As many of you know I work in campus ministry at the University of Dayton. In blogs awhile back I wrote at times of my part-time job during the summer on campus as a wedding co-ordinator at our chapel.  Over these past couple of years I have had the pleasure of interacting with the many angels who come and go within our chapel.  It never ceases to amaze me when I look for help and call out to one of them - there is a response.  Did you know there are wooden door angels???  Trust me, if it wasn't for them - many times when the doors would stick I had to call upon them to help open them.  

Before I came back to work full time in August I was watering the plants at the altar and for some reason - still have no clue as to why, I turned and fell.  Rather embarrassing but not too extremely 'unnormal' for me.  When I fell, my arms stretched out in front of me to help cushion the fall.  As I sat there I did ask which of the angels were messing around and tripped me.  My ankle bothered me the most so my concentration was to limp back to the office and I called the one secretary, mother of four, and told her to quietly come over to the office and when she arrived I shared with her what had happened - that I was okay but needed to tell someone and so we drank a coke together to settle me down and for her to do her mothering over me!!!!

A couple of weeks later I felt  a lump thinking,  it was probably a pulled muscle from my fall and thought nothing more of it.  However, the lump never went away and so I called the doctor and made an appointment.  While examining me, she felt the lump I was talking about but the lump of the cancer was not that lump.  She found the cancer in another area near the lump I felt and just suggested the mammogram and an ultrasound.  The rest is history.

Had I not fallen I would not be aware of this growth inside my body that if left unnoticed would have destroyed me.  So if anyone doesn't believe in angels - I wonder why.  If it wasn't for angels, 'messing around' and sort of knocking me down I would be clueless of what is happening within my body.  Recently as I sat quietly alone in the chapel I did mention to them that I'm grateful for whoever was involved but I did ask that the next time maybe a tap on the shoulder?  But then again, knowing me, sometimes I need to be knocked on my butt to be made aware of something and perhaps the angels know me better than I do myself.

My surgery is scheduled for next week.  Christmas will be different this year but the gifts are always the same faith, hope and more than ever love. This is a single journey - my path before me - but no one ever has to walk any path alone. A young mother has joined me as she too is also facing surgery at the same time.  I have joined her in this sisterhood of women whose strength and love of life is contagious.  I’m a very blest woman.  My writings of late at the various places I write are about becoming vigilant and alert to one's body and also one's spirit. 

peace

Sue