray for that man. If he was real then I pray that he found warmth that night and every night after. I don't even think I could pick him out of a crowd now but I will never forget him just the same.