Last week, I was trying to sell a surfboard.
Partly in a symbolic “letting go of the past” sort of way, as my nerve pain is highly sensitive to cold water. Sadly, my days of riding the waves are over. My two feet remain firmly on land… For now.
Six feet of fibreglass that had spent considerably more time leaning against walls than riding waves.
A man came to buy it.
He looked exactly to me how you’d imagine a surfer might look. A little older than me. Scruffy. Weathered. The sort of person who looked as though he’d spent more of his life outdoors than indoors. And he had an aura of chill about him for it.
The exchange started as these things usually do.
“Any dings?”
“Not really.”
“How long have you had it?”
“Too long.”
The usual.
Then somehow the conversation drifted. As conversations often do when two strangers discover they have a few spare minutes and nowhere particularly urgent to be.
We started talking about life. About surfing. About why I was selling it.
Then health.
Then my nerve damage.
I explained, briefly, about the chronic facial pain I’ve lived with since a dental procedure almost two years ago. The medications. The neurologists. The uncertainty. The daily reality of living with damaged nerves and never quite knowing what sort of day you’re going to get.
He listened.
Really listened.
Not just the polite sort of listening where someone is simply waiting for their turn to speak.
To my surprise he asked thoughtful questions.
Then, a moment that totally caught me off guard.
“Would it be alright if I prayed for you?”
Now that’s not a question I get asked very often.
I paused for a moment.
Then I said, sure – at this point I’ll take all the help I can get.
So there I was, standing on my driveway in Devon next to a surfboard I no longer wanted, while a stranger I’d known for perhaps fifteen minutes placed a hand on my shoulder and prayed.
He prayed that I would wake up without pain.
He prayed that the damaged nerves would heal.
He prayed that my health would improve.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing performative.
Nothing designed to attract attention.
Just a quiet, sincere prayer from one human being to another.
A few minutes later he thanked me, loaded the surfboard into his vehicle and drove away.
That was it.
A simple interaction.
But I’ve thought about it a lot since…
Not because it suddenly changed my beliefs.
Not because I think a miracle DID happen on my driveway.
Because in a world that feels so rushed, cynical and disconnected, a complete stranger heard that another human being was suffering and decided he wanted to help.
And the only tool he had available was his faith.
So that’s what he offered.
Most people don’t see the battles others are carrying.
They don’t see the hospital appointments.
The medication changes.
The sleepless nights.
The fear about work.
The worries about money.
The chronic pain that follows you into every day, every morning.
To him, I was just a bloke selling a surfboard.
Yet somehow he saw beyond that.
And I think there’s something rather special about that.
When he left, I stood on the driveway for a moment before going back inside.
I sat down on the sofa.
The extension project could wait.
The jobs list could wait.
The emails could wait.
The hundred other things demanding my attention could wait.
For a few minutes I just sat there.
Overwhelmed.
Not because somebody had prayed for me.
But because somebody cared enough about a complete stranger in such a way.
Living with chronic pain can be a lonely thing.
People mean well, but after a while the appointments, medications and symptoms simply become part of the background noise of life.
People stop listening.
You become “that guy”.
You get used to carrying it.
Then a complete stranger comes along and reminds you that kindness still exists in the world.
I don’t know whether damaged nerves will heal just because somebody prays for them.
But I do know this…
A stranger heard that another person was struggling and decided not to walk away without trying to help.
And for reasons I’m still struggling to explain, that meant more than he will probably ever know.
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