Raphael, the Messenger

God is always on duty. He's always on the ball to meet our needs and desires.
One day I had taken a basket of food and a plant to the family of my good friend and prayer partner Cathi whose step father had died. It really was a cute basket and I knew it would please Cathi and her family and add my love to the sad occasion.
During the next week I was a little concerned about my youngest son who was traveling in Europe and the Middle East on business. For some reason I had a gnawing feeling in my gut about his trip, not fearful, just concern. I had prayed regularly about his safe return to his family many times a day during the week, just like I always do when someone in the family is traveling.
When I got Cathi's grateful note in the mail thanking me for the basket of goodies I had taken to her, I immediately noticed that it was written on note paper which had a familiar picture of two angels on the front. After I read her gracious note of thanks, I turned the note over to see if the name of the artist of the familiar painting was written on the back.
"Hallelujah," I immediately exclaimed, being flooded with peace about my son when I looked at the name of the artist. The name was Raphael, a name that meant a great deal to me. Twenty-eight years ago when my son entered the Navy I was distressed about his safety in the military. God had directed me to an unusual book called Tobit, found in the Apocrapha, which I had found in an old Roman Catholic translation of the Bible. Raphael was the name of the angel God had sent to protect the son of Tobit when his son was traveling to foreign lands. When I read the book I became confident that God was going to also protect my son while he was in the Navy, which he did.
In the incident involving the card I was again infused with peace about my son's trip to Europe and the Middle East, another reminder that the angel Raphael was still on duty to protect my son on his journeys, just like He always had. My son called that night from Israel, relating that he was safe and was being treated like a dignitary. Of course Raphael would arrange that, too.
In relaying this story to Cathi about the faith and peace I had received from the note, I heard her side of the story. She said that she was writing many thank you notes on other note paper but had a desire to search to see if she still had the paper with the picture of angels when she wrote to me. Sure enough, she had one note left, so she wrote her note of gratitude to me on the anointed paper. She certainly didn't know that she was participating with God in giving me peace relating to the safe return of my son.
Now I'm the one sending words of gratitude, both to God for His gift of peace and to Cathi for obeying the urge to use the special paper for a special message to me from God.
Journeying with God is a ball!

