I still am not sure if I actually talked to angels. I remember them, but was it a dream? Was it an hallucination?
It was cold on the couch. I dug my body down into the crack of the cushions. I was still cold. I pulled first one blanket, then another on to me, but I was freezing. God it was cold in here, hasn’t anyone ever heard of heat? I buried myself under the blankets and tried to sleep and that is when two men were standing at the end of he couch. Kind, handsome, powerful, authoritative men.
“Scott”, they said, “it is time to get up. GET UP!”
I could hear my buddy calling my name. I was cold and scared and confused.
We had been chased by the cops, I had drunk too much. We had been riding our quads and gotten into trouble, just being stupid, and we saw the cops and ran.
The day had started innocently enough, the guys were together drinking beer. I should have known I had had enough when I found a bottle of doe-in-heat urine that hunters use to attract bucks, and had put some on. I remember watching a video of a guy who got attacked by a big buck when he had done this, and I had a theory on how to defend myself against a buck that I wanted to try. So I put urine on all the other guys. That should have been enough to tip me off.
We really should have known we had had too much when we were out splitting wood for the camp fire and decided we could have an axe throwing contest. Except, we could use human targets. I had climbed a tree to try to get a better view of the mountain in the distance, and my buddies started chucking the axes at me, I think they were seeing if they could chop out the branch that was holding me up. This was fun until the handle hit me in the shin, and I almost fell out of the tree.
One thing led to another and we decided to scream around the woods on our quads. Suggestion: helmets are a good idea, and alcohol and quads don’t mix, but hey, if it is dangerous….
It had been unseasonably warm this day, I had even been chopping wood with my shirt off in the sun, but as we drove around the woods in tshirts and light jackets, it started to rain. Then the sun started to hide behind the mountains and the rain changed to slush. We were soaking wet, but having fun…too much fun, just plain stupid, and the cops were called by the neighbors.
I took off running into the woods, as my buddies drove off on the quads. I ran through the slush and snow up a hill and hid in a thicket.
I was tired, more likely I was passing out. The beer and hypothermia had me confused and I forgot where I was. I have heard stories of men who were found frozen to death, their last act in the cold being stripping themselves naked. When I was out hiking on the Appalachian Trail, I heard a story of a man who decided to make a fire to warm up. He gathered his fuel and arranged it, and was trying to get it lit when another man approached. The second man asked the first, what are you doing? The first man replied, coherently enough, that he was starting a fire, trying to get warm. The second man had just witnessed the first man striking two rocks together in an attempt to set his large pile of stones ablaze. The hypothermic man could hold a conversation, but had no idea what he was doing.
The powerful looking men in white stood at the foot of the couch, they said, “It is not your time, get up, your friends are here”.
I could hear my buddy calling, I could see a headlight about 100 yards away. I would find out they had already given up on me, when my buddy, Steve, decided he would give it one last shot. I have no idea how long I had been out in the woods, trying to get warm on my couch, which was just a pile of snow and wet leaves. My jacket was not even zipped. I had laid down to die, without even knowing it.
My buddy told me they had been all over the trails looking for me…and to this day I remember the fear I felt as I arose from that ‘couch’, I know I had been in a different realm, I had not been present, somehow. Two men in my dreams had shaken me back to life, told me it was not my time.
That was many, many, years ago now, but I can still taste those emotions, still see the men. I was given a second chance. I figure I have been given so many second chances, I should not be here, but by the grace of God.
God help me to fulfill my destiny.
