Answered Prayers

Answered Prayers

When it comes to religion, I come from a strong upbringing.  I am not a fanatic (whatever that means) but I do have strong faith.  I’m not sure that my mother knew exactly how to raise me strong, into a God fearing man.  Subsequently she went the route of instilling, as they say, the fear of God in me.  She would tell me, that whenever I did anything wrong, God would be watching me, and he would know I was doing wrong and he would not be happy.  I eventually grew old enough to think for myself and I reasoned that if he could see everything, he would see me doing good things and would be happy with me.

If I were to say that I have a strength in religion, it would have to be in the belief on the power of prayer.  One of the biggest situations in my life when I prayed desperately for something I wanted and it came to be, was the following and it involved my mother:  When my mother came to live with us in the last 18 years of her life, I was the person designated as the one that would take her to her regularly scheduled doctor appointments (minimally once a month but on average more like every two weeks).  We would always go have a breakfast after the appointment, and this time was planned to be no different.  On the way to the doctor’s office I would ask her questions about her aches and pains so I could share them with the doctor during the exam.  On this day she told me not to laugh at her but that she felt like she was being followed by ghosts everywhere she went.  I actually laughed and I asked her if she really expected me to tell the doctor that.  She agreed with me that it would sound silly.

The exam was going pretty normal and my mother’s standard answer when the doctor asked her how she was doing was “Fine!”  As the doctor was finishing the exam, I mentioned that my mother felt that she was being followed by ghosts wherever she went.  The doctor didn’t react, but continued his exam.  He soon asked her to change back to her street clothes and excused himself from the room. 

On his return I mentioned that we were starving and were going straight for breakfast.  He said “no you are going straight to the Emergency Room to have your mother admitted to the hospital!”  He further stated that when he left the exam room he had gone to his front office to cancel his remaining appointments for the day.  Your mother has suffered a stroke, and needs to have tests best performed at the hospital.  As it turned out further examination after the mention of the ghosts, showed that she had lost her peripheral vision (a side effect of a stroke).  This post will be continued, please look for Answered Prayers 2.  The best is yet to come…..