I woke about 5:00 a.m. last week.  My usual time. I was really, really beaten down. I stared at the floor for ten minutes.  I was down.  I couldn’t think of one good thing.  And I live by the beach!  This is Paradise. Never too hot, never too cold.

I’d been watching too much TV news.  I’d let the dark side get me down. Couldn’t think of one good thing. Hope was nowhere to be found.

I wrote a letter to God.

I wrote: “Lord guide me, protect me, illumine the lamp of my heart.  I can’t seem to make a good decision.  Please, take control of my life.  Do I still have anything to say?  Am I still valid?  What can I do to help?

Some inspiration I was.

Well, I’d made plans that day to get my car smog checked.  My neighbor and good friend, Memo, short for Guillermo, is much younger.  He drove me. Gave us a chance to catch up.

We went to his friend’s shop on Coast Highway.  Memo sat on a folding chair in the front.  I was too tired to move.  I stayed in the passenger seat.   While Chet was running the test, a good-looking woman about fifty showed up seemingly out of nowhere. Could have been forty, IDK. I’m seventy-nine so fifty’s young.  She had curly black hair, healthy full figure, radiating a brilliant inner glow.

She demanded attention.

Her first words were to Memo.  She said, “You’re looking hot!”  Now, Memo is a very kind friendly man who is the first to offer help to whoever needs it.  He’s my compo.  But I’m not sure he’s at all confident around women. His ex has beaten him down.

The young woman stood and talked to Memo alone.  Boosting his ego.  Lifting his spirits.  I figured they were good friends.  After a while this energetic ball of light stepped closer to my car and spoke to Phil who had gone to answer the phone.  She said, “You are really hot!”  She chatted with Phil a bit.

She went back and talked with Memo again lifting him up.  Getting him animated.  When Phil’s helper came in, she told him he was hot.  Never once did she sound anything but sincere. She owned the conversation in a good way. She acted like she had known them since birth. Although, she certainly did look younger.  She radiated confidence.  It became apparent nobody knew her.  Or what her business was there.  The whole scenario started to feel strange.

Later Memo confided in me that songs from his youth blasted from her car’s radio. That she knew more about him than he knew about her.  As I said, I stayed in my car watching.

It was then this attractive, much younger woman turned and looked straight through the driver’s side open window.  She faced me square on and in a voice full of authority said, “You are famous!”

She didn’t speak with praise, rather as if answering a question.  As if answering, “Am I still valid?”  She lifted my heart in three words.

“You are famous!”

I smiled and nodded my thanks.  I was grateful for the boost.  Very soon she left, just vanished.  I watched her get into her car.  We were distracted by the helper.  It couldn’t have been three seconds – she was gone. Did she come to the shop just to lift our spirits?  To lift mine?

Had she come to illumine the lamp of my heart?

I was kind of shell shocked.  This had happened once before while waiting at a light late at night on PCH in South Laguna. Diane, Dave, Marilyn and I were going home after a dinner show.  An attractive young woman dressed in evening clothes and spiked heels walked across an empty four lane highway and up to my open window. We were about the third in line.  That woman too was radiating a divine inner light.  She too came out of nowhere.

She too demanded attention.

She directed us to turn around and go another way.  She said there was an accident on Pacific Coast Highway so we’d be delayed. I turned around without once questioning her commanding authority.  I looked back to see if she was warning other drivers, but that woman had vanished. I announced my observation to my passengers.

Marilyn said, “She was an angel.”

The car went silent on the ride home.  I didn’t know what to think.  What to say.  I wasn’t sure I was ready to think, “Angels Walk among us.”  Angels, Guides, Visitors from Outer Space?  The woman did seem other worldly.

We found out later the accident didn’t happen until we were almost home.  Could that accident have involved us if we hadn’t gone another way?  If so, why were we warned?  Why was I warned?

Had she come to protect me?

Did I write guide me, protect me, illumine the lamp of my heart that morning too?  Writing a letter to God is so very powerful.  It’s like having a hidden superpower.

That Infinite Unknowable Essence always provides the means, guides our way and makes safe our path.  Always!  Sometimes more dramatically than others.  All we have to do is ask.

Ask and receive,

Tom Pauley