This is the second in a series. I wrote on prayer yesterday and will continue today and the next few days.
I was in the 7th grade and had to stay after school because I’d worn horse shoe taps on the heels of my shoes. They were forbidden because they marked the floor. I’m not sure why my parents let me wear them, but I did and Bob Cope and I got a 150 word composition to write on following rules. I didn’t do it and it increased to 250, then 350, and then 750. Once it got to 750 words, the nun made me and Bob stay after school. She must have been busy because she brought us to the convent and put us in the conference room to write.
Bob Cope wrote like a computer and I like a boy whose words had been stolen. We were told we could go home when we finished, so when Bob Cope finished, I was angry and jealous, so took my fountain pen (they were in at the time) and shot ink all over his paper. Sister came in, looked at his paper, and told him he could go. I said, “But he has ink all over his paper. You can’t let him go.”
“How did it get there?" she interrogated.
“I don’t know,” I said. That didn’t work. She told Bob to go and I stayed until after 5:30 PM writing my 750 words. I had a paper route and the papers were delivered in front of a church across from my old elementary school at 4:00 PM, almost three miles from the school. I was already on thin ice with the Stockton Record and figured I was going to lose my paper route.
You’d think that after not acting like a Christian in the whole matter, that I’d have just rushed to my paper route rather than run into the church to pray. (Churches were always open in those days) I knelt in the silence of the church and promised to say a decade of the rosary everyday for the rest of my life if I didn’t lose my paper route. After the quick prayer, I jumped on my bike and rode as fast as I could to the paper drop off in front of the church.
I was in a panic and was surprised to see all the other paper boys sitting at the corner when I was a half a block away. I’m not sure what I expected after my prayer, but who had expected that the presses at the Stockton Record would break down that day, and the papers would be delivered after I got there. It increased my belief in prayer. You might say it was coincidence. At the time, I didn’t believe it was because my faith was as strong as a child’s, just like Jesus had said it should be.
To be continued
I find it hard to believe that God would have the paper delivered late that day to save your paper route, especially when young boys all across the world will die today because they may have not have enough food, or may be victims of dirty bombs. I don’t think if you had lost your paper route that day that you would have given up God for good, you would just focus on the next time your prayers were answered, studies show we remember these times and forget the times they are not, as you and I both know our unanswered wims are probably much more common. But, it never hurts to say the rosary, as it is a time of peace and focus, and gives us comfort over our death, this frees our minds to enjoy life and eliminate the worry of the unknown. Knowing and believing in a God that cares for us gives us purpose, meaning and comfort, what could be bad about this?