Do you know these angels?

     In case you can't read the words on the plaque in this picture, here they are:

"Most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable and fall asleep and miss your life."

     Every time I get out of the car to go in the house, I walk past this plaque, which is displayed in a flowerpot on the steps that lead from the carport to the entry deck of our Sedona house.

I smile a little each time I see it, and remember my friend Nancy, who provided it for this place.

     And yes, I know those angels well.   They have done a particularly good job in my life.  Really!

     For instance, when I was just 18, had broken up with my latest boyfriend, and was perfectly comfortable with not having one, and feeling I could live a good life without a man, those angels discomfited me by putting John Rienstra in my path.  Well!  That was a good way of making sure I didn't get too comfortable and fall asleep and miss my life!  Considering we met in the bush in Nigeria, and spent the first weeks of our relationship dodging the night watchman on the missionary compound when we took romantic walks in the moonlight, and riding red clay roads on a motorbike into the African jungle,  I should have guessed what those angels were up to.....

     And then, when I was really getting used to being a Mom, taking care of four children, and quite comfortable in our suburban life,  those angels upset the apple cart by prompting us to move into the inner city into an intentional community, and as if that weren't enough, prodded me to go to Calvin seminary, and do it as the first woman going for an M.Div. degree.  Well, that kept my life very interesting,  kept me very wide awake, and often quite uncomfortable, to be honest.

      And then, when I became a minister, every time I got really nice and comfortable in the church I was serving, and everything was going very well indeed,  those &*% angels were on the job again, waking me up to new possibilities and challenges, prodding me to move and change, and making me uncomfortable.....again.   

      Ah yes, I know those angels well!

      Do you?  

      At least, I haven't fallen asleep and missed my life.  Have you?