Encounters

Strange, I thought, why is my son leaning over my bed at 3 a.m.?

Then I noticed the pale, otherworldly glow around the head and torso - definitely not my son. The charcoal grey body standing next to me seemed to stand out against the blackness filling the rest of the room. A deep terror crawled over me, and I screamed. Loudly.

My husband, torn instantly from peaceful slumber, asked what happened. I simply told him I saw a figure leaning over the bed, but it was gone now. He asked if it was a large shadow about the size of our son.

Surprised, I answered yes. He confessed that a figure fitting that description was standing at the end of our bed a couple weeks ago. He hadn’t said anything, because he didn’t want to upset me.

That night I began to wonder: are ghosts real?

A few years ago, I walked into Walmart with my disabled child sitting in the grocery cart. A Latino man walked over to us, laid a hand gently on Jordan’s head, and asked if he could pray for him. Startled, I nodded my head. He prayed briefly for Jordan’s health and for our family to be given strength.

Astonishingly, Jordan made no attempt to move away from the stranger’s hand. When the man finished praying, he smiled at me and said, “he’s going to be okay.” I smiled down at Jordan and looked up to thank the stranger for his kindness.

He was gone.

We were in a wide-open area at the front of the store. Even if he’d been running, he couldn’t possibly have gotten out of my field of vision that quickly.

That day I began to wonder: are angels real?

One night I began watching a nature documentary on TV. The evening was peaceful; Jordan played contentedly in his pack ’n play, my older son was spending the night with his grandparents, and my husband was at work.

The peacefulness ended abruptly as I became very sick - very quickly - from food poisoning. I began vomiting. Soon afterward I passed out on the living room floor.

James’ regular shift ended at 11 p.m., but he had a feeling something was wrong. He left work an hour early.

When he found me, I was still unconscious. An ambulance rushed me to the hospital, where a doctor and nurses pumped my stomach. The emergency room doctor came to the waiting room afterward and told my husband, “It’s a good thing you found her when you did. She’d have been dead within an hour.”

Ever since that day, I’ve been wondering: are miracles real?

People interpret events in their own way. Everyone has their own point of view and their own belief system. Life experience changes our perception of the world around us.

I, for one, believe in ghosts, angels and miracles.