The Bracelet

My day was to be relatively normal…normal for me may not be normal for you.  A reading with a client, a haircut, then home. I began my day as I woke up like most days, my prayer of thanks for even waking up.  Then gratitude for having Spirit work through me, asking to help myself and to help others.

As I dressed for the day, I had found a bracelet that I was given a few years ago, when my friend Jill and I had opened our healing center.  My husband and I had recently purchased a home and moved, and my bracelet was still in the “moving” box, packed away back in February of this year.  It is now August, and I was just now rifling through the box, looking for jewelry to wear. I had not worn the bracelet since it had been packed away.  “Today felt like a good day to wear it”, I thought, as I hadn’t given a private reading in a few months. Having the bracelet on felt very supportive and comforting.

As I drove to my appointment for the reading, the client’s “people” decided to arrive early, a father figure and a young man about 15 years old wearing swim trunks, “popped into” my head, eager to talk.  I asked them if they could please wait until we got to her house.  They obliged.  It turns out that they were exactly that, her father and a 15 year-old neighbor boy, eager to meet her, anxious to give loving, healing words to her and her family. The reading went well, full of evidence, (very important to me that the client knows for sure who you are communicating with) messages, and love. Having made a new friend as well, I left once again feeling amazed and in awe of how Spirit works. Spirit is never wrong, and is only there for the highest and best for all concerned.

The rest of my day seemed pretty bland compared to the events of the morning. I had planned a haircut and then a ride back home. Little did I know what Spirit had planned for me. Driving home from my haircut, I decided to “stop in for a bit” at the casino, which is never really “a bit”, as I do enjoy it.  My vice, I suppose. I share fond memories of being there with my Mom and Dad. For some strange reason when I am there, I feel them closer to me, especially when I sit at machines that we used to play together. The casino often changes these machines in and out, and it is a bit strange that after 3 years these particular machines, “the lions” and “the pelicans” are still there. After the check in at player rewards, and a few minutes at a “non-productive” machine (my way of saying I dropped a few bucks) I moved to the all too familiar “lions” machine, a bittersweet feeling, sat down and began to play.  Not two minutes later, an older woman sat down right next to me, also playing “the lions”.  She was a thin, petite woman, (much like my mom), wearing a little pink baseball cap and matching pink shirt. I remarked to her “don’t you look cute all dressed up in your pink today”. Smiling, she thanked me. She wore glasses, and had no particularly striking features, and wore little if any make up. At the risk of sounding judgmental, she was the “type” of person you just might pass by in a crowd, never even noticing her, except for her pink cap and shirt. However, I would soon come to know that she was no “ordinary” woman.

We began to chat as we played, commiserating together when we did not win, and exchanging a “good for you” and “now get all the diamonds” when the machines decided to reward our play. I finally asked what her name was.  “Mary, Mary Regina” she replied. “I was born on the eve of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother, August 14^th”. She smiled when she spoke, with a glimmer in her eyes. I responded with a quiet “wow”, as it was the only word I could utter at that moment. Mary Regina then told me she had traveled to Medjugorje four times. Medjugorje is a very small town located in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since 1981, there have been reports of apparitions and other sacred happenings of the Blessed Mother Mary to six of the local children. Millions of people have made the pilgrimage to Medjugorje in hopes of attaining miracles and other spiritual experiences. “It is not an easy trip”, said Mary Regina, and  “ I have done it four times”. She shared a few of her personal experiences with me, one in particular that I told her “she should write about”.  She spoke of her love for Mother Mary and Jesus so candidly and with much joy. Mary Regina told me about a time years ago when she had a serious heart condition. Her doctor was very concerned for her and prescribed nitroglycerine for her chest pain. Mary Regina was using it quite often. One morning she went to church without taking it. Feeling the pain throughout the mass, as Mary Regina was repeating a prayer before communion, something amazing happened. In her words, “as I was saying “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but say the word and I shall be healed”, I felt a hand touch my chest”.  She then turned around to ask the people behind her if they had touched her. They had not. Mary Regina’s chest pain had left her body. Upon visiting her doctor, he confirmed that her heart condition had been healed, and she had not used the nitroglycerine since.  This 82 year-old woman’s face beamed with happiness as she told me the story, in an almost “matter-of-factly” way, continuing to push the “repeat your bet” button in between sentences. Upon hearing it, my eyes filled with tears.  

At that moment, I shared with her that I too, once during church, had felt the touch of Jesus. It had happened at a time when I was in so much emotional turmoil, and had also occurred right before communion when I was praying on my knees! It was so freeing and amazing to be able to share my own personal experience with someone who could understand the wonder of it, the unbelievable “there are no words” feeling of it. It was then that I KNEW that Mary Regina had been “sent” to me, and in of all places…a casino…at the machines where my mother and I had sat together.  We continued to chat for over an hour, mostly about the Blessed Mother, for I too have had such experiences. For years, wondering afterward if I had been imagining them, or that I must be “losing my mind”, I felt unworthy for them to be true, to be real.  I felt apprehensive to share them in fear of disbelief and ridicule.  Sharing those feelings with her, I looked down at my left hand and saw the bracelet, and showed it to Mary Regina. The bracelet that I hadn’t looked at in months, and had “happened” to wear that morning. The bracelet that a very kind woman had brought back for me, from her trip. The bracelet that was brought back from a pilgrimage for the Blessed Mother, to Medjugorje.

This thin, petite, 82 year-old woman, dressed up in her little pink baseball cap and shirt had given me the most awesome gift. I believe she was sent to give me the courage to believe in and share my own experiences with the Blessed Mother, just as she had with me.  We are both “ordinary” people, that have had the most “extraordinary” of happenings. Or ARE they extraordinary? How many “ordinary” people are living their life just not speaking about such experiences? How many people are also afraid of disbelief and ridicule?

I for one, will be ever grateful for my time with Mary Regina, and the inspiration she has given me.

To think that my ordinary day, had started out with finding a bracelet.