Angels Working Overtime

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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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 born 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