Guardian Angels Drive Big Trucks

Growing up, I had little awareness of the guardian angels. I first heard a talk on the reality of guardian angels in college.

Soon after hearing this talk, I hit the road with the Princeton Ski Team to go to a regional competition in West Virginia in the middle of a snow storm. As my friend’s car slid around on the narrow, winding roads through the mountains in the middle of the night, I uttered my first plea to my guardian angel. Within seconds a large orange snowplow/salt truck pulled out right in front of us and we were forced to slow down to a crawl, being unable to pass, driving on a freshly plowed and salted road. The image flashed into my head of a renaissance angel behind the wheel of an oversized snow plow. After that, I knew I would be speaking with my guardian angel more often.

The Catechism assures us of the existence of guardian angels, “From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession. Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life.” What a wonderful blessing! An angel of our very own! Yesterday’s meditation in In Conversation with God states, “We have to treat our guardian angel as we would a good friend. He is always on the watch, constantly prepared to give us aid, if only we would ask him.” So ask him, we must.

Since having children (especially boys!), my devotion to our guardian angels has increased. We begin each morning asking our guardian angel to watch over us. And I make many more pleas throughout the day. They can help us avoid temptations and to focus during prayer. And they can help us in very physical things, like (today) finding a parking place when I had to run into the pharmacy with a sick child.

If we are in the car and the kids are getting fussy I ask for the help of their angels and a big cement truck or a school bus usually come rolling by just in time to remind me of God’s presence and that he is watching over us in the little trails of ordinary life. For some people, it is a flower or a butterfly that can remind them of God’s hand in the details of ordinary life. For me, it’s a truck with my guardian angel at the wheel.