Do you believe in angels, guardian angels? I do. They’ve saved my pathetic rear end more times than I can count. I’m talking about miracles, things that should have happened at times when I could easily have been a goner, but they didn’t. I can’t explain it. I can’t prove it, but one accepts such things on faith. No proof is necessary. Believe or not. I’ve never seen an angel. None have ever directly addressed me, yet I choose to believe. and not just because every now and then, something comes along that can’t be easily explained away.
Regular readers will remember the story of Katie Lentz, a young woman whose car was hit head on by a drunk driver. I wrote two articles about her in August and September of 2013. Pinned in her car, severally injured, rescue squads couldn’t get her out, couldn’t get to her. Their tools didn’t work. Her vital signs were failing; she was dying.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a Catholic priest appeared. He prayed with her, and a sense of calm came over everyone. Two firefighters clearly, unmistakably, heard someone–or something–telling them that they should remain calm, their tools would work, and they would get her out. And they did, and she survived. When the firefighters looked for the priest, he had vanished. A firefighter took 70 photos of the scene, one after the other. The priest didn’t appear in any of them.
Eventually, Fr. Patrick Dowling came forward. He was the priest. He just happened to be driving by at exactly the right place and the right time. He just happened to be there at precisely the moment that everyone, including Katie, believed she would die, and the moment she asked those present to pray aloud for her, and there he was. A priest, who did what he was sent to do, and then humbly went about his business.
Some will choose to believe it was nothing but a happy coincidence, but for one thing: firefighters–immediately after Fr. Dowling prayed–heard a voice telling them their tools would, after hours of failure, work, that they would save Katie. No one there said it. Fr. Dowling made clear he did not tell them that, yet they heard it, knew it, and it was true.
The word for which you’re searching, if you’re thinking seriously about this, is “ineffable.”
But now, another “coincidence,” though I believe it to be, as with the case of Katie Lentz, a miracle, an angelic intervention. See what you think, via Fox News.
Four police officers rushing to an overturned car in an icy Utah river say they all heard the same thing: a mysterious female voice calling out ‘Help,’ from inside the vehicle.
But the driver of the car was dead and her 18-month-old daughter, while still alive, couldn’t have been the speaker.
It was a mystery that continues to haunt the officers – and may never be explained.
That can’t be. It has to be a coincidence. Things like that just don’t happen. Only weak-minded people believe that kind of thing. They just thought they heard something, or they were mistaken.
Jennifer and Lily Groesback
Officer Jared Warner of the Spanish Fork Police Department was one of the first who came to the rescue of tiny Lily Groesback, who was strapped in a seat in the back of her mother’s [Jennifer] car, which was precariously hanging upside down in 40-degree water.
‘We’ve gotten together and just talk about it and all four of us can swear that we heard somebody inside the car saying, ‘Help,’ Warner told Deseret News.
But when they flipped over the midsized car, they discovered a 25-year-old woman dead in the front seat and Lily unconscious in her car seat.
‘The only people in there were the deceased mother and the child,’ Officer Bryan Dewitt told the paper.
Officer Tyler Beddoes said they can’t explain it, but have no doubt they heard it.
‘It wasn’t just something that was just in our heads. To me it was plain as day cause I remember hearing a voice,’ Beddoes told the Deseret News. ‘I think it was Dewitt who said, ‘We’re trying. We’re trying our best to get in there.’ How do you explain that? I don’t know,’ he said.
I know how to explain it.
Nobody knows exactly how the infant survived hanging upside down for nearly 14 hours in her car seat with no food or water. As she dangled, icy water rushed just below her head through broken car windows as the vehicle sat perched on the bank and rocks. The temperatures were near freezing throughout the night and through the morning.
‘It’s heartbreaking. Was she crying most the night?’ said Beddoes, a 30-year-old father of two. ‘It’s a miracle. . . She was needed for sure elsewhere.
Police don’t know why the accident happened. There are no obvious signs, no obvious reasons. As in the case of Katie Lentz, as with so much of life, perhaps this was a manifestation of the eternal battle of good and evil. That battle rages around us constantly, and within us as well, but we’re not often so obviously aware of it. The opportunity to see the unexplainable–that which cannot be proved–and to embrace faith is not often so clear, so brightly visible.
The weather could have killed little Lily; it should have killed her. Hanging upside down in the car seat for 14 hours could and should have killed her. The crash should have killed her. She should have drowned. She survived, and as this article is posted, she is recovering.
Beddoes said the family has thanked him and the other officers for helping to save little Lily. As he recalls the events of those chaotic moments, on a frigid but sunny day, Beddoes still can’t believe the girl survived — and still can’t make sense of that undeniable voice coming from the car.
“We all got together and we all heard the same type of thing,’ Beddoes said. ‘We just can’t grasp what we were hearing.
Sure they can. All it takes is faith.
By the way, “Ineffable” means: “too great, powerful, beautiful…to be described.”
Stately McDaniel Manor 
Thank you for sharing this Mr. McDaniel. It came at just the right time. May God bless you and keep you Lily Groesbeck.
The Truth (and answers) are to be found within. (But many in this day and age are too afraid to look there for there are “other things” there as well.)
Mike I am going to recite an incident from my own life and yes it involves a car accident. I was only 4 and a half at the time of the accident. I have no memory of the crash. My oldest sister was in a coma for 2 weeks afterwards and she survived. My recitation is about something that happened prior to the accident, and yes I remember moving from the front seat where I was sitting on my mother’s lap to the back seat with my brother and sisters. My mother assured me that it happened moments before the accident and it was as if I was told to move, but I do not remember hearing anyone.
Now here is the rest of the story or at least a part of my life story because when I was in Townsville I did hear a voice telling me to make phone contact with my sister (yes the same one) and when I contacted her it was to learn that a car had knocked into her but she was ok. In recent years this same sister made news when a man knocked her for 6 leaving her bruised and battered, She was lucky that she did not hit the brick fence.
Two more stories, and one is sad. There was a child, a lovely little girl, and I knew her grandmother. One morning at Church I looked at her and a thought came to me saying that this child had a brain tumour. I did not act on that information. Within the space of a few weeks I learned that the child had a glioma which is an aggressive malignant brain tumor. She passed away 6 months later. Last year there was another incident involving the mother of my grand-daughters. We were at her parents’ home and when I looked at her a voice told me that she was pregnant. She did not know she was pregnant at the time!! A few weeks later we had a phone call and sure enough we were told another baby was on the way. Our new grand-daughter was born on December 5, almost 9 months after my father-in-law passed away.
There have been other incidents but I will not recite them here. So yes I believe. I believe in angels and I believe in Father, Son and Holy Spirit who are three in one.
Dear Aussie:
Good to hear from you. Amen.