Many people ask their angels for help during difficult moments. But sometimes angels act when we aren’t expecting it at all. Several years ago, while living in Mobile, Alabama, Rhonda and John Christie tucked their two-year-old daughter, Kellie, into bed, and checked her again before they went to sleep. Hours later, both were awakened by the insistent ringing of the doorbell.

John bolted out of bed. “Who could that be?” he muttered, glancing at the clock. It was almost 2 a.m. Curious and concerned, Rhonda followed him to the front door, watching as he flung it open. A young man in cut-off jeans and a white t-shirt stood there, a bike propped behind him. In his arms was their pajama-clad daughter, holding her favorite doll and, incredibly, her little red rocking chair. Kellie had been sleeping soundly the last time they’d checked. How had she ended up outside in the arms of a stranger?

“I think I must have freaked out for a moment,” Rhonda recalls. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

John was equally shocked. “Where did you get our daughter?” he demanded, grabbing the two-year-old our of the young man’s arms.

“I found her walking down Main Street, carrying her doll and that little chair,” the stranger answered calmly. “She must have gotten out of your house somehow.”

Rhonda gasped. Main Street was almost two miles from their home, a very busy and dangerous area. Kellie could have been hit by a car or injured, or worse. Rhonda couldn’t bear to think about it.

She looked more closely at the young man. He was beautiful, she realized, with blond curly hair and eyes full of wisdom, eyes that seemed to look right into her soul.

John wanted more details. He turned and placed Kellie in Rhonda’s arms. But when they turned around to question the stranger, he was gone. So was the bicycle. “Our street was long and straight, and we should have heard or seen him riding away on his bike,” Rhonda says. “But although we went outside, we saw no trace of him.” Kellie’s rescuer had simply vanished.

Rhonda and John discovered an unlocked back door, where Kelly had surely gotten out. They spent the remainder of the night giving thanks to God for bringing their toddler safely home. It was only later that another question emerged: Kellie was too little to tell anyone her specific address. How had the young man known where to bring her?

“It was only a moment’s encounter, but it left its mark on our family,” Rhonda says. “I know that angels are real.”