Chance Encounter

The basis of religion is to find hope in the divine when all human endeavors have failed. Religion is not for everyone, as humans evolve the belief in a deity that can perform miracles have slowly faded into the background. However, chance encounters can make one believe that there are still miracles.

A gambling man down on his luck got out of the ship that took him to the ends of the world and back finally docked. He lost everything to his crewmate, the cards dealt him a bad hand and now he had nothing. He has not seen his family or his friends since he boarded the ship and now he is back home without a cent to his name. 

Walking around avenues and streets he came to a familiar structure looming in front of him. He stood there taking in everything he saw, the weather worn foundation of the 100 year old church. Its steeples and the ringing church bell which sounds have echoed for 100 years signalling hope, danger, sadness, and celebration. All the emotions of life being rung and resounding throughout the city. He felt it was a call for him to come home, resigned to his fate, losing everything to a slight of hand, he bowed in humility and entered the dark recesses of the church. Inside it was cool, his footsteps echoed in the hallways, natural light flooded the altar reflecting colors from the mosaics of saints and sinners alike. In the middle of the church is the cross a sign of christianity, his sign of fate. He kneeled down on the pew, looked at the cross and fervently prayed for a miracle. He is not able to recall the last time he was prostrated like this. The ship and its interior and the storms he has battled through while being in the vast ocean made him feel sometimes that God is dead. In this moment he felt a sudden warmth, the familiarity of home, the feeling of not being alone, and being welcomed. Prostrated he looked up at the cross, prayed fervently for a miracle, to come home to his family with his head held high. Then he felt a light tap on his shoulder, he looked up and saw a beautiful face, mirroring the same emotions that were running through his head. Initially it was disbelief, shock, sadness, and then joy, a plethora of emotions passing through his heart, his mind, and reflected by his eyes. Standing in front of him is his sister, tears streaming down her face, her eyes showing the love he had missed all these years while being out to sea. He saw his miracle, the human miracle of belonging. In her eyes there was no judgement, only acceptance of the failure in his ways. In that moment he believed the miracles of love, the eternal, in God. He does work in mysterious ways, ways that are displayed in chance encounters, but encounters that could change our lives. 

She sat beside him, there was no need for words, because their hearts have expressed more in this silence than speaking would. There was comfort in her presence, his thoughts about his failure, his loss in faith, were pale in comparison to this tiny sliver of hope to change his ways. She saw what she always saw in him even when they were young children, she knew that there was more to him than who he currently believes himself to be. He is a provider she told him, he can give more if he chooses to do it. So, with what little money she has she gave it to him, to help him start over, to go home with pride and when he is ready to go back to the ship and work not only for himself but for others. He went home and with her words changed his whole perspective in life. From then on he stepped up as the older brother for his younger brothers and sisters and became the provider that they needed until such time that they no longer need him.

Reviews

[A M John]

This is very touching. It's concise and packs an emotional punch at the end. I only noticed a few very small things:

* Structure - The part that began with "A gambling man..." I thought could have been the start of a new paragraph since you move from describing faith to introducing him.

*Tense - You wrote "and now he has nothing," but because you're writing in the past tense, I thought it should be "and now he had nothing."

*Phrasing - In the second paragraph you use the phrase "emotions running through his head" and in the next sentence you use "emotions passing through his heart, his mind and reflected in his eyes." These seem like similar sentiments which is fine but perhaps a different phrase for one of the sentences would make it appear less repetitive.

That's all I could see. Of course I realise that these comments are subjective. If you found this review useful, great, but if not, I'm sorry.

[Rizaclaire]

thank you for the review, I did find your input useful, once again thank you.