Angels Among Us

I do believe that there are angels among us. I'm posting an email I got from my sister, Annie, about a pretty uncanny event in my brother's life:

Ray got hired up at the McDonald’s where April works but hadn’t actually started yet. It was a job, but he really wasn’t looking forward to it, since 1) it’s McDonalds (again) 2) it’s the food industry (again) and 3) it’s just the same old stuff, again. But hey, it’s a paycheck, and that’s how he was looking at it.

Last week, Ray was donating plasma for bus/cigarette money, which he does about once a week or so. He was sitting next to an older lady, and next to her was some other guy. The guy and the lady were talking, and she was saying how she needed a job but no one was hiring. The guy told her that he was the general manager of the Big Lots up the road, and that they were looking for cashiers and people to work the floor. He told her to come in Monday morning at 9am to fill out an application and he would see if they had something for her.

Well, Ray heard all of this, and there was no way he was going to sit there silently while some guy was handing out jobs. So he chimed in, “Hey, sorry to interrupt you, but I couldn’t help overhear… I’m also looking for a job, and that Big Lots is right around the corner from my house… would it be alright if I came in Monday morning at 9am also?” The guy said, “Sure!” He gave both Ray and the lady his name, Mike Johnson, and talked to them about the positions they had available and what kind of experience they had. Then the guy left, and Ray and the lady chatted about how lucky they were to have gotten a seat next to that guy!

Monday morning, 9am, both Ray and the lady show up at Big Lots. They both fill out applications and ask for Mike Johnson, the general manager.

No one had ever heard of him. “Mike Johnson” had never managed this or any other Big Lots in town.

Nevertheless, they were there and they had their applications filled out. The lady got hired on the spot as a cashier, and Ray is now a salesman in their furniture department!

So, it seems that Ray and the lady were visited by an angel at the plasma center. When Ray told me this story, his voice was shaking and he could barely wrap his head around what this job means for him. Everyone always told him he’d make a great salesman, and Mom used to say he could sell ice to Eskimos. It’s not waiting tables. It’s not building houses. He will, for the first time in over a decade, learn a new skill. He said he wasn’t even nervous about it, and I said that’s because this job is what he is meant to do, at least at this point in his life. He said that getting this job made him feel like he was actually moving forward for the first time in a long time, instead of just going in circles.


So, there you go. If you pray, pray for my brother, and give thanks for angels among us.

Kathy