THANKS TO GOD AND BEVERLY

Beverly Sills was never one of my favorite singers, but God used her in a dream as an example to me of how I was to triumph over breast cancer. Many years ago I woke from a good night’s sleep and immediately remembered a dream I had had that night. The dream was very vivid, not like many hazy dreams that we have. I wrote the dream in my journal and put it away for future reference. In the dream I saw a picture of Beverly Sills in which she was completely surrounded by yellow gladiolas and yellow roses. There was no dialogue in the dream, just the picture. Several day later I received one of my health magazines in the mail. I casually flipped through the pages of the magazine. To my shock and unbelief my eyes landed on the same picture of Beverly Sills that I saw in my dream. The only difference in the two pictures was the fact that in the magazine picture she was only surrounded by yellow gladiolas. Roses were not present in the magazine picture like they were in my dream. I hurriedly scanned the article and saw that she had overcome breast cancer. I put the article in my journal also. Several month later I discovered a lump in my right breast. The dream about Beverly Sills immediately popped into my mind. I previously had not completely read the article about her that accompanied the picture, but I now felt compelled to read the article in its entirety. I read in the article that her courage during her battle with breast cancer came from Rose Kennedy, who told Beverly that she had overcome many obstacles in life by putting her fist in the air and declaring, “I will not be defeated.” Rose Kennedy’s wisdom was an extra bonus for me. I felt that the roses were in the picture in my dream because God was personalizing the picture for me so that I would learn how to overcome the dreaded disease. My husband has always called me his Yellow Rose of Texas because yellow roses are my favorite flower. During the following weeks I regularly went to my journal to reread the article and look at the picture of Beverly, as well as read the description of my dream. I needed the extra boosts of faith because a tumor in my right lung had also been discovered. My friends were all praying for me and calling me to offer words of encouragement. On the appointed day of the surgery to remove the tumor from my lung, my husband and I arrived at the hospital a couple of hours earlier than we were scheduled to arrive. We couldn’t sleep, anyway, so we decided to arrive early. I was sent to a private hospital room to rest because we were too early. Almost immediately an attendant came with a gurney, informing me that that my surgery had been moved up to the first one of the day because two other surgeries had been cancelled. This was a strange happening, but it was good news to us. I was wheeled on the gurney into the pre-op room, and there was only one nurse in the room. When the gurney attendant left the room, the nurse immediately said to me, “Do you like roses?” I energetically replied, “ Yes,“ starting to cry at the awesomeness of the event, recalling my dream and the article about Beverly Sills and Rose Kennedy. The nurse left the pre-op room for a few minutes, then returned with the biggest yellow rose I had ever seen. She handed it to me, telling me that she had picked the bloom that morning, the first bloom from her bush. The bloom was the size of a salad plate, the most beautiful yellow rose I had ever seen. By this time I was sobbing with joy, but I managed to tell the nurse about the occurrences of the past few months. She immediately looked toward heaven and expressed thanksgiving to God for my healing. Words of praise and thanksgiving flooded the entire room from the two of us. After the lung operation, my joy rose to new heights when the pathologist returned with the report that the tumor in my lung was benign. The ensuring operation for the breast lumpectomy and months of radiation were a breeze because of the dream, the magazine article about Beverly and Rose, and the beautiful yellow rose from God that was handed to me by the nurse. Beverly has left this life and is now in heaven. She is walking among more beautiful flowers than we will ever see in the earth. I want to publicly thank her for the role she played in my miracle. I know she will relay my thanks to Rose Kennedy. They were used by God to infuse faith and courage into me at a time when it was necessary for me to have an overabundance of them. After sixteen years I continue to be cancer free, thanks to God and Beverly.
photo from richardnix@flickr.com

HEALING KISSES FROM GOD

God uses a variety of distributors to deliver His blessings. When our grandson Stephen was born, we were amazed at His choice of distributors.
Stephen was born six to eight weeks prematurely. Soon after the delivery it was discovered that he had had a stroke and there was a pool of blood in his brain. The prognosis of the doctors was that he might be palsied and that his motor skills would be grossly affected. Their comment was that the effects might not be evident until he began to walk. All of the family was distressed at the sad news, of course.
At this time my husband and I had seen many miracles in our lives in the prior twenty years. We knew that prayer changes things, so we began intercessory prayer for this tiny baby who didn't deserve what had happened to him, just as no baby deserves defects caused by birth.
We were confident in God's healing ability and were eagerly anticipating how He would choose to heal in this instance.
When we arrived at the Catholic church for his infant baptism ceremony we noticed that this was not a traditional church, but one with contemporary music and lots of rejoicing in praise and thanksgiving to God. This was just the kind of church my husband and I liked to attend, one based on love and joy.
There were about fifteen small children waiting to be baptized. When time for the multiple baptisms came, the priest made a starting statement, one that is rarely heard in a traditional church. He said, "We believe in this church that when we baptize a child that there is healing available for that child if the child is in need of it. "
Our ears perked up! We were elated because Stephen was certainly in need of a healing from the effects of the stroke and the premature birth. We quietly rejoiced throughout the entire baptism ceremony that God had provided just the right church and just the right priest to provide healing for Stephen.
Stephen is now 14 years old, a wonderful athlete with sharp mental acuity. He plays soccer and baseball and has no signs of ever having had a stroke as an infant.
We live our lives in awe of God and his orchestration of events which enable His servants to perform His miracles for people who are in need of them. It's a wonderful adventurous life when you know that God wants to meet every need that we have.
Stephen always has a smile on his face, even as a teenager. I think it's because of the God kisses he received at baptism.

