I believe it was an angel that handed me to mama when I was born, for there is none other like her. What better way to start my life!

When I was a little girl daddy would beat me—but I think the angels held his hand back before he could hurt me real bad.

When I was put into the convent I believed the angels picked up the hand of the little girl that lay in the bed next to mine and put her hand into mine when I was crying to comfort me, to let me know I wasn't alone. I believe it was an angel that put me into the hands of the sweetest nun that ever was—the only sweet nun that was there.

As I grew a little older I believe it was an angel that brought me to the right door in the middle of the night to find my mama after not seeing her for almost two years.

When I was fifteen I believe it was angel that made the bleeding stop after I had stabbed myself in the wrist because I didn't want to live anymore. I couldn’t face life after being raped and left pregnant.

I believe it was an angel that led me to find a jar of peanut butter and a package of Kool-Aid in order to feed my baby and myself for two days because my alcoholic husband never came home with any formula or food. He just never came home from partying.

I believe it was an angel that kept me alive after each beating I received from my first husband. It was so sad that he beat me to the extent that on two different occasions I miscarried my babies. I believe it was the angels of God that brought my babies to heaven and who are taking care of them now.

After finally escaping from the abuse of my husband with a divorce, I believe it was an angel that made me look up at work to find someone looking at me with soft brown eyes, someone that turned out to be the love of my life.

I believe it was an angel that came into the house in the middle of the night to turn me over onto my back where I lay unconscious as a result of a gas leak—the gas leak that killed the love of my life who lay dying next to me. The doctors said that if I hadn't been on my back I would have died too. I was on my stomach to begin with and I truly believe that God’s angel came into the house and rolled me over onto my back, because gas is heavy and stays real close to the floor, and my being on my back meant that my face was a head’s width away from being in direct contact with the gas.

I must have not paid attention to my angel's warnings when I married again years later to a man that I should have stayed away from—a man that thought nothing of breaking our sacred vows to one another.

With my life the way it was with my second marriage, I was always tied up in knots inside. I received phone calls from different girls that he was seeing; of course, he denied that he was seeing any of them. You see, I was married to a womanizer—so I know first hand what a womanizer acts like.

My husband was never home. He preferred to be at the bars at night, drinking, playing darts and pool with his friends, then having his friends cover for him when he went out back of the club and had sex with his girl friends. (Not all at once—different ones for different nights.) He even had one of his girl friends meet him on the job sights (he was and still is in the construction business); she would go to the job, bring a blanket with a lunch and head for the woods with him where more then one appetite was taken care of.

I waited up all hours of the night for him to come home, crying my heart out, asking God to bring him home to me and to his children.

I believe that it was an angel that sent a friend of mine to me with a book to read. It was a Christian Handbook. I started to read it one night while waiting for my husband to come home. I was still reading it when he managed to get himself through the door and up to the bedroom, drunk, hardly able to walk—yet he had driven his van home. I took the book that I had in my hands, which I had read more than half way, and flung it across the sofa where I was sitting. “What good will this do?” I asked myself.

I was becoming angry with GOD! “Why?” I asked him, “Why is there no peace in this world for me? Will I ever be happy? Will you ever answer any of my prayers? Don't you even hear me?!”

I believe a few days later that it was an angel straight from God that took that very same book and put it back into my hands when I found myself in my usual dilemma of waiting for my husband to come home.

This time I read with great interest! My eyes were drawn to a diagram of a circle in the book with Jesus at the top of it. I read all about giving myself to Jesus—of how He can help us. There was a sinner’s prayer at the end of the book. It said if you read it twice then you really meant it!

I fell to my knees and I said the prayer for the second time. I held the book up to the ceiling and cried out: “Help me, Lord! Help me!” I almost screamed as I cried out. The tears were burning my eyes.

The next thing I knew I woke up on the floor with the book still in my hands. And I was totally at peace! I asked myself, did this really happen?

Oh God, did it happen? I felt different. I was floating on air. I asked again, “Help me God. Show me that this really happened—that I didn't just dream it?”

I walked outside into the yard looking to see if my husband’s van was there, thinking that he might have come home while I was sleeping on the floor in the living room. But he hadn't. It was now 2 a.m. The pain in my heart started to settle in once more—but at that moment I saw shooting lights and it looked like it was coming from the sky!

I ran around to the front of the house and I saw the most beautiful sight that I had ever seen in my life! It took my breath away! Yes, yes—it was an aurora! An aurora with many colors! “Oh God,” I yelled, “It's beautiful!” Then I noticed that all of this was taking place right over the Church!

I knelt down on the ground and thanked God for showing me such a wonderful thing! It was as if all the angels in heaven were dancing in the sky with bright beautiful colors right above the Church! It was the answer I was looking for.

Another year went by. My husband only got worse, but I got stronger, for I was a Christian now. I had accepted The Lord.

Nevertheless I tried everything humanly possible to try and get things to change with my husband but failed. I finally decided I had to leave. I couldn't take the other women any longer. I prayed and prayed that God wouldn't be angry with me for giving up.

Again I found myself waiting up for my husband to come home. I sat on the outside step praying to God, asking Him to forgive me. I remember saying out loud at 1:30 a.m.: "Please God, please let this be okay."

