My Mom and Prayer…

My mother was not a religious woman by any means. I only remember her being inside a church on weddings and funerals. But somehow she instill in me the power of prayer. Every time I had a test to take, she would ask me what time it was being given and told me she would prayer for me at that time. I actually believed her prayers worked more so than my studying, and I always got good grades.

I seldom took of a day from school. I had to be really sick to stay home. I was always afraid I would miss something and not be able to catch up or make up the work. Of course that was ridiculous, but that’s the way my mind worked. One day, when I was in high school, I was too sick to go to school. I worried about it all day, which didn’t help. My imagination ran away with thoughts of how much I was missing. Thankfully, I was well enough to go in the next day. As I prepared to leave, I asked my mother to pray that I hadn’t missed too much work an wouldn’t have a lot of homework to make up. She said she would, and off I went.

The day started as it always does. Nothing unusual was going on at school. I got to class and took my seat. Suddenly, the fire alarms went off! Great I thought, this will kill some time and there will be less work for me to have to worry about. Little did I know, it’s wasn’t just a fire drill, it was a bomb scare. Someone had cut up a broom stick and painted the pieces red and tied them to an alarm clock. The bomb squad had to be called in to check it out. Meanwhile, an hour went by, then two hours went by and kids were leaving the school and going home. They were sick of waiting and half the day was gone with no end in sight. I’m thinking to myself, what the hell kind of prayers is my mother saying? She practically got me a whole day off!

We were finally allowed back into the building as the “bomb” turned out to be a joke. I proceeded to my next class. When I got there, there weren’t many students at all. Besides me, there were maybe one or two, not enough for the teacher to waste her lesson on. So we were told to take out our books and keep busy. I did my homework from yesterday and copied notes I had missed. The rest of the classes were the same. By the end of the day, I had not only caught up with notes and homework, I even got a little bit ahead because I was able to do the next day’s homework too. Needless to say I was relieved and couldn’t wait to get home to tell my mother how well her prayers worked.

My mother was amused with my little story and, of course, happy I was no longer stressing and whining about my school work. I told her I don’t know what she did or said in her prayers, but it couldn’t have worked out better for me. If I hadn’t been convinced before in the power of prayer, I was sure as hell 100% a believer after that.