Angels Working Overtime

  Anthology

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Angels Working Overtime

  Table of Contents

  Hearing His Voice

  My Long Season of Discontent

  When My World Came Crashing Down

  Acknowledging What Is

  Acknowledging What Is

  The Interruption of Everything

  Finding Home

  Exodus 23:20 ~ “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.”

  Edited by

  Vanessa Miller Pierce

  Published by Praise Unlimited Enterprises, LLC

  Charlotte, NC 28278

  Copyright © 2018 by Vanessa Miller

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written consent of the publisher, except for brief quotes used in reviews.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This anthology is a work of fiction and true life testimonies. All names, characters, places and incidents in the short stories are either the product of the author’s healthy imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or deceased, business establishments, events or locations are entirely coincidental. Each testimony is based on true life situations the author experienced or has personal knowledge of. Each author is individually responsible for any known inaccuracies.

  Cover designed by Tyora Moody

  Content editors: Vanessa Miller

  Line editor: Angela Anderson

  Table of Contents

  Beach Baby 8

  Linda Leigh Hargrove

  He Watches Over Me 25

  Vanessa Miller

  Angel On My Tail 41

  Robin R. Pendleton

  Dream Angel 55

  Karen Deslandes

  In Defense of Love 72

  Pat Simmons

  You Can’t Stop My Destiny 75

  Alicia Fleming

  The Cost Of My Daily Bread 84

  Demetria Aries Mitchell

  On An Angel’s Wing 94

  Sandra Boykin

  Other Books by Vanessa Miller

  Family Business Book I

  Family Business II - Sword of Division

  Family Business III - Love and Honor

  Family Business IV - The Children

  Family Business V - The Atonement

  Family Business VI - Servant of Good

  Spirit of Christmas

  Sunshine and Rain

  Rain in the Promised Land

  After the Rain

  How Sweet the Sound

  Heirs of Rebellion

  Heaven Sent

  Feels Like Heaven

  Heaven on Earth

  The Best of All

  Better for Us

  Her Good Thing

  Long Time Coming

  A Promise of Forever Love

  A Love for Tomorrow

  Yesterday’s Promise

  Forgotten

  Forgiven

  Forsaken

  Through the Storm

  Rain Storm

  Latter Rain

  Abundant Rain

  Former Rain

  Anthologies (Editor)

  Keeping the Faith

  Have A Little Faith

  This Far by Faith

  Love Hope Faith (Volume 1, 2 & 3)

  Angels Working Overtime

  Novellas

  Love Isn’t Enough

  A Mighty Love

  The Blessed One (Blessed and Highly Favored series)

  The Wild One (Blessed and Highly Favored Series)

  The Preacher’s Choice (Blessed and Highly Favored Series)

  The Politician’s Wife (Blessed and Highly Favored Series)

  The Playboy’s Redemption (Blessed and Highly Favored Series)

  Rain for Christmas (Rain Series)

  Tears Fall at Night (Praise Him Anyhow Series)

  Joy Comes in the Morning (Praise Him Anyhow Series)

  A Forever Kind of Love (Praise Him Anyhow Series)

  Ramsey’s Praise (Praise Him Anyhow Series)

  Escape to Love (Praise Him Anyhow Series)

  Praise for Christmas (Praise Him Anyhow Series)

  His Love Walk (Praise Him Anyhow Series)

  Could This Be Love (Praise Him Anyhow Series)

  Song of Praise (Praise Him Anyhow Series)

  The Christmas Wish (The Spirit of Christmas Series)

  The Gift (The Spirit of Christmas Series)

  The Promise of Christmas (The Spirit of Christmas Series)

  Beach Baby

  Linda Leigh Hargrove

  This is a short story I wrote for the 2018 Christian Book Lover’s Retreat Anthology. I am a North Carolina native, born and raised in a coastal community in the northeastern corner of the state. I’m also a mother. My journey to motherhood included healing from endometriosis, fibroids, and miscarriage. I became a mother to my three wonderful “kings” through three separate adoptions. Over the past 20 years through many trials and triumphs, I’ve seen the hand of Almighty God at work. I have been blessed and restored in ways I would not have imagined 27 years ago when I stood at the altar, eager to say, “I do.”

