Why not tell your stories on this page? Everyone Welcome!
THE HEALING ANGEL
by Charlie R. Brown
Reprinted from TWO SECONDS FROM ETERNITY
By Charlie R. Brown
I had just arrived at church on Easter Sunday, where I was scheduled to deliver
the sermon. There were people behind me that I did not know. As I entered
the church, one of the members called to me, “Charlie Brown, it is about time you got here.”
I was fifteen minutes early, but they expected me sooner.
A few minutes later, a man who came in behind me approached me.
He asked if I was the same Charlie Brown that writes about angels.
I told him I didn’t know if I was the only one, but I do write about them.
“Did you write one about fifty years ago about your brother?”
I paused in amazement, and replied, “Yes, I did.” I had totally forgotten the story.
It appeared in a magazine that I could no longer remember. “I am Jimmy Ledbetter.
I was with you when you shot your brother with the arrow.”
We were playing cowboys and Indians. You accidentally shot your brother in the eye.”
He paused in reflection.
As I approached the podium, I was taken back fifty years.
In retrospect, it was on Easter Sunday that we were playing in the woods
behind our home. I was thirteen. My two younger brothers and I were playing
with Jimmy at our fortified cave about a mile behind our home. My brothers
were soldiers defending the fort. Jimmy and I were attacking Indians with
homemade bows and spears fashioned from local Willow trees. We shot our
arrows and when we ran out, called a truce to retrieve them. No one expected
anyone to get hurt. My last arrow struck my younger brother in the eye.
Bobby started screaming and everyone panicked. Prayer was a daily ritual
in our household. I would even say my family was one of the worst cases of
“holy-rollers” that I had ever seen
We attended church every Sunday. We missed this Sunday because I was
just getting over Chicken Pox. We had a reprieve one Sunday out of 52.
My mind was always consumed by the power of prayer, divine intervention and angels.
There was always someone declaring health problems or other maladies that had been healed
through prayer. I witnessed a cripple throw down his crutches and walk independent of any assistance.
“Gather around him” I shouted. “We have got to pray for him.”
At thirteen, I wasn’t too sure of how to pray. I was accustomed to church
members jumping, shouting and speaking in tongues. We placed our hands
on Bobby and prayed the Lord’s Prayer. I picked him up with the assistance
of my other brother. We started running up the hill to the highway.
Old Doctor Coffey lived about half a mile away. We headed for his house.
A neighbor stopped and drove us to his door. It was probably an hour before we got there.
Mom and dad were taking food to a sick friend and we could not reach them.
All the way, Bobby kept screaming that he could not see.
I prayed all the way to the doctor and as he was being examined.
I could hear the doctor trying to appease him.
Nothing the doctor could say would help. Bobby kept screaming that he could not see.
The doctor cleaned the blood and came out to see me. “Where did the blood come from?”
he asked. “It came from his eye where I shot him with an arrow,” I replied. The doctor
scratched his head in total confusion. “There are signs of broken blood vessels in his eye,
but no injury that would produce that amount of blood. Are you sure you hit him with an arrow?”
“Of course I did,” I said. “I saw him pull the arrow out.” Finally Bobby settled down after the
trauma of thinking he was blind. The doctor kept repeating that there was no wound and that he
was not blind.
We didn’t have any money. The doctor said, “Well, I didn’t have to sew him up,”
so I guess there is no charge.” In those days, most of his house calls were paid for in kind.
Few people had enough money for food. Doctor bills were unheard of. Unless we were bleeding
to death, no one went to a doctor.
We began the trek back home. Bobby asked, “Who was the person who kept his hand
on my eye while we were going to the doctor?” I told him that no one held his eye. We were too
busy simply getting him back to the main road. “No,” he shouted. “Someone was beside me all the
way to the doctor with his hand over my eye.” He described a tall glowing man dressed all in white
with a strange glow. “It must have been a healing angel,” I told him. I felt cold chills run down my spine.
This was a miracle and I was part of it.
I had heard of healing angels all my life. I had witnessed many healings in church. We even had
roving preachers go house to house administering to the sick. Many of the bedridden would get
out of bed, totally cured and without the aid of a physician. I suppose that was why I was consumed
by the urge to become an administrator for God.
This was fifty years ago to the day. The minister of the church, Margaret Ann Schmidt, had no
idea that when she asked me to do the Easter Sunday sermon, it would be the culmination of a fifty-year-old prayer.
As a child, we think as a child and act as a child. When we are older, we put away childish things.
Well maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t. …
CLICK HERE to see the books written by Charlie R. Brown