And Then I Saw an Angel: My Long Road to Faith
By Rick Rector
Rick is a Certified Web Designer and Seagull Software Consultant, the Director of Technical Operations for both EcuMiniNet™ Online! and FaithShapes!(R) at www.faithshapes.com. He is the founder of Atomic Pixels Design in Birmingham, AL.

This is a story of how I learned to have faith and found God. Or how God chose to show me things that would give me no choice but to have faith! It is a very personal story. But I decided to share it, hoping that it may help others like me.

As a child we always attended church on Wednesday nights and Sundays. This continued until my parents divorced when I was 15. When that happened my mother had to begin working. And many weeks she worked 6 days a week. So Sundays became a day of rest for her. We still attended church occasionally, but ended up drifting away from it.

I began attending again during my first marriage. It was also during this time that I began becoming disillusioned somewhat with the church. There was a lot of political infighting. You would hear stories of regular church attendees having affairs. And you would see "Christians" in church on Sunday and drunk in a bar on Monday nights. Hypocrisy seemed to be everywhere, which was a big turnoff for me. Also about this time my wife and I divorced. I also left the church.

During the next few years I didn't attend church at all except on Easter when I would go with my mother. She had remarried and had become deeply religious. She worked very hard for her church and was always doing good deeds for her community, and for people that needed help. And many of these things I was not aware of until years later. I thought that if there was a perfect "Christian", my mother was surely an example of that.

Shortly after I remarried something happened that would push me away from God even more. My mother was killed in a car accident, just a block from her home. I was devastated. I simply didn't understand why God would allow someone like her to be taken suddenly away like that; someone that was so devoted to God, someone who had dedicated much of her time to doing good. I talked to ministers about it, and got no satisfying answers. I was even wondering if there really was a God. You see I am a very logical person. I wanted proof. I was told to just have faith. But I could not have "faith" in something of which I had never seen any "proof"!

So I continued on… not attending church, not having faith. I was in an in-between world as far as God was concerned, sometimes believing, but more often than not really doubting the existence of God. I was the odd man out in my family as well. My children attended church regularly with their mother and are deeply religious. My sister and her family were deeply religious. Both my father and my stepfather became deeply religious after my mother's death. Everyone but me. I was just bitter.

So my life rolled along smoothly until November of 2000. That month my wife, whom I loved dearly, told me she thought she was in love with another man. This was complete shock to me as we had had a very happy marriage of almost 10 years. Again I was devastated. But out of this crisis came my journey toward faith.

We began counseling and quite by chance (we just picked a name out of the phone book) began seeing a wonderful counselor. My wife and I would see him both together and separately. He came to the conclusion that, besides the problems between my wife and I, that neither of us had any faith, any spirituality. So my sessions with the counselor began to focus on my faith and spirituality. And I opened up to him with all of my bitterness and doubts toward God.

During one session we discussed why I was so "turned off" by the church and by God. So I explained about all the politics and the hypocrisy. I'll never forget his answer to me. It was such a simple answer, one I should have found myself, and one that started me to change my thinking. He said, "Rick, you are judging God by the people that are in church!" He was right.

Well, this stirred some thinking. I decided to talk to a co-worker and good friend. This friend is deeply religious and I needed her thoughts on all this. We talked on the phone for six hours! I told her I was still not convinced that God would help me. We also discussed my marriage, which continued to get worse and worse. My friend asked if I had been praying. Because I hadn't, she suggested that I pray not to save my marriage, but to pray for people to come into my life that would help me make it through this difficult time.

And so I did. I prayed for God to help me to survive. And I prayed for God to show me "proof" that He even existed. Arrogant I suppose, but I had nothing to lose.

Well, to my great surprise, things began to happen. About this time the husband of a good friend of my mother, died. I wanted to go to the funeral, but it was in the same chapel that we had had funeral services for my mother. So I decided not to go. Then the day of the funeral arrived and I suddenly changed my mind.

