Lily was almost twenty-two and lived with her mother. Her father had died when she was too little. Her grandmothers and grandfathers loved her, but they lived too far away. Sometimes they visited, brought this and that from the village, but generally speaking, she and her mother had to manage on her mother’s salary, and the little they received because of her father’s death.

She lived in deprivation and the state did not help her much. Taxes were high, the bills too, food was expensive. In order to support herself, after she grew up, she worked during the summer as a waitress in a café. At twenty-two she hated her state, which wanted so much and gave so little, she thought. In the end, she began to think about going abroad. Her mother was not very enthusiastic:

– Listen, little Lily, – she would say – I am not young and if you leave I will be left alone. Why don’t you find some young man, settle down, have children, make me happy with grandchildren?

– Mom, – she would answer – You are not that old and maybe you should find someone instead of being alone all your life, huh?

– Daughter, why didn’t you get someone at school, or enroll in some university, now every fee has been removed.

Lily looked her in the eyes almost offended, remembering that she had tried several times, but everything always ended suddenly, unsuccessfully. And she did not want to burden her mother for another five years. So, at one point she decided to leave somewhere. Somehow an advertisement came her way that they were looking for workers for hotels in Scotland and she left. She found work in a small hotel at the reception desk and sometimes fixed up the rooms as a chambermaid. Her salary was enough for her to rent a room and send a little to her mother. Sometimes she talked with her grandmothers and grandfathers, sometimes she went out with her female colleagues for coffee, or to go to the cinema, to buy some little piece of clothing, all trivial things.

One day one of her grandfathers, her mother’s father, called her and said:

– Lily, your mother is in the hospital. Can you come back?

Lily knew that she could not return without leaving her job.

– Grandpa, – she asked – Is it something serious?

– Serious – her grandfather replied.

Everything that she had begun to build started quickly to collapse like a house of cards, as if someone wanted to destroy in her any hope whatsoever for the future. Nevertheless, she went and spoke with the manager. He promised that if there was a free place when she came back, he would take her on again. She returned home. Her mother turned out to be worse than she had thought, because she had been suffering secretly without telling her, so as not to worry her unnecessarily.

The two sat and kept silent while holding hands. Lily had no idea at all how to comfort her mother. How to give her any hope whatsoever. She told her about Scotland and about all the ordinary things that happened to her there. It turned out that her mother had not touched the money she had been sending her and it was still sitting in her account. She said:

– Lily, listen to me, my dear. There is no need to comfort me, because I found the true comforter.

Lily looked at her, and she told her how some man had passed by, had spoken about the god, about Yesus, had handed out Bibles and how she had believed, had been baptized, well, sprinkled with water, and now was calmly waiting for her end. Lily burst into tears:

– Mom, I do not want you to go, do you hear me, I do not want you to go. Can’t your god somehow heal you there?

– I do not know, daughter. I read that he had healed, but some in the room said that he no longer did it, that healing was for back then.

Lily was thinking feverishly, scratching her head, walking back and forth in the hospital room and everyone was looking at her, and their hearts filled with pity, as if she were the sick one, not them.

Lily did not give up. She went to the local priest and asked him:

– Father priest, my mother is such and such, do you have any prayers for her healing?

– Child, and has your mother been baptized, does she have holy baptism?

Lily said:

– Yes, she said that some man sprinkled her, – she said – so apparently she has.

– And was he a priest, my child?

– I do not know, father priest, I do not know, but she did not tell me that he had had a cassock.

The priest looked at her sternly and said:

– If that is so, then she is not part of the holy church, and I cannot pray for her so that she may recover. Let her go to that pastor who baptized her.

And he sent her away. Lily sat helplessly with her arms hanging down and barely dragged herself to a bench in the churchyard. After she calmed down, she went back inside, went to the stall and said:

– One Bible.

She took it and left. After she asked her mother where to begin, she began from the new covenant, the book Matthew called gospel.

After one week, she had read up to Acts and after a month up to Revelation. She did not understand everything, but she was expected to ask the god and Yesus for forgiveness and for salvation. She did it. A pleasant warmth and peace flooded her whole being, even to the depths of her soul.

At the next visit with her mother, when she was bringing her a little food and some things requested by her, she met the man in question who had saved her mother. She told him about her spiritual new discovery. The man rejoiced from his heart. He offered to immerse her in water. She asked him:

– Are you a pastor?

– No, just a believer – he replied.

Lily agreed to be sprinkled, but the man did not agree, because he said:

– You can go and be immersed as it is written.

