Not your typical angel...

     I read a book by Max Lucado called An Angel's Story several years back.  I loved this book so much that I read it to my kids every Christmas.  I started with my Sunday School kids, my Awana kids, then my own kids at home, and last year I took it to school and read it to three classes of 5th and 6th graders.  This year I plan to read it to the freshmen and the seniors.
     The main character is Gabriel.  The Gabriel.  And the story is a fictional story (based on what we know to be true in the Bible) about how God's plan of sending Jesus to Earth unfolded in Heaven.  In the opening scene God calls Gabriel to the Throne Room to tell him of his plan and Lucifer arrives.  This book is so intense and so full of action and battles and raw emotion.  It would make an amazing feature film on the silver screen.  (Although I'm scared to death of what Hollywood would do to it.)    
     There's a point in the book when Jesus is about to be born and the angels are all in attendance at the stable.  They are speechless to see Jesus as a helpless infant. Then, they are reminded of their orders... 

"at the pounding of the nail you will not save him.  You will watch, you will hear, you will yearn, but you will not rescue."

    Their emotion is gut wrenching.  At this point when reading aloud, my throat constricts and my voice go low and gravel-y.  I have to pause before I can push on through.  I love this book and cannot wait to read it in a couple of weeks.

     Thinking about heavenly angels and then these pathetic earthly things we use to represent angels... beautiful women with long flowing hair or chubby naked babies.. I decided No More Misrepresentation!  So I went on a treasure hunt.  I started with an internet search for angel action figures and found "Angel" from Marvel Comics' X-Men.

      I know nothing about the character "Angel" or the story line in which he plays, but he is exactly what I was looking for in an angel.  I went to eBay and bid on 3 of them, and soon they were shipped to my door.  I gave one to my friend, I took one to school,  
    








and the third one is where every angel is supposed to be at Christmas time....

 on top of my Christmas tree.  He's a wonderful conversation piece.  Many ask, and I love to tell them the story....