So, I just finished binge-watching a new show (it’s not New Girl, I promise—lol). The name of the show is Manifest, and it’s on Netflix (no, I’m not getting paid to send you there).

The premise of the show is simple: a plane leaving Jamaica lands in New York City. When the passengers arrive, they’re shocked to find the city in an uproar. It turns out the plane took off five and a half years earlier and is just now landing. To the passengers, though, it felt like a normal flight.

It’s a compelling show. It only took me a few weeks to get through it because it’s written in a way that makes you want to keep watching to find out what happens next. I was a little disappointed in the ending (fair warning), but I won’t spoil it for you.

A big part of the show—and what I want to talk about in this post—is what happens to the passengers after they land. They start hearing voices in their heads and are drawn toward clues in an attempt to “solve” what they call their “callings.” Part of the mystery is where these callings come from and why the passengers are meant to follow them.

It reminded me of my religious upbringing and how I was in my younger years. I suppose when we’re young, we look for magic in the world because we haven’t yet been tempered by suffering. We think the world is a magical place, and we desperately want to believe our steps are ordered by a higher power.

For example, when my mom died, something pretty amazing happened to me. Some might call it a fantastic coincidence, but it just seemed too perfectly timed to be random.

To set the tone: around the end of 2017, I started reading the Harry Potter books (for the first time in my life). I spent several months making my way through them, living in that world and falling in love with the characters.

But like all things, it eventually came to an end. I finished the last book and found myself in that familiar lull—when you don’t want to move on from a series, but there’s nothing left to consume. You’re kind of lost and looking for something to fill that void.

Oddly enough, that’s when I found the Jack Reacher series, a new character to fall in love with and a vast library of books to explore. Yeah, I know, going from Harry Potter to Jack Reacher is a bit like switching from old show tunes to heavy metal. But that’s how I roll. (And I have to say, Jack Reacher has become one of my favorite characters in all of literature.)

Anyway, around the beginning of 2018, I started what became over a year of reading every Jack Reacher novel available at the time. I didn’t plan it, really. I just started reading them in order and kept going.

I say all that to say this: my mom died in August of 2018. I probably started reading the novels in January or February. And by the time she passed, I was on the eighth book, The Enemy.

Let me also say that Jack Reacher’s mother is not a main character in these books at all. She’s mentioned a handful of times (mostly when Reacher is about to lay the smackdown on someone’s candy ass). And I’m pretty sure this is the only book where she actually has a scene.

So, just through the natural course of reading whenever I had the chance, I happened to land on the following excerpt on the morning of my mother’s funeral:

“Won’t you miss us, Mom?” he asked.

“Wrong question,” she said. “I’ll be dead. I won’t be missing anything. It’s you that will be missing me. Like you miss your father. Like I miss him. Like I miss my father, and my mother, and my grandparents. It’s a part of life, missing the dead.”

We said nothing.

“You’re really asking me a different question,” she said. “You’re asking, how can I abandon you? You’re asking, aren’t I concerned with your affairs anymore? Don’t I want to see what happens with your lives? Have I lost interest in you?”

We said nothing.

“I understand,” she said. “Truly, I do. I asked myself the same questions. It’s like walking out of a movie. Being made to walk out of a movie that you’re really enjoying. That’s what worried me about it. I would never know how it turned out. I would never know what happened to you boys in the end, with your lives. I hated that part. But then I realized, obviously I’ll walk out of the movie sooner or later. I mean, nobody lives forever. I’ll never know how it turns out for you. I’ll never know what happens with your lives. Not in the end. Not even under the best of circumstances. I realized that. Then it didn’t seem to matter so much. It will always be an arbitrary date. It will always leave me wanting more.”

We sat quiet for a spell.

“How long?” Joe asked.

“Not long,” she said.

We said nothing.

“You don’t need me anymore,” she told us. “You’re all grown up. My job is done. That’s natural, and that’s good. That’s life. So let me go.” –(Excerpt from the novel The Enemy by Lee Child)

I swear, I still get goosebumps and well up every time I read that passage. You can believe me or not, but I promise that’s exactly how it happened. And if you’re skeptical, go read the Reacher novels yourself. You’ll see that a passage like that is downright rare. His mother barely shows up in the series.

It’s the single most unexplainable “coincidence” that’s ever happened to me. And it’s the one thing that started to shift me from being a jaded, agnostic, bitter old man to someone who thinks there might be something bigger out there. That perhaps our steps are ordered by a higher power.

Okay, calm down. I’m not about to start preaching. That’s not really my style. I’m not a Christian, and I’m definitely not gung-ho about going to church.

But maybe I can explain what I’m getting at a little better with another quote:

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” ― Roald Dahl

I’m asking you to chip away at that coarse exterior. If this bitter old man can make his peace with God because his mother spoke to him from beyond the grave, then maybe—just maybe—you can make your peace with it too.

Maybe there is something out there to believe in. Something bigger than us. Something, dare I say… magical.

But here’s what I’ve come to realize: it doesn’t really matter whether there is or isn’t. By the time we find out for sure, we’ll be pushing up daisies and it won’t matter anymore.

What if I told you that God exists for those who believe in Him? Or rather, that it’s your belief in Him that makes Him real to you (kind of like Santa Claus). I know plenty of Christians who can give you example after example of God’s presence in their lives, and there’s no amount of arguing that could ever convince them otherwise.

But that’s just it, isn’t it? Maybe that’s the true power of religion: belief. Choosing to put your trust in something beyond yourself. And maybe that belief actually pulls you toward things you wouldn’t otherwise be drawn to if you didn’t believe.

Again, I’m not trying to push religion on you. Like I said, I’m not that guy. What I’m talking about is the power of belief, finding something outside yourself to believe in and allowing that belief to transform you.

Maybe another quote will help, this time from the great TV show Heroes:

I’m asking you to take a leap of faith and start looking for signs. Find the callings in your own life. Because when you start looking, you’ll find they’ve been there all along and they are leading you on a path towards your higher purpose. So answer the call.