The Lazarus Rose Bush

THE LAZARUS ROSE BUSH

Several years ago my husband and I were in a frustrating business dilemma. A trusted, long time employee had advised us that she was going to leave our employ and go to work for an associate of ours in another city. That was a shock, but one that could be easily solved because we could hire someone else.She also advised us that she was going to take a major part of our business with her to her new employer, leaving us with only a third of the businesses that we had serviced for years. This was a devastating blow. We were disappointed in her as well as our long time associate, with whom we had always been on very congenial terms business-wise as well as socially. Our dilemma was two fold: number one, we would be operating temporarily with one less employee; and, number two, we would certainly miss the huge chunk of business that she was taking with her. We stewed and stewed with our emotions ranging from anger to resentment to sadness and rejection, because the employee had been like a daughter to us and had worked for us for many years. We wanted the best for her but we were emotionally wounded by her actions. My husband and I both prayed and prayed about what to do. We didn't want to contact the clients she was taking with her and defame her character by telling them the whole story. That was not a valid choice for us. An idea come to my husband, that he should meet with her to see if we could work out some kind of compromise. We knew that we did not want there to be any strife or contention lingering between any of the involved parties: her, the associate and us. We knew the spiritual truth about keeping peace with all men. We knew the spiritual truth about forgiveness. This situation was hard, like being hit from two sides at once.It came to me that if she would not agree to negotiate with my husband about taking a large chunk of our business with her, that we should tell her that we would give it to her because we did not want any ill feelings to fester and corrupt the rest of our business. My husband had checked with an attorney and he had advised that we had a legitimate lawsuit, but that we should think long about pursuing legal action. The attorney said that our clients would have to get involved, having to choose sides, and would have to testify. He advised that it could ruin our business as well as the business of our associate. Certainly we didn�ft want that.My husband went to the meeting with our employee and came back with the knowledge that there was nothing we could do, that she was now an employee of our associate and was taking some of our business with her. My husband told her that because we are Christians that we were giving that portion of the business to her so as to avoid strife and contention. The next evening we took a long walk and prayed fervently for the ability to forgive her. We decided to forgive her and the associate as an act of our will, although there was no feeling of forgiveness that came along with that choice. Before we left for our walk that evening I had noticed that one of the ten rose bushes that we had planted six weeks prior to this time was still bare of leaves and the stalk and branches were black. I had asked my husband to please dig it up several times in the past two weeks because it was dead and the deadness of it was ruining the beauty of that rose bed. On this occasion of our walk, I again asked my husband to dig up the dead rose bush tomorrow. He assured me that yes, he would dig it up and put it on the pile of dead limbs destined for the city dump. We proceeded on our walk, praying about the business situation.The next morning I rose early and took another long walk, praying the entire time for a congenial solution to this problem in our business. As I prayed I continued to speak forgiveness to everyone involved in the situation as an act of my will because I certainly didn�ft feel forgiving. Coming back from my morning walk, as I rounded the entrance to our driveway the thought came to me to look at the dead rose bush. I reluctantly did it because I really didn't want to fix my gaze upon something dead in the beautiful rose garden. I was in no mood for it. As my gaze landed upon the subject rose bush, I couldn't believe my eyes. Overnight the rose bush had sprouted several green leaves on the dead stalks. Then the Voice that I had come to rely upon and knew to be the Voice of God said in my mind, "If I can bring life to that rose bush overnight, then I can bring new life to your business. Forgive her and never say anything negative about her or the associate again." I ran into the house and told my husband about the rose bush. He ran out the door, looked at the miracle, and he was just as amazed as I was that the dead bush was not only alive but it had sprouted leaves overnight. Neither one of us could believe our eyes. We decided on the spot to name the bush Lazarus. The Lazarus rose bush has been an inspiration to many people who have heard the story. One neighbor would often come to look at it when she needed faith for good outcomes to certain situations in her family. God was right. It seems foolish to say that because God is always right. Within just a few months we had new clients to replace the clients that she had taken with her to our former associate. In just a few years we had to employ three new people to help us handle the abundance of clients that God had replaced. God's principles of forgiveness and refusing to enter into strife are always true. God's proof of His love for us and His love for everyone involved in the situation is a huge lesson. I heard one woman say that when we pray and bring God into a situation that everyone wins. How true those words are. Everyone won in what could have been a disastrous situation if we had not brought God into it through prayer. We had to have His help and guidance in using two of the most important principles that He teaches, forgiveness and refusing to enter into strife and contention. God has never failed us. He never fails to provide solutions to every situation we encounter. He is the Great Problem Solver. The blooms on the Lazarus rose bush are a constant reminder of God's power to resurrect and restore situations and circumstances for His children. He loves doing it!

