I Had Covid and a Small “Miracle” and Seek to Hear Your Miracles

With so many thousands dying of Covid daily, it is with sorrow and optimism that I make an appeal to you for your personal account of miracles, whether they be tremendously dramatic or quietly subtle — events that have no other explanation than an unfolding of some kind of spiritual intervention. During this drastic time when many of us ask for prayers for loved ones who are hospitalized or for help overcoming grief, having lost someone we love, focusing on the greater mysteries of life is vital. To be reminded that we are more than co-existing together, we are creating either hell or heaven for each other here (or something tolerably in between?) is crucial to our sense of humanity. We have the power to greatly impact one another’s lives and make it easier or more excruciating. The torment we feel as we go through this pandemic may be eased if we acknowledge that we ourselves are miracles of life, each of us unique, worth valuing and keeping alive. There is a Jewish saying that when one person dies, an entire universe dies. We feel this deeply when we lose a parent, child, beloved friend, teacher or colleague. Thinking of the hundreds of thousands dead by Covid, so many lives shattered, summons in me the longing to unify through our humanness rather than continue to ski along a razor edge of deadly divisiveness. Have we forgotten that extraordinary things occur in life and at times save lives? Have we forgotten that we can experience miracles and help create miracles for one another?

I had a few quiet miracles of my own having to do with Covid that have sustained me through these long pandemic months. They are personal, fortuitously advantagious little somethings and not drastic. But they are highly meaningful to me, giving me a sense of wonder and awe. One miracle had to do with a dream I had late last summer or early autumn, where my mother, who died about 5 years ago, appeared in the dream warning about the pandemic we did not know loomed. At the time I did not realize what she meant in the dream when she lead me through my grandmother’s house where so many happy family gatherings took place. She had looked at me gravely and said, “Elaine, this era is over.” When the pandemic hit, I knew exactly what she had meant. Our happy recreational bonding time together was done for now and not going to be safe to do — our familial and social joys seriously compromised by not being able to gather for the first time in our lives. My mother’s severe expression and eyes upon me during this dream is one I still can’t unsee. It was so very unlike her usual disposition, since in life she was radiant with joy and eager to celebrate all the good things. I consider her dire warning a miracle because when I have broken down from despair, depression and see no end in sight during these excruciatingly isolating times, I do not feel all alone, I feel in a powerful spiritual way we remain connected, guided and loved by those who have passed on before us. This mediumship dream has given me strength to persevere because there is such a comfort in knowing my mother had warned me —even felt the pain she knew we’d all feel. Because of this, I can get through these days and try to be strong for myself and others. Miracles sometimes come in the form of dreams. And they also come disguised as real trouble.

The other miracle was this kind — bad news. It was directly practical to me in concrete ways and happened when I myself was diagnosed with Covid. I did not have Covid in my scheme for how autumn 2020 would play out for me, in fact was doing all I could to prepare for surgery. I was scheduled for this surgery to fix a sport injury and it had been delayed once already due to the pandemic, back when so many surgeries were cancelled to make room in hospitals for Covid patients and to prevent spread.

I was very eager to finally resolve this painful injury through surgery and did everything I could to avoid getting the virus so as not to have surgery delayed again. But alas, on the day before surgery in mid-October, I was given a pre-surgical mandatory Covid-19 swab test and to my shock, tested positive. I thought at first it was a false positive diagnosis. I was so careful, taking no risks, always wore a mask and used hand sanitizer when out, and not only did I not socialize unsafely, I didn’t socialize at all. This is in large part to keep my 91 year old dad safe when I bring things to him, but also to keep me healthy for surgery and otherwise. I had a serious goal to achieve with getting this surgery done. Well, all that mitigating didn’t help. All the planning, pre-surgical testing and everything ramped up to open my schedule for surgery was completely dashed. This was frustrating and seemed to go against everything I’d say was “good” for me. With all my careful organizing of my work schedule and arranging support for the surgical process, all was scuttered. I was very upset — giving God the side-eye of dread and disappointment and of course asking the one question humans ask when facing things we don’t want to accept, “Why me?!”

Within days of the diagnosis, I started to get Covid symptoms. At times these symptoms were frightening — fluctuating hypoxia with difficulty breathing. I mean I had to consciously remind myself to suck in air, and it was never enough. I have had bronchitis and pneumonia in the past and this was similar yet also unlike those experiences — felt different and strange. I had a racing heart and low oxygen levels alarming enough that I went to the E.R. once. For three weeks, I’d lay there imagining hypoxia getting bad enough that I would not be able to get up to unlock doors so EMTs could enter should I become so faint I had to call 911, or imagining I might be found dead from lack of oxygen, as many have been found when self-treating at home. Prescribed steroids helped my breathing, but a terrible burning sensation filled my chest, my heart and the interior of my throat (not as in a sore throat, more like the inner tissue of the esophagus is how I’d describe it). I felt a pressure on my chest and heart as if there were a fireman’s brick there — heavy. I was exhausted and miserable.

