Divine intervention.

As religion goes, I'm a 'live and let live' kinda gal. As long you don't either a) ram it down my throat on my own doorstep or b) shoot someone for saying that God is a woman, I have no strong feelings either way. I can completely understand how some people find strength in faith, just as I can see how others need definitive proof of something tangible in order to believe.

The Childbeasts attend a church affiliated school, but this is more to do with its reputation than it's religious orientation. I don't have a problem with them attending worship, or studying religion, and The Daughter does seem to be growing up as a believer. Well, mainly when she wants something. A few weeks ago she came back from the grandparents with an acorn, and on this acorn she'd drawn a smiley face. As she often does, she got the urge to destroy it by taking the top bit off (which I liked because I thought it looked like a little acorn hat). The Husband said no, that he thought it would ruin it. But away she went and wrenched it off anyway. And then started sobbing because it had wrecked it. "WHHHHHHHHYYYY?!" she wailed, "Why did God let me do it?!" And as we stood, aghast and wondering how on earth it had become the good Lords fault, she looked to the heavens and her little mouth began to whisper. "Erm, Jenny?" The Husband said, laughing, "are you praying for God to fix it?" Casting us a dirty look, she flounced off and threw Mr Acorn with the rest of the broken crap she's accumulated.

That incident reminded me of how, when I was young, I would pray really hard if I had lost something. There would be a bit of bargaining going on, of the 'if you help me find my French homework I promise I'll never say 'bugger' again' kind. Which, to be fair, quite often worked. Although how much of it was down to God helping me out rather than me tearing my room apart, I'm not sure.

But after an experience in Matalan (of all places), I may have to reconsider my religious perspective. As I was paying, the Jamaican woman in the queue next to me patted me on the shoulder and said, with a sympathetic look on her face, "Trust in Jehovah" and walked away.  I could perhaps have understood this divine intervention if I'd been drunk in the middle of the day, swearing and offering the other shoppers a fight, but I was only buying a cat-print snood! Does Jehovah really have such a strong opinion on cats? Or snoods? Either way, she seemed to think I needed help from the Lord. I think I might have to get The Daughter to pray for me. And possibly donate my snood to charity.