Heaven In Cincinnati

Saturday, September 15, 2007
HEAVEN IN CINCINNATI

Great airline prices sometimes carry strange scheduling paths.It always seems to be worth the roundabout trip because the savings are so great. We proved it on a recent adventure.Our trip from Oklahoma to California via Cincinnati was certainly worth the detour in February of 2007. The Cincinnati/North Kentucky airport welcomed us with a surprising spiritual experience.We had already flown the first leg of the trip, from Tulsa to Cincinnati, and while waiting for the second leg of the journey I went to a less congested area of the airport to make a cell phone call to a friend who lives in Cincinnati. I reached her on the phone and we had a good visit before I had to walk back to our departure gate.When I got back to the departure gate, my husband called my attention to a little old man who was walking back and forth in an aisle, his back towards us. My husband said to me, "That man looks just like your dad." My dad had died in 2006 in Arlington, Texas. Daddy was a real character who gave us millions of laughs while he lived. We have relived the funny things he did and we have told the hilarious stories that he told over and over again with increased laughter every time.The little old man in the airport was the same height and stature as my dad. He was about the same age Daddy was when he died, 95. The man walked with the same shuffle and slope of his shoulders and he had on a light blue cowboy shirt and dark blue jeans, just like Daddy liked to wear. He had on tennis shoes and a good-old-boy cap, just like Daddy always wore. In fact, the back of the man's head in the cap looked just like Daddy's, with his bald head visible from above the snapped band and his light gray hair showing below it. The man was a twin for Daddy! After watching the man who was a twin for my dad shuffle back and forth, I had to see the man's face to see if there was any facial resemblance. I walked to the end of the aisle and looked into the face of the man. He had the same tight skinned face that Daddy had when he died, no wrinkles at all, just drooping jowls. The only thing missing was Daddy's prominent nose. Otherwise, the man was a replica of my dad. After rejoining my husband in the waiting area we continued to watch the man, amazed at the astounding resemblance, especially the height, the shuffle, the sloping shoulders, the cap and the clothes. What a pleasure to have a visual remembrance of my dad right before my eyes. While we were enjoying the blessed event, a small girl about five years old, accompanied by her mother, walked into the departure area. We could hear her shoes playing a melody as she walked. That was a new thing for us, to hear a complete song played by shoes. As I sat there I wondered if the music grew aggravating to the mother after an entire day of hearing it. The girl and her mother took two of the few empty seats in the area behind us. When the little girl sat down in the chair behind me, I began to recognize the tune that her shoes were playing. My ears perked up and my spirit rose to new heights when I realized that the song that her shoes were playing was, "You Are My Sunshine," the same song I repeatedly sang to my mother when she was dying in 2005. I also sang the song at her funeral in Arlington, Texas, and at the graveside service in Amarillo, Texas. My husband and I looked at each other in amazement.We sat still in our seats, in complete awe of the situation. We immediately knew that we were supposed to come to Cincinnati to have this wonderful reminder of my parents, their love, their constant emotional and spiritual support, and their zest for life.When we got on the airplane headed for San Diego, I opened a book that we had bought a month before this trip but had not had a chance to read. Inside the book were two sheets of paper stapled together. It was the sermon that the preacher had given at my momfs funeral. My sister had sent it to me quite a while ago. I thought I had put it inside of a folder I kept of my parents' funeral materials, but here it was. Neither my husband nor I remembered putting the copy of the sermon inside of the book. How it got there is a mystery. We immediately knew that the three incidents were to let us know that there is a cloud of witnesses around us and that our loved ones are part of that spiritual cloud. My sister had wonderful insight into the glorious experience. She said that my parents wanted us to know that we weren't going to California without them, that they were still going to be our traveling companions. We had taken many trips with my parents to California, having a ball with them and laughing almost all of the time on those trips. After this experience I will always appreciate the detours that we have to take on our flights, constantly looking for God incidents, which we previously called coincidences.By the way, the price of our tickets were so ridiculously low that we had a hard time believing that we could fly so far for that small amount of money. My dad never liked to spend an unnecessary amount of money on anything, so maybe he had something to do with that, too. Who knows?