I ran around the house to get a better look—and there it was again! Another aurora! And again, with all the colors dancing across the sky! And, as before, right over the Church! All I could think of was that my angels were back to console me. It was almost as though they were saying, “It’s okay, Emelia. Everything will be okay!” Again I dropped to my knees and thanked God for the beautiful colors in the sky—and I waved to the angels as they danced by!

My brother Jerry, who was a servant of God, had a brain tumor and no one knew about it. I was in a restaurant with him and noticed something was wrong. I walked him out of the building and he became very unsteady on his feet. He was much bigger than I was and I could no longer hold him up. But I could feel the angels all around us. They held him up so I was able to wrap my arms around him and whisper the Lord's Prayer in his ear. The angels continued to hold him until help arrived. Their presence was unbelievable!

When Jerry was undergoing chemotherapy he became very sick at the dinner table one night. He threw up all over the table, floors, and cupboards. Once again the angels were there, pinching my nose so I couldn't smell anything because they knew I would get just as sick smelling it. Not only did they keep me from smelling it, they gave me enough time to clean up the mess.

I put Jerry in God's hands. One day, while changing my bed, I began to cry and couldn't stop. I loved my brother so much. I didn't want him to die. I was crying so loud. My head was pounding, my nose ran, my eyes burned from all the tears. Then the angle of God touched me.

"Why are you crying?” the voice asked. "I thought you put Jerry in God's hands?"

I stopped crying at once and rose from the bed. I looked into the mirror. There were no signs that I had been crying. I didn't even have to blow my nose! A peace fell over me. I knew at that moment that Jerry would die, but that there would be a time that I would be able to talk to him one more time and that God would let me know when that time came.

The whole family went to visit for Thanksgiving Day dinner. Jerry was so sweet but he didn't know anyone. His tumor was in his brain. Before he became so ill he had told me a story. He said, “Sis, don't be sad for me. I want you to be happy.” How could I be happy when my brother, who was only thirty-nine, was dying! He said, “I prayed for this, sis. I wasn't being the person that I should have been. I slid away from God and I wanted to come back to where I was before, so I prayed to God that he would bring me back. I also told Him that it didn't matter how He did it. ‘No matter what it takes Lord, bring me back’ – and Praise God, He brought me back! And sis, He's taking me home to be with Him!”

Jerry was so excited when he told me that story! I was happy for him and sad for myself.

I went to visit him during my summer vacation. Jerry was in so much pain in his head. I couldn't stand to see it any more. I got down on my knees and asked God to give me the overflow of his pain – and God did! Jerry seemed a little better. I heard him tell his wife that the pain wasn't as bad as before. ‘Praise God!’ I thought to myself.

When it was time to leave and return home Jerry came up to the window of my car and told me how he hated to see me leave. I told him I was sorry but I had to get back home.

“You still don't understand,” he smiled, and he reached in the window to give me a kiss. Then he whispered in my ear: “You have to be careful what you pray for. How’s your headache?”

His words took my breath away. There was no one in the room when I knelt down to pray for the overflow of his pain. How could Jerry know what I asked the Lord?

Then I realized that God's angels must have been there with me. I thought about it for a minute and remembered the warmth and peace that I felt just before Jerry’s pain came into my head.

It was surely one of God's angels that whispered into Jerry's ear and told him what I had done, for it was only God's angels that heard me.

My brother got progressively worse as time went by, but he went on for almost three more years.

Then one day, when I stopped off to see mama for a minute, I flew back up out of my chair.

I believe it was an angel that pulled me right back out of that chair. An angel of God had touched me!

“Oh Emelia,” mama replied, “Don’t do this to yourself. You know he hasn’t been able to talk for ages. And he doesn’t know who he is anymore.”

Mama tried to talk me out of it but there was no way that anyone was going to convince me I wasn't going to be able to talk to Jerry. After all, it was a promise from God and one of His holy angels had just touched me. I had waited three years for this and I wasn't going to ignore it.

Sure enough, when I called, it was Jerry himself who answered the phone, and he was as lucid as ever! I talked to him for over a better part of two hours. I should say that he did most of the talking. When we were done Jerry told me that he would be going home soon, but I already knew that. I also knew that would be the last time I would ever talk to him again.

Three weeks later I lifted the phone to call Jerry at the hospital, but I hung up the phone before the call went through. I hung up because I knew that at that second my Jerry had died. I could feel the angel's arms around me, holding me up the way they had held Jerry up three years before. I could feel the peace flowing from them to me. It was a feeling I will never forget!

Note: Emelia Hardy’s full story is told in her book Why Daddy, Why, published by Writers Club Press (2002). Find out more about her book:
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Jerry (back row, in checkered shirt) died three months after this picture was taken in 1988. Emelia is in the front row.

This work is in effect a sequel to Touched by God: Testimonies of Christian Power, which brought together seven inspirational stories of God’s supernatural intervention in the lives of Christian believers—testimonies that presented extra-biblical proof of God’s divine power and love in the lives of Christian believers.

Refresh Your Heart in Jesus And Other Christian Testimonies by Swaimece N. Simeon
UK price: £7.95 Our price: $13.95 Format: Paperback Size : 6 x 9 Pages: 144 ISBN: 0-595-36672-4 Published: Aug-2005