What is truth? What is reality? What does it mean to believe? The story I am about to share is one that most people won’t believe. This occurrence can’t be explained by scientists and is thought by most as an impossibility. A rare experience that many will never live. This event has stuck with me from a very early age. It has humbled me to the understanding that there are many things we don’t know and aren’t even conscious of. Nothing is impossible and the universe and reality we experience are an ocean of infinite possibilities.

When I was 4 or 5 years old, I lived in a wooden house with cracked cement flooring and metal roofing on the country side of Santiago, Dominican Republic. As a child, I would always be outside playing, enjoying the breeze coming from the river in the backyard and the sounds of the stream that would trickle on the rocks towards the left of the house later joining the river. My house was on the top of a hill and towards the bottom was a mound of sand the river had brought in from the last time it flooded. On this day I thought it would be fun to run downhill as fast as I could and dive into the sand. I was anxious to run up the hill and dive onto the sand over and over again.

On my last lunge, not noticing I had dug up the sand from constantly diving onto it and as I landed sharp pain ran up my arm, instantly I wailed in pain. My elbow had landed on a large stone. I ran up the hill, crying and looking for my father, after I found him I mumbled in tears and snot, trying to explain what had happened. He asked me to close my hand. Again, sharp pain rushed across my arm. My dad quickly bandaged my cuts and propped my arm on a cloth that hung from my neck.

Unfortunately, my dad could not arrange for a ride to the hospital that day and I would have to wait till the morning to get the medical attention I needed. In pain, I sat in the front patio, when suddenly I heard the voice of a man on a megaphone. I looked down the street and near one of the corner bodegas a crowd was gathering as the sun was setting. A man was preaching to an open crowd. My dad grabbed me by my good hand and we both approached the preaching man and gathering crowd. I stood there and listened as he preached. I wondered what he was talking about and didn’t understand what was going on as people praised and worshiped. I almost bursted into laughter; to me it seemed silly how serious some people were.

After concluding his message, he asked if anyone from the crowd wanted to get prayed for. My dad told me that I should have the man pray for my arm. I did not understand but still I approached the preacher and asked him to pray for my hand like my dad had told me. In a kind voice, I remember like it was yesterday, he asked me, “Do you believe God can heal your arm?”  I thought I guess if you say he can, he must.

Replying “yes” he began to pray over my hand when suddenly I felt an unfathomable bliss and euphoria flooding my heart and body. An exhilaration of ecstasy filled my veins. I felt Electric as if there where millions of butterflies flapping their wings on my injured arm and throughout my whole body. Time stopped. Not understanding what had just happened, I felt no pain. Shocked, I walked toward the crowd as they approached me. Many took a turn to shake my hand aggressively almost to see if I was faking or not. My hand was healed instantly; all I did was believe.

Ever since then, the way I thought has changed. I now understand that the world is full of mysteries we are ignorant to. It has reinforced my faith in God from an early age and made me an open-minded person with a craving to comprehend. Nothing is impossible as long as I believe. To conclude, even though I have no proof that my arm was healed in front of a bodega in Santiago, Dominican Republic, it is the honest truth, believe it or not.