The Woman with Five Bags

Most of us have experienced filling a prescription after a medical or dental procedure, especially when it promises relief from discomfort. We want to get the meds as fast as we can. Recently, after visiting this über dentist (one who extracts and implants teeth, using fancy versions of tools I have in my garage like saws and drills). The memory of past toothaches reached front and center in my mind; I thought I needed to fill it right away to relieve the pain I would experience once the sedatives wore off. I just wanted to be ready. Problem was, it was evening by the time the dentist finished and the pharmacy downstairs had already closed.

So I drove over to the UCLA pharmacy. They couldn’t fill it because it was not prescribed by a UCLA physician. I gave up my search and took some over-the-counter meds when I got home. I would just fill it the next day at this little pharmacy near Beverly and La Cienega. When I had my studio, that was my go-to pharmacy. There was something magical about Jasmine’s. Owner-operated, it always felt like the Arabian Nights. Jasmine told me to come back in fifteen minutes and the prescription would be ready.

I walked up La Cienega towards the Beverly Center, thinking I would do some shopping, but after only a block, I turned around. It just seemed the right thing to do at that moment. As I continued walking, I observed a woman walking slowly ahead. Every few steps, she would pause and then resume walking; she was carrying a bunch of bags and certainly they must have been a burden. She declined my offer to help, so I slowly passed her. I just had this feeling - I knew she would ask me to help if I walked slowly enough. Then, suddenly, her frail voice cried out to me,

“Sir, yes, I could use some help.”

I breathed in deeply. It was the best feeling. Spirit was right here with us and we both knew. As I picked up some of her bags - she had at least five - I told her I was on my way back to the pharmacy. She was feeling pretty good now that those bags were not such a problem. She was headed that way too so we walked and talked. When we got to Jasmine’s, she went in the pharmacy with me. As we went out onto the sidewalk, she told me she was headed west near Beverly somewhere close, so again, I asked her,

“How about I drive you there? My car’s right here and you won’t have to carry the
bags.”

In my mind, I thought she lived around there in one of those fancy apartments or condos; after all this was Beverly Hills/West Hollywood. When I dropped her off at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, she told me she was a cancer patient. She was there for a chemotherapy session. Right then, I knew why we were together. This was a God connection. Of course I was with her at that moment; of course she was with me. Spirit had connected us.

I believe God connections are waiting to happen all the time and everywhere. This woman and I connected at the moment we became conscious of one another. It was a light that we both experienced through that shared place deep inside each of us. Although we have gone our individual ways of our earthly lives, we are united eternally in this connection, this shared experience. I had a toothache; she was fighting a life threatening illness. Spirit was there with us as we raised each other up a bit. From the Bible (King James Version 1983),

"For where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of
them" (Matthew 18:20).