Something had brushed her cheek.

The flutter of a wing, though infinitesimal, had stopped her, a subtle movement through invisible lines. Without knowing it, an angel had crouched next to her, but had misjudged the expanse of his wings. He noticed when the little girl suddenly touched her skin there. The angel froze, and she strained to understand.

He had come in obedience to the Voice that orders the universe, forever prescient, who knows the deepest story lines of journey’s about to start, and mysterious endings wished to be known. He waited until the girl’s puzzlement turned attentive to the Voice of her lover. She smiled and knew that she was not alone, though feeling a little distant, yet she believed and therefore burned with a holy expectation. It was a belief in something unseen, but not yet formed, ready to burst upon her honest heart. And in that moment, she relived loves’ first revelation, now revisited for the purpose of lifting her eyes. The angel knew his role was to guard her will; his powers were only able to go as far as her choosing.

Now the angel’s wings grew larger to canopy her. It didn’t matter where light splashed, or where shadows crept, only that the little girl knew beyond doubt that love had grasped her like fingers in the firmament, had moved her like wobbly legs in a nursing home, to find her heart resting in love. Now she fulfilled her deepest reverence, knelt before invisible kingdoms and wept without tears. The angel caught the invisible drops in a porcelain bowl, while over wings that shadowed her, a thousand devils catapulted balls of fiery lies, exploding against the weight of heaven’s repulse…but she never knew. The devils did all they could to stop love, to stop the little girl from believing that all those years ago, in the infancy of faith, and the apex of innocence, that Committed Love had entered her soul. And as the explosions cascaded into the universe, and the angel strained and winced, a smile played on the little girl’s lips, as if she knew that all the bullies in the world could not touch her, and all the love of every father and mother in the world could never match the love meant for her, and her alone.

When it was over, demons frustrated, darkness deflated, wings folded in victory. Love had won, as it does every time faith meets it. The reminder of love’s first revelation had lasted for a millisecond, and yet eternity reverberated across unknown miles in a mysterious settled knowledge, a message defined and defended by joy in a young woman’s desire to know, and be known.

The little girl touched her cheek again, because once again she had felt it, a flutter, but this time the angel smiled. He looked back just once, to see her face, uplifted in worship, beaming glory and receiving remembrance on this day, special for the light it brought to a place deep within, craving assurance.