ANGELS I have seen....

Yesterday was a Ladies lunch and speaker day for my little group of SFriends.

We went to our usual place first for lunch-good food, good service, nicely decorated: Altons on Transit Road in Elma.

Then we traveled just a little bit more down the road to the Shriner's Building. One of the members of our group has a husband who is a Shriner, and she is a member of the Ladies Organization associated with Shriners. Do you know about Shriners? We have had Shriners speak at our Kiwanis meetings, and they are an incredibly dedicated group of people (members and their spouses) who offer free medical care for Children needing orthopedic or burn care. They pay all the expense for the child and even provide transportation for the child and parents to their hospitals. You might not know that about them and think that they only wear funny hats and ride little cars in parades-but that is not the real story. Check out their Website http://www.shrinershq.org/Shrinershq/

You will be really amazed, and remember, they do not collect insurance payments or co-pays, and they follow the child with care for many years. A really service oriented, self-sacrificing group of people.

Now, back to my little story. The speaker was a member of the Shriners Ladies group, and offered to give a talk about her Angel collection and her knowledge of the presence of Angels in our lives.

Here she is wearing an Angel smock, and what you can not see well is that she has a very blinged-out Angel pin and matching earrings-perfect for her!

She and her husband brought SOME of her collection for display, and had a "Winter" Angel on each table.

That is my SFriend looking at them-she invited us all and her Angel name is THOUGHTFUL.

The cost of the program was nominal, and we were treated first to desserts-some with a Valentine's Day theme. Then, while we came down from our sugar high, and sipped coffee and tea, our speaker Sallie started her presentation (nice lady, but she spells her name wrong-although, I had to admit to being a pseudoSally since my real name is Sarah-I guess she can spell her name anyway which she likes eh?). She said that she has over 800 Angels, has only been collecting about 19 years, and that the oldest Angel in her collection

was given to her as a gift and dates back to the 1930's, seen here in the top of this picture:

She tried to convince us that she is an innocent bystander, and really did not purchase all of these, many were gifts, and it is not her fault if "Cracker Barrel" Restaurant has a gift shop which you need to pass through to get to the restaurant! Pretty funny, and very true-been there, done that.

Her smallest Angel was given to her by one of her little guys at a day care center where she worked as a Registered Nurse after retiring from her hospital position.

She had ones that moved and lit up:

Ones that were called Sarah Angels-with blue trim-my favorite color:

Many that were considered ornaments because they could be hung up-see the one in the upper right?

It is made of pasta macaroni and painted white.

One was given to her by the ladies from the Red Hat Society when she had presented a program to a group of about 300 "Red Hatters":

Here are some more pictures.

The Ladies in this group were all so friendly and gracious, and the twist on the speaker was that one of my SFriends (she gave me the Panettone bread-remember her?) gave the speaker an Angel-a pocket Angel just like the ones that she gave all of us with a book about Angels at Christmas. See, I told you she was special!

During Sallie's discussion of her collection, she also told a few stories about Angels, and the role that Guardian Angels play in our lives-and that one of the overlooked aspects of Angels is that they are also right here on Earth-she mentioned that she knew of many in that room-but I know for a fact that I had three SFriends at the table with me that day that defined the qualities of Angels.

I know also that there are things that happen in my life that can not be explained, and that I do not need to say how lucky I am, I very often talk about my Blessings-and I have many both here and THERE.

I hope you have Angels that you can recognize in your life-some may be just beginners, so their presence might be very small, but they are there.

Trust me, You are Blessed, and while you are at it-look in a mirror-you are an Angel to others.....