Since she had already read it, she was not surprised and somehow from her heart rejoiced and agreed. Thus Lily believed and began to pray for her mother.

Three months later, her mother passed from this world, and she returned to Scotland, locking her home and giving the key to the neighbors just in case. She reached Scotland and in her little town returned to the same job, exactly as they had promised her. Six difficult months followed, in which she often cried and grieved for her mother, then suddenly comforted herself that she was in the sky with Yesus, with the god, with the angels, as she still called the god’s messengers.

She managed to read the whole Bible. Sometimes she stopped by the local church to listen to some sermon, but it felt somehow foreign and distant to her. In the summer she returned to her own city to see her mother’s grave, to see her relatives, a little rest from the hard labor. For her mother’s parents it was very hard, as it always is when a child leaves before the parents. Nevertheless, she told them about her new faith and her mother’s. Grandmother and grandfather were not a little comforted by the hope that their child might have gone to a better place. She visited everyone and then returned to Scotland.

Another year passed and she approached her twenty-fourth birthday and had no one with whom to celebrate it. With several female colleagues they went to a disco, but her mind was not there. That night she prayed a great deal and dedicated herself to the god to serve him, if he did not leave her alone. It was very hard for her with no one in the world. The lord heard her and gave her according to what she asked him.

One year later, she was returning to her old home, in her own homeland, with her husband, expecting twins. The twins were born successfully, grew up healthy, she looked after them and rejoiced in them, and then she remembered her vow. Her husband was a Christian, loved the god, but considered that taking care of your family was enough for now. Lily told him about her dedication and the man humbled himself and agreed that she had to fulfill what she had said. But no one knew how to serve the god; in the churches they taught them to become church members and come to church. Lily did not see in this the fulfillment of her vow.

They were offered to go to Bible school in order to learn what the Bible says about everything, about the will of the god and so on. The two agreed, but it had to be once him, once her, so that someone could look after the twins. Her savings ran out, but her husband had found himself a job, so they were not without money. Thus the two remained in the Bible school for one year. It was Pentecostal and they soon received the holy spirit, and began to speak in tongues. They expected that the Pentecostal movement knew how one serves the god, but it knew only how churches are made. Lily began to imagine the hundreds of kinds of churches and this seemed very unpleasant to her. Therefore she said goodbye to her Pentecostal teachers and she and her husband continued to seek how to serve the god.

During this time Craig had already acquired enough zeal toward the god alongside Lily. The twins grew enough to participate, in quotation marks, in the common family prayer. One day, while they were praying in the evening before putting the children to sleep, someone rang the doorbell. Craig went to open. It was an unknown man who said:

– The god sent me. Does Lily live here?

They invited him in. The man did not explain who he was, where he was from, nor did he even say what his name was, and somehow they trusted him. They gave him dinner. He ate dinner, and they stood and waited for when the unknown messenger would say what he had been sent for.

– Lily, tomorrow you must go to the cancer hospital and pray for the person who will be shown to you.

She looked at him with something between astonishment, joy, and a question of how to pray for someone sick with cancer. But she answered:

– All right, I will go.

The unknown man stayed a while longer, they talked about the common faith, prayed together and he left.

The next day Lily wondered when it was most suitable to go and decided that perhaps it was easiest after the morning rounds. It was very hard there. All these dying people with little, or no hope of surviving. She walked through the corridor of one of the floors and wondered where to enter. Through one open door she saw an elderly man lying on a bed under the window. When he saw that she was looking at him he said:

– Here, here, come to me.

The woman wondered, but entered. It turned out that the man had no one, alone and dying in this place of the shadow of death. They talked for a long time, around a month, and Lily every time put a hand on him and prayed. At the end of this one month, the man passed away peacefully and smiling, but he was not healed. Lily was crushed. She stood by his empty hospital bed and wondered what to do. Then a little boy without hair entered the room, took her by the hand and said:

– I saw you praying for this grandpa. Can you pray for me?

– And do you know who Yesus is? – she asked.

– I know and I believe – replied the little hero.

She said:

– In the name of Yesus...

And at that moment it was as if everything around became electrified by some lightning. It seems many people felt it, because silence fell on the floor for a little while.

– Thank you, – he said – I think I am much better now.

At the examinations after several days, the little hero turned out to be completely healthy. Everyone was talking about it. Lily came again at visiting time. He was dressed and ready to go home:

– To mom and dad! – he said.

When he saw her, he hugged her and said:

– She's the one who prayed for me.

Lily spent a great deal of time in this hospital and there were not a few people who recovered.