Leonard, The Character

Sunday, September 9, 2007
LEONARD, THE CHARACTER

My dad was one of God's true characters, as you can see from the poem I wrote for him on his 80th birthday. It said the following:"You're our Al Jolson in the movies we have of you.You're our Jimmy Durante, all our noses are yours, too.You're our Will Rogers in the wise things that you say.You're our Red Skelton, you still make us laugh today.You're our George Burns in the stories that you tell.You're our Howard Hughes, in business you did so well.You're really Leonard Wieland, our father and our friend,Someone we can count on from beginning to the end.You're our Rock of Gibraltar, our foundation strong and true.You're truly our hero. Daddy we all love you."
My dad began to lose some of his sharp mind and clever wit as his years increased. In fact, in his early 90s he thought he had won the Publisher Clearing House millions. It took a lot of talking to convince him of his folly, but he had already made a fool of himself to his friends in Texas. It was several years after that embarrassing situation before we could joke with him about the incident since the ridicule he received from his friends because of his gullibility was too painful for him to discuss. However, after a few years passed, we had many laughs with him about the truth of the saying, "There's no fool like an old fool." Daddy died in Texas in 2006. The night that he died at age 95 my sister called to tell us that he had died peacefully with only a gasp and then he was gone. We were pleased to hear the news about his peaceful departure because that is the exit for which we had all fervently prayed. We wanted him to leave his earth with as little pain as possible as he entered heaven to be with Mother. We grieved a lot that evening, but we also laughed a lot because he left us a plethora of hilarious stories. We knew he would want us to laugh, because that was our family custom. I woke at 4:00 a.m. the next morning, couldn't go back to sleep, so I decided to get on the computer and send emails to my friends telling them that our prayers for a peaceful departure for Daddy had been answered.As I was typing the letter on the computer, I suddenly saw a pop-up on the computer screen, which was impossible since we had multiple pop-up and spam blockers. The pop-up informed me that I had won five million dollars in the Publisher Clearing House Contest. I immediately knew that it was my Daddy's parting message to me and that he wanted to leave us with a laugh, as was his habit in life. Wow, I never knew my Daddy had that kind of influence in heaven! I really, really admire him now.Bob Hope always signed off his programs singing, "Thanks for the memories," which Daddy always loved. So I'll ditto Bob Hope's words of gratitude by saying, "Thanks for the memories, Daddy.You definitely got the last laugh!"

