Jesus is Real

Any person who says, “I don’t have to do what my parents say, I’m eighteen,” has probably never had their mother utilize her sandal as a tool of public humiliation in the middle of a low-priced grocery store. I grew up in a mixed-race household that fulfilled the stereotype for both Mexicans and Irish individuals. It began as Catholic and became non-denominational Christian, which meant that while we attended normal church and experienced communion, we did not have ‘Mass’. Because of the nature of my family, hearing sentences like “my mom will totally beat my ass,” always held different connotations than what most people would think. The saying doesn’t mean “I am a victim of abuse” as much as it means “my parents weren’t afraid to spank me as a child.” With all of this said, there was a moment in my life in which I was sure my mother was going to beat my ass in front of all my friends—the time I dropped the communion juice in Church. Through this disaster of an event, I came to realize that Jesus was real, and he saved me from an ass whooping.

It all began like any other Sunday. The San Francisco 49ers were going to play on the television at three o’clock, church service was at ten in the morning, and we were going to go to lunch at the Brentwood Diner in town when church was over. Mom had dressed me and my sisters in our ‘Sunday’s best,’ and we were prepared to show off as outstanding Christian folk. We were some of the only brown people in the church, so it was important that we presented ourselves in the best way that we could. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that people were ‘racist,’, but rather, that there was a certain level of expectation that we would fail in some way, shape, or form, as proper Christians because of the color of our skin.

Even though showing up on time to church was a requirement because of the nature of the occasion, we were somehow still managing to run an entire twenty minutes late. My Dad had long given up long ago on the possibility of showing up to church any time soon. He was calmly sitting in the living room, watching a professional football game as he drank a second cup of creamy coffee that he made when my mom told him she was “starting her make up” ten minutes before we were supposed to leave. It was especially ridiculous when we considered the fact that our house was legitimately fifteen minutes away from the church building.

Truthfully, I don’t think we ever showed up to church on time once in my entire life. My older sister, Meghan, had been shouting across the small, modular house towards my mother’s bathroom that we “had to go,” and that Mom needed to “hurry up and finish.” I sat on the couch next to my Dad, cheering along with him even though I had no idea who was playing or what was going on. He was raised as an Irish man who loved sports in South City, San Francisco. This meant that our favor for professional sports teams always aired for whoever was repping San Francisco. If it ended up being a game that did not include one of our usual favorite teams, then we cheered for the team that we hated the least. I didn’t know who to dislike more, so I just did whatever my dad did.

Twenty minutes after ten, we were finally walking out the front door of the house and getting in the car to drive to church. At this point, we knew that we had missed the actual worship service—which only lasted from ten to ten-thirty—and my dad had given up on any chance that we arrived on time to hear the sermon itself. As we drove down the worn, bumpy, pothole-filled farm roads that led us to church, I caught it.

It was my mother’s handy-dandy wooden spoon.

That spoon was the bane of my ten-year-old existence. It had seen my disobedient behind more times than I could say we actually went to church. It had been a tool of my mother’s that concisely and accurately hit the desired target nearly every time it was used. Merely seeing the device only brought a wave of paranoia and tenseness to my being. I sat up straighter and glared, glowering at the spoon, praying to the Big Man Upstairs that he would take action and eradicate the forsaken thing before it got to be used today.

Unfortunately, my prayers were not answered in the way I had hoped. This became evident when the spoon did not erupt into flames. Instead, my mom calmly put it into her larger-than-life red purse to be used for later.

We pulled up to the church—which was currently meeting at a local school as we waited for the new building to collect enough money to be finished—and parked in one of the back stalls that showed in a taunting manner how late we truly were.

“Girls, hurry up!” My mother demanded of me and my sisters as we hopped out of the car and opened the door. As my younger sister was climbing out of the car, I opened my door and stepped out of the tall vehicle. Meghan, my older sister, apparently had decided that I was not fast enough and not-so-gently shoved me forward by jamming her thin fingers into my back. Stumbling forward, I barely caught myself before my white and red Sunday dress would have been trashed on the ground.

The gravel beneath my worn sneakers made a crunching, grinding sound as my family and I moved as a unit towards the doors of the church. There was a slight bite in the late morning air and the sky was filled with charcoal clouds that hid the sun from sight. A massive Oak tree was next to the entrance of the school that towered over the building with its green leaves and dark brown branches. The door to the school was a rust red that would easily brush onto one’s clothes if they were not careful around it. As my family walked in quietly and sat in the back right corner of the large square gym room, I couldn’t help but giggle at the sly looks we received from various members of the church.

Nevertheless, I was pleased, because my Sunday School friends sat in the back with me whenever we were late.

At the end of the sermon, as the church deacons were passing around the trays for bread and grape juice, my friends and I were messing around with each other, egging one another on with a dare to drink the juice before it was ordered to do so by the pastor. Not only was this dare sacrilegious and disrespecting at best, but it was a surefire way to get the wrath of the spoon brought upon us.

I realized that I had pressed my idiotic luck too far when the small cup in my hand fell out of my hand. While the event did not happen in theatrical slow motion, I can still feel the look that my mother gave me as we both watched it flip over and fall through the air. By the blessings of the good Lord himself, that glare from Mom infused me with the unnatural quickness needed to catch the juice cup. As the pastor said, “let us drink,” I looked down into the cup and found that no juice had spilled out.

The feeling of dread that came from being subject to my mother’s icy glare left me as she nodded her head as if to say, “no spoon needed,” and looked back towards the pastor. As I looked down into the cup after eating the bread, I found myself shaken to the core. The cup had completely flipped over—I watched it when it fell—so how was there still any liquid inside of it?

Realizing that this was a work of God, a miracle, an act of divine intervention that saved my ass from a beating by the spoon, I was overcome with awe. As I drank the juice blessed by Jesus himself, not only did I resign myself to a life of dedication to God, but I promised myself that I would always remember the modern-day miracle that happened in front of my very eyes.

After church, we socialized with many people before leaving to go to the Brentwood Diner for lunch. No one else besides my mother and I witnessed the miracle with the communion cup. Despite that, however, I will never forget that day. I will never forget the moment in which it was legitimately revealed to me that Jesus is real.