  I dedicate this story to all the women who have longed for a baby to grow within their womb. May God give you the answers, healing, and wholeness you seek. May He redeem what the locusts of stress and self-hate have eaten.

  “And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.” Joel 2:25a KJV

  “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Jeremiah 29:11 KJV

  Above the sounds of crashing waves and the screeching cackle of seagulls, Sherrie Patterson heard the distant peal of laughter. Strangely, it sounded like her husband’s laugh. He sounded happy, really happy.

  How could he be laughing, after the awful things he’d said to her this morning?

  The heat of the day and noise of the waves had lulled her to sleep despite the floppy beach umbrella. Usually, she enjoyed her time on the beach, sipping a cold drink and reading a paperback alongside her beloved. But not today, the sand and sea had not brought her any joy. The recent weeks had been especially difficult and joyless.

  Her grief therapist had told her to find joy, loosen up, laugh more. Instead of laughing together, all she and Drake had done was fight.

  “It’ll happen in God’s time,” her therapist said. “Stop trying so hard.”

  If someone told her to ‘stop trying so hard’ one more time, she’d ... well, she didn’t know what she’d do really, but it wouldn’t be pretty.

  While she’d dozed, the wind had pushed her floppy beach umbrella to the side. Sand had formed a drift along one edge and wedged the bright yellow nylon against her head. Goodness, she must have really been tired. She hadn’t felt a thing until the laughing woke her.

  She pushed herself out from under the cock-eyed umbrella and squinted in the brightness of the sun. Dozens of scantily-clad people gallivanted on the toasty sand between her and the water’s edge. Hundreds more, it seemed, splashed in the distant ocean. So many happy, splashing, sand-castle-building, suntan-lotion-wearing people. And apparently, someone in this throng sounded just like her husband when he laughed.

  Sherrie took in the beachscape. Big people. Skinny people. And kids, tons of kids. Seeing the little ones only magnified the gnawing desire that had plagued her for months. She groaned, whose idea was it to come to the beach during the height of the season?

  She glanced at her cell phone. There was a text from her husband. He probably felt guilty for making her angry. She’d check his message later. It was 11:11am; she’d been here for two hours. No wonder she was thirsty and hungry. She shoved her paperback and phone back into her beach bag. It was time to head back.

  Maybe he had cooled off by now. Maybe he’d apologize to her face to face for the things he said. Yeah right, during the three-hour trip from Raleigh, Drake Patterson had said less than 10 words to her. Then, on the other hand, having silence would be better. Could they make it through the week like that? No more talking about anything. Especially not about “trying again.”

  The truth was, she did want to keep trying to start a family but not in the way he’d suggested. Mostly, she longed for him to enter her pain. Since the last miscarriage, it seemed that he went out of his way to avoid her. He had started making decisions without her. Little things like re-ordering checks to bigger choices like scheduling for a monthly cleaning service as if she couldn’t clean her own home.

  “I’m only making decisions for us,” he claimed when she asked.

  But there was no ‘us’ in Sherrie’s mind. Not for the past six months, at least. Their ‘us’ had been reduced to sharing the same key to an overpriced two-bedroom apartment near Research Triangle Park. When he was home, Drake slept on the couch, coming into their bedroom only when he needed a different necktie or a week’s worth of clean underwear. He’d started keeping his dry-cleaned shirts and pants in the hall coat closet. That was the extent of their ‘us’ after losing the last baby.

  What happened to the crazy college students so in love with each other they couldn’t wait to start a family together? Had their love, like her girlfriend Tasha suggested, died a little with each miscarriage?

