I guess I coulda prayed in my bed, but I felt like I was keepin watch, and I didn’t want to fall asleep like Jesus’s disciples in the garden. And I coulda prayed in the chapel, but I didn’t want nobody comin round breakin my concentration. I knowed wadn’t nobody gon’ come around the Dumpster, so that’s where I kept watch over Miss Debbie ever night, what they call a “vigil.”
I sat on the ground with my back propped up against the brick wall of an old building where the Dumpster was at and looked up into the dark sky and talked to God about her. I asked Him a lot to heal her, and I also asked Him why. Why have You afflicted this woman who has been nothin but a faithful servant to You? Someone who is doin what You said, visitin the sick, feedin the hungry, invitin the stranger in? How come You bring this heartache to her family and cut off the love she be givin to the homeless?
It didn’t make no sense to me. But after a while, God explained it. A lotta times while I was out there, I’d see a shootin star burn across the black sky, bright one minute and gone the next. Ever time I seen one, seemed like it was gon’ fall all the way to the ground, and I couldn’t understand why I never could see where it went. After I seen a lot of em act that way, I felt like God was givin me a message ’bout Miss Debbie.
The Word says God put ever star in the heavens and even give ever one of em a name. If one of em was gon’ fall out the sky, that was up to Him, too. Maybe we can’t see where it’s gon’ wind up, but He can.
That’s when I knew that even though it didn’t make no sense to me, God had put Miss Debbie in my life like a bright star, and God knew where she was gon’ wind up. And I found out that sometimes we just have to accept the things we don’t understand. So I just tried to accept that Miss Debbie was sick and kept on prayin out there by that Dumpster. I felt like it was the most important job I ever had, and I wadn’t gon’ quit.