Powerless

The area of New York where we lived, was not the “Big Apple” (NY City), it was a small town called Thornwood or “wood of thorns” not too far from Manhattan. Lots of trees, no sidewalks on the side streets, only on the main streets, long distances, country like. The only memory I could compare it to, was the area of Las Casuarinas or Chosica in Lima, only more contemporary, but the idea was the same. Then we had spots where there were opened shopping centers where you had the bank, the supermarket, the dry cleaners, the laundry mat, restaurants and of course a pharmacy and some retail stores.

The most typical thing in NY and across the North East is the Diner. These are family restaurants where the locals go normally not for special occasions only but almost every other day to have the soup of the day or whatever is on the menu that you like and is almost like a home-made meal when you don’t want to cook. They are very affordable and the cooking is really great!  We had one in our town and we became regulars too. It is the kind of place where you make friends with your waitress. We met this nice little lady, older than us, she was so diligent and fast in her service and also very friendly, she made you feel like you where home. She had worked there for many years and she had had 2 heart attacks but she continued to work as lovingly as she could. We miss her.

One afternoon I was shopping in a supermarket a couple of blocks away and I had elevated my seat to reach something in the store. When I left the store and was on the sidewalk I started to lower my seat to its normal position and all of the sudden the chair stopped moving! I didn’t know what was going on at first, then I realized that one item that was in the bag I had hanging from my seatbelt had gotten under the seat and onto the base of the chair and was stuck. It was a little glass bottle and when the seat came down and found the bottle’s resistance, the fuse blew! And to my surprise, the bottle didn’t break! The problem now was I was on the street alone, the chair didn’t move, I didn’t have a cell phone and it was freezing! I was powerless! The good thing is that when there is a pressing situation like this, I go into “emergency mode” and I try to resolve the situation in spite of my feelings. So I immediately thought that I needed to call Vic at the office so he could come and get me. The problem was that I didn’t have a cell phone to call him. Thank God I was right next to the supermarket’s door and there was public phone a little bit further down on the sidewalk. The thing was how could I get to the phone? Well God sent me an “angel”, I needed help. It so happened that a guy that worked in the store was on his break and he was right there just resting. I talked to him and explained what happened and asked him to disengage the brakes of my chair and to push me toward the public phone so I can call Vic. So he did. He was from Argentina and it was easy to have a conversation with him since we had things in common. I called Vic and he left the office to come to pick me up. The store employee went back to work but every so often came out to see if I needed anything until Vic came.

Once Vic finally got there it was much colder and unfortunately my power chair could not fit in our car so Vic had to push me back home and these chairs are really heavy! But there was no other choice. When we got home Vic asked for help to the neighbors to push me up the hill and get me home where I could call someone to come repair my chair the next day. Then he had to go back to the store to pick up the car. And everything went back to normal.

I don’t think that I ever had experienced feelings of such powerlessness before that. There are moments in life when we feel like that. Life escapes our control, we don’t understand what is happening or why and we don’t know what to do. We feel that is all over and for a moment we feel that there is nothing that we can do to change our situation. We wish that we would have another way to resolve things but there is none. Desperately, we try things and they fail pushing us further down into more powerlessness. I learned a very powerful lesson that day that I still apply now and I have through the years every time I have experienced these situations in any area of my life. 

For starters, don’t panic! Put your trust in the Lord and seek wisdom. Then, look for solutions and if necessary, ask for help. Learn to take precautions, next time don’t put your shopping bag there and always carry a cell phone for emergencies! I said to myself and this I have done. Lastly, if there is a situation that really does not have a way for you to resolve it, then cast all your care upon the Lord and stand. Wait for His deliverance. He will always be there for you.

See you next week!