I went to the chapel and sat on the back row. I even slumped down in the pew. A minister from a small country church was doing the service. The topic of this service was how Joe, the husband of my mother's good friend, had found God and faith.

Well, that blew me away since those subjects were so much on my mind. But then, at the end of the sermon, I got a real shock. Sitting there in the back of the chapel, the minister's eyes met mine. He was looking right into my eyes and I was frozen. And he said, "there are people in this chapel right now who have no faith, who don't believe. People that pursue money and possessions above pursuing spirituality and faith. And you need to stop that, and stop right now." There was silence for a few seconds, but he continued to look right at me. Then he turned away and said the closing prayer. As for me I was in shock and fighting back tears. How did he know I had this battle going on inside me? Was this the beginning of Gods "proof" that I so wanted?

We left the chapel and walked outside to the graveside service. It was bitter cold that day and the wind was blowing hard. And I had not brought a coat. I was freezing! Well, the graveside service was over and I was ready to go. The shock of the service in the chapel was still with me. My car was blocked in so even though it was cold I decided to walk to my mother's grave. And then another strange thing happened which I still have not understood. I knelt by her grave, and I remember saying a prayer. And I was so cold. After what I thought was a few minutes I stood up and looked down to where my car was. It was sitting by itself. I looked at my watch. Forty-five minutes had passed! And I was not cold either. Very strange.

I had a session with the counselor the next day and I was eager to tell him what had happened. He told me God was trying to help me, if I would let him. He said He was giving me my proof I so desired. At the end of the session the counselor said, "Rick, you must know God is with you, he has been with you all your life. I knew he was with you the first day you walked into my office." I was surprised at him saying that and asked how he knew that. The counselor answered, "Because he guided you to me, and I know I have helped you. That first session you told me you picked my name at random out of the phone book. Don't you think God was guiding your finger that day? I do." Tears came to my eyes. Yes, I did think that God was guiding me that day.

So what about this angel? About this time things were going very badly for me. It was becoming obvious my marriage was not going to be saved, and I was praying all the time. It seems that God had one last thing to show me.

I sleep like a rock. I sleep through tornadoes and storms. Once my eyes are closed I don't open them till the next morning. And I also don't dream. Or if I do, I don't remember them.

I went to bed and as I lay there I said a prayer and then quickly fell asleep. In the middle of the night, 3:05 a.m. to be exact, I sat up straight in the bed wide-awake and immediately looked to my left. There a few feet above the floor was a woman from the waist up. A white misty-like background surrounded her. She was wearing white robe-like clothing. She had creamy white skin and long blonde very curly hair. Her facial features were angular. It was a beautiful sight. And immediately it came into my mind that she was an Angel. And I wasn't afraid. She remained there for maybe 8-10 seconds, then smiled and faded away. I sat there a few more seconds then lay back down and strangely fell right back to sleep.

I awoke the next morning and immediately thought about what I had seen. I was sure it was an angel. Me, the doubter, the logical and scientific thinker! I had seen what I needed for my proof.

I went to see the counselor the next day. I cried as I told him the story. And the counselor cried too. He asked me if I now had faith, if I now truly believed in God. I told him yes, I did. I asked him if he believed that I really saw an angel. My counselor told me that he believes in angels and was sure that I had seen one. And he laughed and said it was obvious that I believed that is what I had seen.

New people, people of faith began to enter my life. And, although everything in my life is still very difficult and I have many daily challenges, things don't seem to trouble me nearly as much as they did. I feel that life will somehow turn out OK. I have faith that God is there to help me and that He will never give me more than I can handle. No, I'm not the "perfect Christian". I still make mistakes, still make a wrong choice now and again. But I feel that God knows we cannot be perfect. He just wants us to believe, to have faith, and to try.

I am a very private person, so it has taken a lot for me to make these very personal experiences public. But, if it will help another person like me it will be worth it. So for all the logical, scientific people out there that have doubts, I think if you will just try, just reach out for God perhaps He will show you what you want to see. And maybe, just maybe, you will discover that an angel is with you, too.

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