Faith Healer
By Lisa Suhay
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I believe most people experience a moment in life when they wish for a crystal ball to show them the way. Recently, I learned that we all have one, it's just a matter of recognizing it for what it is.
Six months ago, in a tiny village in southwest Florida a little old lady gave me a present. It was a glass orb. Swirls of red flow through the glass, like stick candy that has been blown into a ball, with a wick: an oil candle. I was leaving the island after two years there and my best friend in the world, a seventy-year-old named Betty, had chosen this as my parting gift.
Upon arriving in New Jersey we began battling the mortgage companies to buy our first home. A snag came up about acquiring the furnishings that filled the house. We had lived aboard a sailboat for the past four years and so, owned nothing. This was also at the root of a deepening distrust the Mortgage Company was developing about our veracity.
During our weekly call, I told all to Betty. She said, "Remember that candle? Well, you light that and say a little prayer and God will fill your house with furniture."
I am not a religious person. Raised by a Catholic mother and Jewish father I grew up like the little girl in Miracle on 34th Street who said mechanically, of Santa, "I believe. I believe." However, buying your first home and re-entering civilization with two toddlers in tow can cause one to reevaluate.
One night, as my husband and I returned from a particularly hideous session with the mortgage people, I told him about Betty's suggestion. His response was to peel off the highway and into the first hardware store to buy lamp oil.
So the candle was lit. Our theory was that if God was going to fill the house with furniture, he might notice that having the house to fill was also fairly important. Night after night the candle was alight. We got the house, but very little of the furniture would come with it. We knew it would be tight buying even a few things.
Then it began to happen. First a neighbor across the street came to visit and saw the spare furnishings. She arrived with dishes the next day. Then she put out the word to her card-playing cronies. A man arrived the next week with a chair, toys for the children and a lamp. He would continue his visits to this day with everything from afghans to framed-pictures. Old friends we hadn't seen in a year arrived with bookcases, a rug and an oil painting of Spain.
I called Betty and told her about the windfall and said, "This is incredible, but how do we shut it off?" She laughed until I thought she would drop the phone. "You can't shut off God dear," she said. "I think you prayed so hard and now whenever you need reminding that he's there, something new will arrive. Let's hope it lasts and lasts."
Well, all was quiet until a few weeks ago when my dearest Betty finally left us after a fight with cancer. I didn't even know she was ill until my weekly call went unanswered and in a panic I called the hospital and found her in residence there.
For weeks I lit the candle in hope that I could conjure a real miracle and not just a favor. A week after Betty's death I was at sea in suburbia. Something akin to the weight of our new house sat down on my heart and began to crush me. My sense of humor was gone. I felt suddenly sick and very alone.
Then it happened, again.
A man I had never met before arrived with two boxes of kitchen utensils. A neighbor suddenly got it into her head that the boys might like her old aquarium. The repairman who fixed our dryer offered up a 37-foot sailboat that a relative had "just lying around." This morning a wisp of an old lady arrived lugging an ancient, wooden army cot for the boys to put in their playhouse.
Mulling over these new arrivals, the weight lifted. I sat on the cot, looked at the fish tank and laughed until I cried with relief. The message flared like a match being struck. No matter what the religion; Faith is like an oil candle. Igniting it is your choice. Even a little fuel can keep it aglow. It can be a thing of flickering and uncertain beauty. No matter what you wish for, it will help you find your way and see more clearly in the dark.
Lisa Suhay is a freelance writer who lives in Medford, New Jersey.
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Faith HealerFriday, 09 January 2009 Faith Healer By Lisa Suhay
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