God Sent a Cockroach

I wrote the following poem on March 23, 2004, remembering one of the strangest answers to prayer that I have ever witnessed as a child growing up in the Philippines. As you may gather, I was the boy in question. The only detail I can think of that I left out is that the cockroach did not live to tell the tale. Also, my mom was sharing about it in a prayer meeting with colleagues later in the day, and someone commented, "God sent you a cockroach and you killed it??"

I forget the date of the incident, but I believe it was in the late 1980s or early '90s.

Photo by Kohyao on Adobe Stock

In a far-off land
There lived a boy
Who went to school in the morning
With his father the teacher
In a city not known for its wonderful traffic
So at 4 in the morn
His mother roused him from bed
And every evening he prayed
He'd be alert the next day

And one morning God chose
To answer the boy's prayer
In the last way the boy would expect

In the tropical heat
There was no blanket on the bed
The boy lay on top of the sheet
Too hot even for a t-shirt in bed

His mom came to wake him up
The sleepy boy opened his eyes
And then it happened:
God sent a cockroach!
It scurried over the boy's bare belly
And suddenly
The sleepiness left
The boy was alert
Very alert
And he remembered his prayer
And thanked God for sending a cockroach
God used an insect to bring glory to His Name

As the years have gone by
The boy has grown into a man
He has never forgotten the cockroach God sent
To remind him
That God can use anything at all
To answer prayer
And to bring honor to His Name