A Different Take on the Guardian Angel...

For some reason, as I was driving home last night, a conversation I'd had with my friend popped into my head. She'd asked my why I do the kind of work I do. Interesting question. This started me thinking about how hard the kids are in the facility where she works (and where I use to) and that in many ways she's like a guardian angel for these kids, at least while they are there.

Then I thought about actual, real guardian angels and how the image we're given when we're little kids is that of a wise, smiling, kind faced person with big white wings. "Yeah right!" I thought. With all the crap those angels see and have to mentally and emotionally process, I bet they are actually a bunch of cynical, jaded, hard looking beings. White fluff wings? Not a chance. Worn through jeans, faded t-shirts and slip on vans? More likely. Possibly even a piercing or two, tattoos to represent the extremely difficult cases...

But...deeply hidden somewhere in their chest, protected from the demons they have to chase off, is a heart that's been through the refiners fire. Solid gold. These angels might look tough, but they are indeed capable of incredibly deep love. They have to be.

Much like people who work in treatment centers, and in similar positions in life, these angels know that it's their calling. It's what they're meant to do, why they were created. They know if they went off to do something different for the rest of eternity, they would always feel a pull back to their original job. They would know that the things they've seen and watched, the hell they've gone through with these fragile humans, has changed them, has broken their wings, has taken away some of the simplicity and purity they had, but has also made them ten times stronger than any other regular old angel.

Dark, jaded, cynical, sometimes overwhelmed and fighting against hopelessness, yet blessed in secret ways only they know...

I hope there are good therapists in heaven. Those angels are going to need them.

As for my friend who works with the really, really hard kids... I think she's an angel, temporarily slumming.