At one point laying there, I said a specific prayer asking God, “Why did I get Covid? It ruined all my plans for necessary surgery, for wellbeing. What am I supposed to learn from this?” The only way I have known how to deal with illness is to on some level dove-tail into it — accept it as a thing to overcome knowing it will force me to transcend some ideas of myself, such as when I had Lyme disease and at times could not walk, even. I see no other use for sickness if I cannot accept that an aspect of my ego dies every time I am experiencing something health-related, and the ego fights to remain in control. I say this because the ego does not want to lay around being, “useless” or feeling vulnerable, does not want its plans wrecked or its bigness made irrelevant. Yet, resisting this death of my ego, my illusory self-perception of being in control, only makes illness more tormenting. And this is when the second subtle miracle happened.

As I inwardly said this Covid prayer full of questions, I heard distinctly a voice inside my head (sounded like a male voice, the one I heard once when I was trapped in a riptide in Mexico and told, “Do not struggle, do not fight it” whereby I was eventually spat out upon the shore, limp but alive!). This time the voice answered my question about Covid and why I got it. I heard, “We thought you’d do better at the hospital when you have surgery if you have some immunity against Covid.” WOW. I had not thought of that. I assumed the “we” this loving voice referred to was the spiritual counsel I believe we all have, helping us go through our lives — a supreme team of God’s agents such as angels, guides and ancestors, assigned to give us strength and support. Eventually they will help us in death, too, but most certainly give us signs and messages while we live and breathe, carrying out our purpose.

I recovered from Covid and my surgery was rescheduled with me cherishing that little miracle of a message I had received in my mind and heart. The message alerted me that there was a divine plan, a scheme better than I could have imagined — that of having a milder case of Covid so my body could build antibodies to it, protecting me from getting a way worse case of Covid at the hospital during newly rescheduled surgery, where I’d be more exposed to the possibility. That I would get Covid, do ok with it (although it was scary) and have some immunity to help protect me from exposing myself to a potentially worse case of Covid for the re-scheduled surgery was not a plan I’d have imagined! According to current understanding, we generally seem to have immunity for at least three months after fighting Covid, so I knew this spiritual message made sense. About 5–6 weeks later when I went in for surgery, I was unafraid of contracting the virus while there — I had already had it and for a while my body could fight it off. (This is not to advocate for purposely exposing yourselves to this virus — don’t, it is too unpredictably dangerous! It is to say that maybe sometimes what seems awful has an up-side and that miracles come in unexpected forms. I did not ask for this virus, tried hard not to get it and was damn lucky to have survived it. Yet I was told that there was a silver lining in my particular case.)

I considered it a great mysterious happening to have this surgery surrounded by the surgical team made up of several nurses, a few doctors and surgery assistants, physical therapists, etc., without having to worry that I’d get a big viral load of Covid while there. Also highly advantagious, I would not harbor the virus or pass it on to my dear friend who courageously offered to help care for me during and after surgery, despite the risks to her own wellbeing. I felt she, too was a recipient of this tiny miracle.

So my mild case of Covid was a miracle? I think so. It was a very unpleasant and frightening experience but not as bad as so many. I was given a spiritual message that God may oversee our circumstances and deem another way, another timing, another approach, better than the ones we devise. I benefitted from this change in plan and possibly avoided getting very ill. I am grateful for miracles, however small, and I believe we can open to them, align with our desire to have divine intervention and receive guidance. Since immunity may not last long, I am very awake to the thought that I still could get Covid and die from it. Each day is precious. And I’m looking for the light in every single day.

I appeal to you to share with me any such spiritual interventions you have experienced during this pandemic. I am not suggesting that those we cherish who have died and are now dying in this terrible tsunami of Covid are not worthy of miracles themselves because we know that they were and are and those suffering now need miracles. Again, we do not know how long immunity lasts. All of us are still very suspecptible to the fate of perishing in this pandemic.

I join you in ardently asking for miracles for survival and wellbeing for all of us. Maybe if we focus on miraculous intervention as a possibilty, as a reasonable request to receive such help, we will be aware of how timing and connections with others can lead to them. If we are alive and well enough to ask for a miracle, I want to be in that dimension of consciousness where I expect them and witness them as they unfold. None of us know how much time we have left to live and breathe, but I don’t want to live in a world where I think miracles are not possible. We can also gaze upon one another realizing that the person we see is a miracle — we can do all we can to not put them or their families at risk.

If you have experienced any miracles, spiritual messages, happenings, divine timing scenarios that helped you, during this pandemic or before, please share them with me. I will include them in a collection. Let’s join together to see the light in this darkness. Contact me via elaineclayton.com or at elaineclaytonreadings@gmail.com and share your unexplainable, signs, messages and experiences.