  After three years of marriage, and three babies bor
n before their time, all they had to show for their efforts was a beautifully decorated room with an empty crib.

  On days like this, when she didn’t have the distraction of her job as a marketing assistant, Sherrie let her mind travel to that room. To the baby room. To the pictures of babies, she’d cut from magazine advertisements. Each of them had a name. The boys were named Jason, Elijah, and Marcus. The girls were Alisha, Mia, and Carmen. With each picture, she’d memorized a scripture. Words to speak over her children; her son, her daughter.

  You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, Jason.

  Marcus, Be strong and courageous. Don’t be frightened, for the Lord your God is with you.

  Don’t be anxious about anything, Mia. But in everything let your requests be made known to God.

  On and on they went. In the beginning, the more time she spent in the room and in the Word, the more scriptures God gave her. In the end, all she had left was adorable pictures of other people’s children and unfulfilled hopes.

  After the first trimester of the first pregnancy, they’d painted the room sky blue. Not because they knew it was a boy but because they both loved the beach. It was where they’d met and where they’d first made love.

  Sherrie stood up and closed the umbrella, securing it with a Velcro strap. She shielded her eyes with her hand letting them drift to the thin line where the cornflower blue of the sky met the cobalt-colored water. Where was God in all this? Her dream of becoming a mother was dead now. Just like her womb. Just like her heart.

  After tossing the umbrella aside, she bent down and rolled up her beach towel, sand and all, and stuffed it in the beach bag. With no small amount of dread, she started extracting the complicated beach umbrella stand Drake had purchased for the trip. Part of her wanted to just leave the mess and let him find it.

  “That’s what you get for marrying an engineer, Sherrie,” she told herself as she pushed her bangles up her arm. “There’s always a new gadget to figure out how to use.”

  She gritted her teeth and let her hands fall into her lap. Her bracelets fell with an empty clang. Maybe she should just stay on the beach longer; take a long stroll and call her mother instead. It was her mother’s fault she was spending her vacation on the beach, after all. She had guilted Sherrie into planning the beach getaway.

  “Don’t let all my praying and fasting be done in vain, Sherrie,” her mother had said. Why did she have to bring spiritual things into this? “You and Drake get away together and rediscover each other. Restore your relationship, child.”

  Restore?

  Was restoration possible?

  Sherrie was so weary. She didn’t have any mental or emotional energy left. She didn’t protest when she saw her husband packing his gaming console.

  Good. He would spend his time on the console, and she could sleep. Since arriving yesterday, that’s mostly what she’d been doing.

  “Why are you sleeping so much?” he’d asked her.

  “What am I supposed to do, Drake? I’m on vacation.”

  “But I thought ...”

  She’d cut him off. “I’m supposed to sit up all night long with you while you play Mario Cart and Pokémon with pimply-faced kids on the other side of the world.”

  “It’s not Mario Cart or Pokémon, Sher. You know what. Never mind. You do you. I’m tired of arguing about it.”

  And with that, he’d sighed and turned his attention back to his video game. She’d gathered her beach things and stomped out of the beach house.

  With both hands, she gripped the sides of the umbrella anchor and pulled as hard as she could. It wasn’t budging. Where was her strong man when she needed him? Gaming! In her mind, she could see him – stuffing his face with beef jerky, shooting aliens or zombies or whatever.

  Two hours wasted.

  But there it was again. Drake’s laughter. And it was coming from only a few feet away as far as she could tell. She released the anchor and scanned the beach around her. Listening, looking.

  This had to be her husband. She doubted there was another person on the planet with a laugh like his. A smile-inducing mixture of sexy, flirty, and fun.

  “Drake?” she called, hoping so badly that it was him. “Drake. Where are you?”

  But what if it was some old dude in a wife beater T-shirt?

  Her husband’s chuckle was followed by a baby’s giggle.

  A baby?

