It was June 2007 and I was in New York spending time with John. We were dating at the time and living on opposite sides of the Atlantic. It would be another month before he would propose to me back in Shetland. Due to the distance, any time spent together was special. However, this trip was extra special because John was taking me to meet his mum in Maine for the first time.
The day after I arrived in New York, we had the day free to explore the city before the Maine trip. After breakfast, John asked me what I wanted to do that day. It was my practice at the time, as taught to me by my teacher Sonia Choquette, to check in with my Spirit – the deeper, eternal, expansive part of me – about what would be joyful to do. I was quiet for a minute, waiting for my Spirit to answer when I saw in my minds-eye a picture of a chain of beads with a cross dangling from it.
“My Spirit wants a rosary!” I declared. So off we went to spend the day in my favourite city searching for a rosary for my Spirit.
We are not Catholic, so we had no idea where to get a rosary, but we felt guided to start at the nearest Barnes and Noble bookstore.
The Catholics amongst you won’t be surprised that Barnes and Noble didn’t have any rosaries for sale. However, while we were there, I felt pulled to an aisle near the back of the store. My eyes locked onto a book called Practical Praying: Using the Rosary to Enhance Your Life by John Edward. “I’m going to need this,” I thought to myself since I had no idea what to do with a rosary once I got one.
After our purchase, the sales assistant pointed us in the direction of a church a few blocks away and said we might have better luck there. But the church we were sent to was Protestant and when I asked a woman inside if they had any rosaries she just laughed at me and sent us on our way.
John and I spent the day walking around the city, crisscrossing from east to west, in between our picnic lunch in Central Park and ice cream at the cafe where a scene from You’ve Got Mail was filmed.
At around about 5 pm I was exhausted from walking all day and my feet were hurting from the flimsy sandals I had stupidly decided to wear. We had just come out of the Cathedral of Saint John of the Divine – still with no rosary. We decided to have one last try before giving up and going back to John’s apartment and heading out to dinner.
Standing on the steps outside that cathedral, I decided to ask my arm for directions using a technique called applied kinesiology, which I wrote about here. We could go either left or right. I wanted to know which way would lead to my rosary. John pushed down on my outstretched arm when I said “right”. My arm went weak. He tried again as I said, “left”. My arm was strong.
So we headed left and walked for about 20 minutes until we came across a church called Holy Name of Jesus. When I saw it, I felt like we were finally in luck.
Inside there were a handful of people sitting in pews. I spotted a young man standing at the altar at the front of the church and assumed he worked there. I walked up to him and asked my question of the day: “Do you have any rosaries here?” He said he didn’t know but he would find someone to help me.
A woman sitting in a pew behind us overheard our conversation. She stood up and introduced herself as Carmen and asked if she could help. I told her I’d been searching all day all over the city looking for a rosary and asked if she knew where I could buy one. She surprised me by saying, “I have a spare one at home. Wait here and I’ll go fetch it for you.” I was touched. She said she didn’t live far away and would be back soon.
After she left, the young man I’d initially approached for help turned to me and told me he was hungry. He asked if I would give him some money to buy a slice of pizza from a store across the road.
At that moment I had a realisation. The young man I had approached wasn’t a church employee at all. He was standing at that altar – praying! Praying for food because he didn’t have the money to buy any.
I was deeply humbled. Here I was, a random Scottish tourist in a big city, spending the day with my future husband, seemingly on a mission by my Spirit to find a rosary, only to be guided to a hungry man in the middle of his own prayer.
Of course, I gave him the money!
I often wonder if he was as surprised as I was about how his prayer was answered. I’d love to meet him again someday and ask him if his answer impacted him beyond the food he ate that day. It blows my mind even now and makes me wonder about all the seemingly small things we do every day and if we answer each other’s prayers without even knowing.
Imagine what would happen if we all acted like we were answering each other’s prayers!
In the meantime, Carmen had gone home for her spare rosary and returned to the church, where John and I were waiting.
“I went home to fetch you my spare plastic rosary,” she said, “but when I got there I decided you should have this one instead. This one was blessed in Rome and I want you to have it”.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a beautiful rosewood rosary with a silver cross on the end.
It was time to be deeply humbled again. I offered to pay her but she told me it was a gift.
I thanked her profusely and we hugged like we were old friends. She was part of the larger story that day, but I knew a part of the story that she didn’t. The part where I was called on to answer the hungry man’s prayer. I wondered what would have happened if I had refused to give him the money. Would Carmen still have changed her mind and decided to give me the rosary blessed in Rome instead of the plastic one? Would it still have been a gift?
All I know is that I followed my Spirit, answered a prayer along the way, and was given a gift I treasure to this day.
Louise x
p.s. My husband John coaches people on how to listen to and follow their Spirit. I know I’m biased, but he’s very good at it and good things happen when you let your Spirit lead. If you want help with this area of your life, I can’t recommend his work highly enough. You can find out more here.
