I have no doubt there are angels, higher beings than protections, guides, earth deities and animal spirits. The highest of the angelic orders is the archangel. The most familiar of them are Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. The difference in working with angels is that, never having had human experiences, they truly do not know what it is to feel pain, be ill, and mourn or to be human in any aspect. What they are is pure, total conditional love. They are there to help, protect and guide us and all we have to do is ask. I never thought much about angels because there was a long period in my life in which I felt abandoned by any god or loving presence. I was floundering in despair one loss after another, one confusion after another and one illness or hardship after another. The greatest turning point spiritually for me began to happen about eleven years ago. I want to tell you my story about Raphael and me.
Although there are many hardships I could share, the following experiences happened at a at a time in my life when I finally believed all the hardship was ending and I felt I could begin to rebuild my life. After many years as a widow, I met someone and I remarried. We relocated out of the city, in upstate New York to fulfill lifelong dreams. EVERYTHING WENT WRONG. Although I had spent a lifetime searching for something spiritual to believe in, the security of faith and trust had eluded me. It always seemed out of reach. I scoffed at those who were ‘religious” because it seemed they gave credit to the celestials for the most minor thing. After all, the minor material matters were within our own control. I had never, through my hardest times, found any comfort from whoever God was. It seemed I wasn’t listened to so I just stopped asking. It never dawned on me that I simply never learned how to ask. Humility was not in my makeup. I was not going to ask for “more” like the waif Oliver when more of nothing would have amounted to that- more of nothing. For this was how much of my life had been—one loss after another, one hardship after another and bankruptcy.
My husband Ralph’s old job injuries suddenly escalated into incapacitation and his inability to work. I got injured on my job and could not work. Since I had just started the job, I had no sick time with which I could sustain us and was let go because the position was an essential one working with wheelchair bound people who had to have full staffing. Unable to pay our rent, utilities or buy food, we ultimately, by court order, faced imminent homelessness. If all this weren’t enough, my mother was hospitalized with what had been her ninth stroke. She now required twenty-four hour skilled nursing care which my husband and I simply could not provide, much less the cost of the medication needed. She required a nursing home setting. Residence in a nursing home would guarantee all her medical needs would be fully provided and paid for. The care in the hospital as she waited for placement was less than optimum. Because hospitals deal strictly with medical problems, the nursing staff was ill prepared to deal with a geriatric patient. Since she was out of medical danger, the hospital was pushing to discharge her either home or to a nursing care facility and tried to send her to the first place that had an opening regardless of convenience or quality. At the same time, we had three weeks to leave or be evicted and lose everything we owned. The hospital continued threatening to move my mother to a facility not on our selection list. After three months in the hospital, loss of appetite and depression (for she knew could never live at home again) I feared for her life. I feared she would die before one of the quality nursing homes in our area could accept her. All of this was going on and hopelessness too.
It was on a day of a too early winter that I sat in a freezing house. The electric had been shut off because of non-payment. I sat thinking about how we had come to all of this. We started out all hopes and happiness and here we were jobless, soon to be homeless and not doing well in the optimism department, either.
Although my husband’s injuries were related to a previous job accident, his compensation paperwork had been lost making it impossible to even begin to reopen his case in a timely manner. We were faced with the harsh fact that there was not going to be even a little assistance for sometime from compensation. We applied for Public Assistance to pay our rent so we would not be homeless, and pay utilities, food and my husband’s much needed doctor and medication expenses. After-all, we had NO MONEY! People fortunate enough to have never fallen upon this type of hardship frankly have no idea how “systems” really work. First, we were told we had mismanaged money on medication and doctor’s visits, which are optional expenses. We were told that our income tax return showed we made $500.00 too much in the previous year to get assistance now. The $500.00 “extra” was no where to be found. It had been two months since we’d had any income at all which was not a consideration in the least. In short, Social Services had refused our application for food stamps, emergency rent, fuel and electric. I decided two things. First, people who work for social services seem to enjoy giving people bad news and second, we should just get ready to live in the forest (We lived in a rural area). My husband had also, per his doctor’s recommendation, applied for disability but most people also do not know that Social Security applications take at least six months for even a response (He was denied but won later on appeal).
It was on this day that I found an old prayer book of my mother’s. I never understood prayer, praise or giving thanks during hardships because, as I said, it seemed to me that if one gave thanks when life was hard well, then that was just what you would continue to get. Never having found comfort in ‘prayer’ it was something I rarely did. But, on this day of dark (we had no electricity), cold (no heat) and abject hopelessness I happened to find an old prayer book of my mother’s. For the lack of anything else to be done, I flipped through it. As if I turned to the page myself, this book opened to a prayer to Raphael, the Archangel with the advice to ask whatever you needed, whether you believed or not for you had the right to ask the assistance of this angelic being. As I read the meditation and made my supplication, sorrow and despair welled up inside me for I was truly desperate yet, at the same time I began to feel as if I were talking to a beloved parent or older sibling who not only knew what I was going through but, who would solve my problems for me. By the time I had finished this prayer I felt such relief, such comfort as I had never felt before that it all did not seem real. The prayer did not seem real, nor did my problems.
