This is the second part of a Four Part Series. To read the first part, please click here!

A wave of intense anxiety (unlike I have ever felt then or now) washed over me. I did not linger there beyond the moment. With a knot of gloom sitting squarely in my stomach, I sped out of there faster than "a cat on a hot tin roof." I flew past my sister (who had no idea what was going on), through the grove of trees, and ran wildly back down the farmers lane. Never once did I look back. Terrified, I ran to our apartment. I flung open the door, raced up the stairway and ran frantically into our kitchen, looking for my mother. I just needed to see her and be in her presence to calm myself. I found her in our living room, next to the window, smoking a cigarette. I ran up next to her and simply stood in her presence as anxiety gripped every inch of me. The experience of sensing Mary in the grove had elicit emotions in my little 4 year old body that I had never witnessed before. I didn't know what to do, say or even think.

"Everything ok, Sissy?" My mother asked maternally as a palpable tension was dripping off my body. Spiraling in panic, I stood there entombed in fear and simply nodded my head up and down, in affirmation that all was well. I was too afraid to tell her about The Virgin Mary because I had broken the rules about her boundaries. I never told anyone about my encounter with Mary in the grove of trees for over 45 years. I tried to bury it in my subconscious. But the incident would be woven deeply into the fabric of my soul.

As the rhythms of my ordinary daily life would unfold, this incident concerning the Virgin Mary, would overshadow me. My entire life, I was abashed by the complexities of this event. A quiet moment that changed me in ways unimaginable. Fear would rule my life. What if Mary returned? What if I had turned around? How would my life had been different? What if? And why me? I just couldn't handle it. So, I pushed this encounter in the grove deep within me so as not to have to deal with it. I reasoned that if I didn’t acknowledge it then it wasn't real. I even was reluctant to believe the Mary apparitions around the world, in order to keep what happened to me at bay. And I didnt know whom to go to, to help me discern what was happening. How do I make sense or convey this nebulous gift from above?

I would learn that I was "an instrument of God" (He, who is love, would use me to show his touch in the world) and this encounter would be emblematic of how God would work in my life(whether I wanted to acknowledge it or not ).

n order to have peace I eventually had to be true to myself and embrace my gifts in life. (The call and the gift are irrevocable. "--Romans 11:29). This wasn't a talent but a genuine gift from God to be used to help others. As an instrument of God he first used me when I was healed miraculously through the intercession of St. Therese of the Little Flower, at roughly 2-3 months old and second, he would show his touch by this encounter with Mary in the grove of trees. My intimate relationship with God was only just beginning, in those first 4 yrs of my life. I was so afraid that God would ask of me something that I wasn't prepared to do.