Monday, February 4, 2013

A Christmas Miracle by Rev. Alaina Damewood

"A Winters Day" by FaceMePLS 
from The Hague, The Netherlands 
 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

It started out a cold winter day in 1991 after several months of soldiers coming home from war. Some of the families affected by loved ones who had died in a local area gathers for a prayer remembrance service at a local courthouse, and then planned to go to the town’s graveyard in Lewisburg, WV, remembrance service to honor other fallen soldiers of the civil war wattle that had taken place in town. The townsfolk and the civil war re-enactors headed over to the death angel statue, located at the center of the grave yard.

They started to say a prayer for remembrance of the fallen soldiers when someone heard a laughing, as if a little girl was playing in the graveyard, and thinking it was one of the children of a family that came today, he stopped service to just to tell the group to keep the small children quiet during service. 


The group looked at the service leader as if he were crazy, for there were no children in the graveyard. The service leader thought it strange and kept wondering to himself if he just heard the girl who died in the school bus crash, or if was even the Angel of Death, laughing and giggling at him and everyone else in the graveyard. 


After giving the prayer and the group leaving, he went to the grave of the little girl and the death angel and left a giant jaw breaker. Since he would be going through town tomorrow, he decided he would check on the candy. So he returned. Once again, he heard the little girl laughing and giggling at him.


“Is anyone there?” He asked as he walked up to her grave. To his surprise, the candy was gone, and in the snow by the gravestone on top of the grave “thank you” with a smiley face. He checked on the death angel’s grave next to find the candy gone. He thought to himself, “Well, small miracles take place when you least think of them happening. So I made their Christmas day.” 


The next day, he went over to the local caretaker of the graveyard and asked him if he had heard the voice of the little girl or the death angel before, and why it was called the “death angel”. “Yes,” the man replied. “There are two girls graves in the graveyard. One is the death angel, who when someone kisses it they die. The other is the little girl over there who died in the bus crash. Why do you ask?” 


The service leader replied, “did you go by either of their graves yesterday morning and remove some candy I left at their graves or write anything on near the little girl’s grave?” The caretaker smiled. “Oh, they are playing again with people. No, I did not write anything. So you’re the one who made their Christmas morning. I could hear them playing and laughing as if someone made them happy.” 


The service leader thought to himself, “ A true Christmas miracle it must have been.”

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