“To Play with the Angels”

          It was around midnight when I arose from my chair the other night and started shutting the house down for the night. It is in those late night or should I say early hours of the day that memories tend to creep through our minds of things passed. On this night, I had thoughts of our son Scottie.

          Each evening as I would get ready for bed one of the last things I would do would be to go to his room to check on him and turn on his DVD of “Land Before Time”. It was one that we could play the audio without the TV turned on and it would automatically stop when finished. I would then go over to his bed, kiss him on the forehead and tell, “Good night, Scott Boy, see you in the morning.”

          We had a computer set up with a camera in his bedroom to check on him during the night without having to walk across the house. There were many nights that he would stay of late and we’d hear him laugh out loud. We figured that there were angels who came to play with him in the night hours when he couldn’t go to sleep. Whatever it was the DVD, Angels or something else he loved to laugh.

          Scottie laughed a lot. We could be watching a movie and someone would open a squeaking gate and he would cackle out loud. If a baby laughed he’d join in, sometimes laughing so hard it almost made him cry. Most of all he laughed at witches and ghosts and goblins. To him they were funny making funny noises. A cackling witch on a broom would set him off. He laughed at the shower scene in “Psycho.” He laughed at scene in “Steel Magnolias” when Shelby is in a coma and her mother is saying “Open your eyes, Shelby. Open your eyes!” He laughed at Titanic when Rose is wading through the water calling our “Jack, Jack!” He laughed at “Star Trek” when Captain Kirk called out “Scotty! Scotty!” He laughed at Yogi Bear when he heard, “Hey, Hey! Boo, Boo!”

          He was not afraid of the movies that many find scary. He was not saddened by people in a panic. He laughed when people were happy. He had a certain peace about him that was that spirit that God wants to instill within all of us. He wasn’t anxious unless he was being treated by a doctor or nurse, oh, and maybe at times when he was getting a bath!

          It made me stop and think that how he was, was the picture that Jesus was trying to give us when he told us not to worry and be anxious, but to put our cares and troubles in his hands. Scottie somehow knew that the movies were not going to harm him so he just laughed along with them. Somehow, he felt the joy of those around him, without understanding the full picture.

          In our lives we too many times find ourselves being so caught up in the events of life that we burden our hearts with anxiety and worry. We let things bother us that we shouldn’t and even fail to see the good that is happening all around us. We don’t notice the squeak of the gate, in the present, because we are too busy looking ahead at what might happen next.

          I read the story once of a man who was walking across the parking lot and found a dime as a child. He decided that there must be more money on the ground so everywhere he went he was looking for money on the ground. As he approached the later years of life he had found over $100 in loose change here and there. In his possession were 641 pennies, 195 nickels, 311 dimes, 180 quarters, 18 half dollars, 30 one dollar bills and 1 crumpled five-dollar bill. But in the end, he had missed countless sunsets and sunrises. He failed to see the rainbows that follow the storm, the butterflies that invaded the spring and the fire colored leaves of autumn. He had missed the beauties of life always looking down.

          We should each take the time to look at the good in the world. We should enjoy the peace that Jesus can give us when we turn our troubles over to him. We should laugh with the joys of others. We should learn not to be afraid of those things that really can’t hurt us. We should learn not to feel burdened.

          I miss the nighttime ritual. I miss the laughs at night. There is one thing that Scottie’s late nights have taught me. Most of all, we should all learn to play with the angels in the peace of the night.

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For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.

Isaiah 41:13