Saving Grace

In the summer of 1988, my family made the plane trip to Denver, Colorado from our home in Grand Rapids, Michigan on United Airlines with one stop in Chicago O'Hare.

We were visiting my mother's parents who had just moved there the previous year. Now, my family has always been very religious, and I myself have always had faith in Angels, but what happened to us, was not a mixed blessing, it was a gift from God.

At the end of our stay we went up to the mountains and were supposed to return the following night so we could catch our flight back home, the same way we had come. That night, at our hotel in the mountains, there was a blizzard like storm (in August!) and my parents decided to extend our stay for a day and my dad called the airline and changed our flight.

The next day was a day I will never forget.

The flight we were to take crashed in Souix City, Iowa en route to Chicago. It was all over the news. Watching the plane cartwheel into a fireball on that runway where it attempted an emergency chilled me in a way I'd never felt before or have since.

Although my mother begged my father for us not to fly home that day, we did. My family said the rosary together in flight as our way of thanks for the saving grace of the angels who had sent us the snowstorm. To this day, my family does not doubt that angels from heaven worked that day to save our family.

Thank you for the opportunity to share this story. May all of you who read this find both comfort and faith in God and the numerous angels who serve him for us on earth.

Love, Peace, Joy,
John Joseph Bauters