Encounters with God

Some Stories of Love by Amy Oscar . A few years ago, my dad said something that really resonates with me: “We’re all disabled,’ he said. “Some of us wear it on the outside. Some, on the inside. .” I think of my yoga teacher, who has spent the last three months on the floor of her bedroom after a fall – and a back injury. I think of my husband, who wakes up every morning in pain – and figures out how to get through it. . I think of friends, family members and clients struggling with depression, cancer, botched surgery and broken marriages. I think of the elders at my father’s nursing home, slumped in their wheelchairs after strokes, paralysis and Alzheimer’s. . I think of their families, devastated, guilty – walking through the emotional olympics of watching someone you love suffer and being unable to stop it. . I’m reminded of another teacher: the homeless woman I met 25 years ago in Grand Central Station who, when I gave her two slices of pizza I’d saved from the weekly office party, looked deep into my eyes and spoke from a deep well of wisdom, “Go around the corner and really make a difference.” . When I did, I found hundreds of hungry people standing in line for a paper bag lunch offered, once a day, by the Coalition for the Homeless. That woman inspired me – and so did those hungry, humbled, homeless people whom I met and served for several years. . We are all disabled by something. It’s what we make of it that matters. . .. and then, .. . 'An encounter with God'… . My mother sighed as if exhaling a huge weight. “That’s true,” she said. “Before the surgery, I was never able to really love. I mean, I loved you – and your sisters – but I couldn’t trust that you loved me. I was so stiff and self-conscious, always doubting myself. . “But after the surgery I went through this opening where now I just love you. I don’t worry about whether you love me. I just, you know, love you. And then I can feel the love. ” . And then she said the most remarkable thing -- .… “Back then, when I was in the hospital, when I almost died, God came and talked to me. We were walking toward the light and I asked him, ‘Can I have just a little more time?’ God asked me, ‘Why do you need more time?’ And I said, ‘I want to go back and just once, really experience love. I just want to fully love. I know how to do that now.’” . ..