My husband and I were facing homelessness. As I mentioned before we had three weeks before we had to leave and we had no place to go. My mother, on the other hand, lay weak and ill desperately needing the rehabilitative and recreational programs only the nursing homes of OUR choice could offer. I prayed that her needs be met.
The day after I began these meditations I received a call from the hospital’s attorney offering to assist with my mother’s placement free of charge! We met with him and he immediately began work removing the obstacles preventing her placement. The following week, my mother was in the very nursing home we wanted her to be in.
During that week, there were other “miracles” for there is no other way to describe the following course of events. After seeing the hospital attorney and knowing my mother’s matters were being attended to, I then asked that somehow, we find a place within two weeks. The following night, an acquaintance called us to say they knew people who might rent their summer cottage to us but just for the winter. We called them and, without meeting us (as they had already gone back to their winter home) they agreed to rent this cottage at an amount we could afford from month to month. To be sure, it was a cold winter but we managed on kerosene heaters and gratitude for as a result of this, I finally learned what a blessing is. The week before we had to move as we could not pay all the back rent at that time, I got a phone call from a job I had applied for some months back. This was a job I could handle, as it did not require the physical aspects I could no longer do due to my injury. My mother was moved to the nursing home of our choice that same day I began my new job! Since we only a had week to be out completely now I got up at 5am, packed, moved then took a cold shower before leaving for work because we still had no heat. I would then come back and continue packing and moving with my husband until 3am the next morning. And so it went until we moved into our temporary setting.
When our landlords were ready to return that following spring, we worried again for although I had been working, we had only been able to pay back electric and some of the rent from our eviction. We did not have the money for more rent plus the deposit and security most landlords required. Our lack of money hindered our search for our next place. During this time, I continued my meditations to Raphael. I would ask him to sustain my faith and to grant me faith when it was failing. I thanked The Creator for the blessings of our shelter and what meager food we had. I asked for guidance to help me through each day. I asked for anything, everything, whatever I needed! And I was always granted some measure of what I needed. When you consider everything we had been through, truly our needs were being met. It was a time during which I discovered something incredibly unique: something to believe in.
Within a couple of weeks, my husband received his first real workmen’s compensation payment which went back years to the date of the injury that ultimately disabled him. With this, we were able to find yet another meager place that again was just offered to us by people we hardly knew! We were able to try to adjust to our losses and began doing so slowly but with optimism. I continued to thank our Creator each and everyday and now learned how to ask for hope when I felt I lacked it, to ask for faith to ensure that I never lose it, and to always be grateful. Then, I realized when my faith was in doubt, I did not trust. So I asked for trust. When I had moments of sadness for all we’d been through, I asked for joy of heart. When I worried about bills, I asked for peace of mind. I soon realized miracles are all those little things we cannot always do by ourselves such as having endless stamina, faith and trust. I also learned that one must permit miracles to happen.
We lived here for about a year and a half when everything went wrong with the house we were renting. It became uninhabitable. No running water, snails that flowed into the tub through the hose attached to the pump we had put in the well. Just to flush the toilet we had to pour in pails of water.
We had to shower in bathing suits from a camp shower bag in a horse trailer! We hand to hang that camp shower bag in the sun all day long in order to have warm water. Our only consolation was that it was summertime but, the crispness of autumn would soon be upon us and our landlords were simply refusing to repair these problems. I could not understand why it was so hard to just be in one place! I was angry and I was afraid. “Not again, not another move!” Was all I could think. So we stopped paying rent and pursued legal action— and lost! We got evicted again and had to look for another place to live.
One day as I was packing, my husband came in with a booklet from a real estate company. “Look at this,” he said. “I’m tired of all the moving. It’s time we bought our own place.” I looked at him as if he were crazy. We had been bankrupted, had no credit cards, had a history of utilities being cut off and being evicted twice. We only had weeks to move and he was talking about buying a house! “I don’t how we’d get our own place hon, who would give us a mortgage?” He said simply. “With the help of Raphael. We will get our own place. Just leave it to him.” I found myself saying.
There was a part of me that felt intimidated to ask. This was a tall order and I was afraid Raphael would finally say no. But, desperation brings desperate action and ask I did. Within one week, we found the ideal place for us and had enough money to purchase the “binder.” A couple of months after that, my husband got an increase in his compensation based on the severity of his injury (again retroactive to the date of the accident) which enabled us to go into contract. As yet, we did not have a mortgage but we were going on faith so we refused to believe we would not have our house.
Months later the closing neared and we had two problems. We did not have the money for the down payment and we still did not have a mortgage. Then the owner offered to finance the down payment as a second mortgage and the right after that, the representative working with us on a mortgage actually gave us the news that we were finally approved! Then, one more glitch became known. The closing costs would be $8,000.00. Money we again did not have. During this time, my husband had a disability hearing through the Social Security Administration. It had been a three-year battle. He’d been awarded disability by the judge but we were waiting for the money to actually arrive. The week of the closing, this back money came in the mail and we closed!
As of this writing, it has been four years since we bought our own home against unbelievable odds. But, looking back, we now know we had help all along the way. I wish we hadn’t had all the hardships but then again didn’t I say I had always wanted something to believe in? All those hard times brought me to this juncture: Having wanted to believe in something, I was given it. I was also given everything ever needed once I believed.