  Sherrie frowned and let her head fall to one side. What was going on here?

  Cupping her hands around her mouth, she yelled his name. “Drake!”

  Drake Patterson’s head popped out from beneath a beach canopy nearby. A mixture of surprise and confusion etched his brow. “Hey, honey. I’m right here.”

  Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of her man in a one-size-too-small wife beater. She quickly reminded herself that she hated him in that type of t-shirt and that she was still mad at him.

  An elderly woman stretched out on a beach towel between them scowled up at her. Sherrie offered a smile as an apology.

  “Did you get my text?” Drake asked.

  Sherrie tried not to frown. She’d thought nothing of ignoring his text.

  He motioned with his hands toward the canopy he stood under. “I texted you about this situation. I met some friends. Leave the umbrella and come on over here.”

  Sherrie took tentative steps to where her husband stood, then gasped. There, in the center of the beach canopy sat a portable playpen. And in the middle of the playpen was a baby.

  A baby.

  Judging by the little blue swim trunks, Sherrie decided the baby was a boy. He was sitting on his own. Chubby tan arms and legs; chubby pink cheeks, with a deep frown on his little face and a fist in his mouth.

  “He’s ... he’s teething,” Drake said excitedly. Taking her by the hand, her husband pulled her into the coolness of the canopy. She knelt beside him and looked down into two sky-blue eyes. Even in the muted light of the canopy, his big eyes twinkled.

  “That’s what his mama told me about teething before she had to leave,” Drake said.

  Sherrie frowned. “Had to leave?”

  Her husband didn’t answer her. “I didn’t know that babies drooled when their teeth are coming in. But I bet you knew that. You’re always reading those baby books.”

  Sherrie was speechless.

  Her husband kept talking. “Meet little Ian. Somehow in the space of 5 minutes, I’ve managed to lose his binky. His pacifier thing. His parents are from the UK, they call it a binky.”

  “I know what a binky is, Drake.” She was annoyed at her husband, but this little one had her hypnotized.

  A baby.

  Ian? She liked the name a lot. Ian’s sand-colored curls fluttered in the breeze.

  Drake stroked her shoulder. “Honey, say something.”

  “Why are you in this stranger’s tent with a little white baby?”

  Drake’s response was interrupted by a woman’s voice behind her. “Hello, my dear.”

  Sherrie turned to see a light-skinned curvy black woman in a floppy red beach hat and polka dot swimsuit. She smiled at them. “Sorry to startle you. My name is Fiona Lewis. And this is our little Ian. My little white bi-racial baby.”

  Sherrie liked the lilt of the woman’s voice. It reminded her of the tropics. With curves like hers, she’d probably had no trouble getting pregnant, she figured.

  Fiona kneeled between Sherrie and Drake and scooped her son up into her lap. Little Ian planted his feet on his mother’s knees and pushed himself into a wobbly-legged stance. He babbled happily.

  Fiona kissed the top of her son’s head. “My husband Edmond is a pediatrician, and I’m a nurse. We were out helping a young boy in a bit of an asthma emergency.” She pointed to an emergency crew rushing toward several people standing around a large bright yellow umbrella in the distance. “Someone called out for a doctor, and away Edmond went. I was trying to follow him with Ian on my hip. Your husband was passing by at that moment. He was kind enough to volunteer to help look after our little one while Edmund and I went to help. You missed all the commotion during your nap.”

  “I hope the boy’s going to be okay,” Drake said.

  “Yes. Thank the Lord, he’ll be fine,” Fiona explained. “His mother acted quickly in calling 9-1-1.” Fiona kissed the baby’s cheek and touched Sherrie’s arm.

  “I’m so glad,” Sherrie said and flashed a shocked look at her husband.

  Drake shrugged. “I was on my way to find you, Sher when I bumped into the Lewis family. Figured I could help for a little while, it being an emergency and all. I figured anybody can watch a baby sitting in a playpen.”