There are people out there who believe if you PRAY hard enough, you’ll get a miracle. Do you want to know how I know this personally? I work retail. I swap stories. People don’t do this as often any longer, I find. I notice things and patterns that other people probably don’t think to notice. It’s true what “they” say, whomever “they” might be, because “the help” is invisible unless someone needs something, and I pay attention. It’s excellent story fodder and I’m currently keeping notes and story ideas for a podcast I’ll be launching, but recent events have inspired me to switch things up and release a version of A Mother’s Heart next, a piece of healing.

One day, a few months ago, I was working the self-checkout area, making my rounds through the registers, and as I glanced across the area from the grocery side of the store, an elderly man with a red hat on his head approached. His hat said, “JESUS LOVES ME”

Now, here’s where it gets tricky. You see, my faith practice has undergone a significant change over the last several years, and I could feel the little, invisible devil horns popping out of the sides of my forehead as the temptation arose to ask this man a question. I was a preschool teacher for years, and asking open-ended questions and listening, well…it works with adults, too. And sometimes, just like kids, they say the darndest things! For some reason, after years as a toddler classroom teacher, I am less gifted at keeping my facial expressions neutral, though I am getting better strictly out of self-preservation and working with the public these days. Over-the-top expressiveness works better with toddlers than adults, believe me.

The temptation was too great, so I asked.

“Do you believe that saying written on the hat you’re wearing?

It was a Sunday. I’ve grown to hate working Sundays. They’re my least favorite days. You’d think that with as many people who identify as “Christian,” it would be the easiest and most pleasant day to work. It isn’t. What followed was a conversation that I never had an inkling that I would hear come out of someone’s mouth. I had read about it, but I had not experienced it.

This man said:

“Yes, I do, ma’am, with all my heart and soul. I am a Pastor, many years.”

I asked, “Why?” He turned to face me from scanning his groceries and fervently declared,

“I KNOW HE does because I am standing before you, alive today.”

“Oh?” I inquired.

“Yes, ma’am. I am a walking-talking miracle. I had lung cancer and I prayed and prayed and prayed and now I don’t have it. The doctors could not explain it.”

I said, “lots of people lose someone they love to cancer, and I know some of them prayed very hard, too. My mother died from breast cancer. She prayed hard, and so did I. Don’t they deserve…

He interrupted me to say….

“They didn’t pray hard enough, and they did not believe.”

“What you’re saying doesn’t make sense to me, sir, and does not match up with how I understand the teachings of Jesus. I know plenty of good, kind people who were believers in Christ and died from cancer or others who have a loved one who died from cancer.”

“People can pray all they want, but if they do not repent and believe

…and this is where he started proselytizing in the self-checkout about all the sinners in the world, targeting people who did not believe as he did, and so on, and I don’t care to write it out because it was nothing but spewing hate.

“Okay, sir. You enjoy your day.” And, I walked away as quickly as I could. When I circled back around the woman ringing her items at the adjacent register said,

“You know, there are some things that I agree with that man, but not all. Didn’t he say he was a Pastor?”

I stared at her blankly for the briefest of moments.

“Yes, ma’am, but you see, as I said, my mother died from cancer. I believed. I prayed. But the hate that spewed from that Pastor’s mouth? I do not recognize the kind of Jesus he spoke about,” and I walked away again, making my rounds, smiling, but brain churning inside my head.

You’re right. People do not battle cancer. They die and they’re gone. What happens after is left for us to debate, I guess, until we join them on the other side.

I have my thoughts. You have yours. I know one thing. If, as some say, there is a life review at the end of our time, I know mine will look a lot more pleasant than all the hate he spewed from that so-called Pastor’s mouth as he compares his “good” deeds with his “sins.” How sad that he’s not going to make it to “heaven” if what he had to say about others was any indication.

This year, my family celebrated many big milestones, and there have been many ups and downs. The highest joys and the lowest of lows…so many that it has been difficult to manage all of the emotions. The one constant was the grief that all I could do was wish that my mom was still here to celebrate with us, to enjoy her great-grandchildren as her mother did before her…etc., but that can’t be, not physically, but I do feel her presence. I know I am not alone in this, but it doesn’t make it any easier, so I am doing my best to heal, writing out my pain.

When I think about it, I never really said that she “battled” cancer, but I did say she fought it. Some die. Some survive. There’s no “fighting” it. When they “survive”, some people call it a miracle. What do they call it when they don’t?