“In the wilderness you saw how the Lord your God carried you, just as a man carries his son.”
Deuteronomy 1:31 (NASB)
These words in Deuteronomy are filled with tenderness and a reminder of the paternal love of God, who carries all of us as a man carries a son. This is a figurative statement, since there are times in our lives that we are too tired, too broken or too weak to walk, but our Heavenly Father, spiritually carries us. It’s a beautiful metaphorical reminder of God’s love and intervention in our lives.
I heard a true story which depicts this image, except it is more than a metaphor. God sent a helper from Heaven to intervene and save a boy’s life, in the most mysterious, yet physical way.
A young man named Mark, along with his parents, told this story in a TV documentary. They shared events that cannot be explained in any other way except being a miracle.
Mark was 12 years old, when he went hiking alone in the woods near his home in rural Missouri. While walking, he felt a sharp pain in his ankle as the fangs of a venomous snake bit through his pants, piercing his skin. As the venom circulated through his body, both his legs soon became numb and his eyesight was getting blurry. Mark was all alone, and only about 150 yards from his home, he could no longer walk. He tried to crawl home, but grew increasingly weaker and began feeling faint.
Before losing consciousness, he recalls being picked up by a man, who came out of nowhere, wearing a white robe with a red belt. The mysterious stranger quickly carried him in his arms, as he told Mark he was going to be alright, and then Mark lost consciousness, remembering no more.
No one witnessed anything that happened, but his mother found him lying on their kitchen floor, unconscious. His parents saw the bite mark and swelling on his ankle and rushed him to the hospital. By the time he got to the hospital, his breathing was very shallow, but he was treated with antivenin, hospitalized and recovered two days later. When Mark woke up in the hospital he told his parents about the mysterious white robed man.
Mark couldn’t have crawled home by himself since he was paralyzed from the venom and had passed out, and yet somehow a boy who was unconscious and paralyzed showed up 150 yards from the woods onto his kitchen floor. We can only speculate, since no one saw a man in the neighborhood who matched that description. The only explanation would be a supernatural one. Mark’s guardian angel appeared, wearing a white robe with a red belt and carried him home.
Angels often appear as regular people, dressed like any human being passing by, but in this case the man was dressed in heavenly attire, as if he hurried to step out of one dimension, to save the life of a boy in another. The guardian angel, who was assigned to protect Mark, took no time to disguise himself, since time was of the essence.
Today Mark is a father, raising a son of his own, and fully understands how a man would carry his own son in a moment of danger and urgency, as the angel of the Lord carried him home that day, to get the medical help he urgently needed.
Maybe miracles like this happen occasionally to remind us of the goodness of God, and that He really is intervening in our lives at times, even when we don’t see an angel in a white robe.
God gives us many illustrations of His paternal love throughout scripture, and He still carries us, in Spirit, when our souls are weary. I think of it as a “Jesus hug”, which everyone needs these days.
Lord, thank you for the miraculous messengers you have ordered to help us all the days of our life and and for your fatherly compassion to carry us in Spirit whenever necessary. Amen