Daddy, June 2007

In Praise of God and Mother

Wednesday, August 29, 2007
IN PRAISE OF GOD AND MOTHER

Several years ago I had a dream in which I helped my mother in her transition from this life to the next life. In the dream I ushered her out of this dimension, and the angels of God met her and ushered her into the kingdom of God. In the dream the transition was peaceful, easy and full of the glory of God. In the dream, death was not a dreaded, sad thing, but was a glorious thing.On Wednesday, June 15th, 2005, the dream became a reality.Mother had been slightly ill off and on for a few months. It just seemed like her body was wearing out. She was 91 years old, but was still young in spirit. It was time for her to get her new spiritual body and join her Savior Jesus, her Heavenly Father and the rest of her family who had gone into eternity.In the dream that I had several years previously, I was holding my mother in my arms, singing to her, and she slipped away very peacefully. I woke from the dream all those years ago grieving very deeply, knowing that it wouldn't be very many years before the dream became a reality. I guess God knew it would take me several years to be prepared for the actual event.My mother was the epitome of the virtuous woman. She had unconditional love for everyone with whom she came in contact. Infinite wisdom was a gift which she shared with anyone who had a need for Godly wisdom. She loved to laugh, and laughed very readily at any and all jokes. She was a delight to be around.Several months before her death her health began to fade, but she continued to keep the positive attitude that she always wore like a jeweled crown.When she entered the hospital, it was apparent that the time for her glorious union with the heavenly hosts was about to occur. By the working of many miracles, God's great orchestration managed to have her transferred to a resident hospice facility in downtown Fort Worth, Texas. For two years previously to this, she and my dad had lived in a retirement apartment house in nearby Arlington, Texas. At the hospice hospital she was kept free of pain and she was comfortable in the beautiful surroundings.Through a series of further divine orchestrations, every family member in the vicinity was redirected from their own plans for the day and directed to go to the hospice facility to see Mother at the same time. Earthly plans were willingly scrapped for God's heavenly plans.At the hospice facility we individually told Mother about our deep love for her and our admiration of her virtues, all at different times in the early evening.The hospice facility provided a beautiful lounge area where the family convened to visit and rest. At God's appointed time, everyone was visiting in the lounge area, but I decided to stay with Mother in her beautiful room.I pulled a chair over to her bed and began to sing to her, just like in the dream several years ago. I didn't know what songs to sing, so I depended upon the songs the Holy Spirit brought to my mind. I was amazed and surprised that the song, �"You Are My Sunshine," came to mind. I began to sing it to her and she began to struggle less and less to breathe. I understood the reason for that song when I sang the words:"You are my sunshine,My only sunshine,You make me happy,When skies are gray,You'll never know, Dear,How much I love you,Please don't take my sunshine away.The other night, Dear, as I lay sleeping,I dreamed I held you in my arms,As I awoke, Dear, I was mistaken,So I hung my head and cried.You are my sunshine,My only sunshine.You make me happyWhen skies are gray.You'll never know, Dear,How much I love you,Please don't take my sunshine away." After I began singing the song, I finally understood the reason for the song, that it was a fulfillment of the prophetic dream that I had years ago.I sang the song over and over again as Mother continued to have frequent struggles for breath. Then the words to another old song came to my mind that I hadn't sung in fifty years, but I began singing it, not sure if I knew all of the words. God provided them. "This world is not my home, I'm just traveling through, My treasures are laid up, Somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me, From heaven's open door, And I won't feel at home In this world anymore. Oh, Lord, you knowI have no friend like you.If heaven's not my home, Then, Lord, what will I do? The angels beckon meFrom heaven's open door, And I won't feel at homeIn this world anymore." I sang that song over and over and over, stroking the beautiful face of my mother. After my singing the song many times, her peaceful body totally relaxed and she drew her last breath.What grace and mercy our Heavenly Father has that He would allow us to have a part in His orchestration for the final moments of Mother's life in the earth.Her exit from the earth occurred within sight of the hospital where my sister, Joy, died 34 years ago. Neither of those great ladies lived in Fort Worth, both of them having lived many hundreds of miles away. However, God, in His infinite grace, chose that venue for Mother to leave the earth, close to where her darling daughter Joy had died.After Mother's last breath, the rest of the family swarmed into the room with praises to God for allowing us to have known His love through Mother. Joining with the chaplain, we circled her bed and prayed prayers of thanksgiving for the life of this great lady.The youngest great grandson, nine months old at the time, too young to know what was going on, waved bye-bye into the air. We all know that he gave the parting gesture to Mother's spirit as she left this earth and entered into the place that God had prepared for her. Mother always wanted to witness for Jesus, but could never find the words. However, her life was a witness to the Unconditional Love of God. I'm writing this story to be the testimony that she always wanted to be able to give. It is Edna Louise Ryals Wieland's story about the greatness of God. Thanks you for listening to this love story.