Baby in Her Pocket

Our chaplain told us a remarkable story of prayer, faith, and resilience that occurred when he was a pastor in Jamaica. It seemed that one of his parishioners went to the county hospital to have her baby boy.

The birthing process was long and complicated.

After the baby was delivered, the doctors feared that he would not survive for much longer or would live as a vegetable permanently.

In disbelief, the mother —whom we’ll call Bertha— simply wrapped her precious son in a cloth, slipped him in her pocket, and marched off.

Nobody dared stop her. At home, where her twelve other children played, Bertha dumped her soiled dress into a tub of water and started washing.

When friends asked about the baby, she remembered the child still in the pocket of her dress. Praying fervently, Bertha grabbed the tiny child from the pocket, warmed and soothed him, and beseeched her Lord to preserve his life.

The little fellow thrived after a few hospital trips for blood transfusions. The Master Physician knew better than the other doctors.

He has healing in His wings. Bertha never stopped praying.

In fact, she prayed when she accompanied that son and his siblings to elementary school. She prayed when he finished university.

She was still praying when he began to pastor a church. When I retold this incredible story to my girlfriends, most of whom were mothers themselves, they were incredulous. They quoted today’s text but omitted the final line: “yet will I not forget thee.” Bertha, however, did not leave out that important line of love. She lived that truth. Contemplating this story, I turned to an inspired passage I used to have my college students memorize: “Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend. … Prayer does not bring God down to us, but brings us up to Him.”* Bertha’s life exuded these inspired lines. Her very existence resounded with prayer. Prayer and faith were the anchors of her spiritual narrative, which was filled with love. Her humble, simple faith encompassed all she did. Bertha was a prayer warrior. How can we exemplify a similar faith?

Glenda-mae Greene