cover image Angels We Have Heard on High

Angels We Have Heard on High

Joan Wester Anderson. Ballantine Books, $12.95 (128pp) ISBN 978-0-345-41203-4

Bestselling author Anderson (An Angel to Watch over Me) has collected a number of allegedly true stories of encounters with the miraculous and the unexpected blessings that these encounters bring. In one story, a woman awakens from a nightmare of a burning house in which three fireman are trapped; feeling an urgent need to pray for these firemen's lives, she spends several hours in prayer. She discovers, days later, that one of these men in her prayers was a co-worker's husband. In another story, a family with young children builds a cross from two old telephone poles, adding lights to shine from their mountain home for the entire community. Years later, when the couple's adult daughter, recently widowed, returns home for Christmas, she asks that the cross be lighted. Yet, after a frustrating day of working with the old, broken-down equipment to try to light the cross, the family gives up. The mother then prays for a miracle, asking God to show his love in a special way that night, and when her husband kicks the power box in frustration, the lights come on, in spite of the broken equipment. To this day, the cross lights up automatically every evening, and, despite the constant use of electricity, the couple's electric bill has never increased. Anderson's collection of such stories reminds readers, with little subtlety that there is a loving God that sometimes reaches out in mysterious and inexplicable ways. (Nov.)