Miracles News

September-December, 2025

The Woman in the Queue — What a stranger at a supermarket taught me about forgiveness

by Rev. Kirsty Randle, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

Recently, a close friend of mine lost two family members in the same week. I found myself quietly present through both of their deaths — holding space, praying, and offering what little steadiness I could.

Later, my friend told me their passing had felt peaceful, even beautiful and that somehow, something sacred had come through me. I was deeply moved. Humbled. Grateful. I realized Holy Spirit was somehow using me as part of His great plan.

Still feeling the love, I went to the supermarket, and there was a woman in the queue ahead of me, straight out of casting central. She was taking up the time of the cashier in the most entitled way imaginable, oblivious to the long line forming behind her.

I felt the rage rise fast and full. Not just irritation — contempt. I wanted to shame her. Mentally, of course. With my silence. With my thoughts. With my disgust for her narcissism.

This is the part of spiritual life no one tells you about. That you can be part of someone’s sacred transition on a Monday and want to murder a stranger on a Tuesday. The Course tells us that everything we perceive is an outward picture of an inward condition, but I wasn’t having that. This woman was outside me, in the queue, and was nothing like me at all!

And yet — there, in the queue — I also wanted something else. I wanted to see the truth. So I prayed silently:

“Holy Spirit, I am unwilling to withdraw my projections. I am unwilling to see this woman as innocent. I want to punish her in my mind. And I ask You not to take that away, but to help me look at it without judgment.”

That was the real miracle. Not that I suddenly felt waves of love toward her (I didn’t), or that she turned to me with tears in her eyes and apologized for taking so long (she didn’t). The miracle was simply the willingness to see my own mind, without judgment. And boy, there was something to look at there.

As the Course puts it: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” (T-16.IV.6:1)

I realized that Holy Spirit was providing me with a lesson. He can use my right mind to channel his peace and love, but I will never be happy until I look at my wrong mind with Him. That woman wasn’t in my way. She was the way. She showed me where I still hide from God. And where I still try to earn my holiness instead of accepting it.

Forgiveness isn’t a spiritual technique. It’s a choice to see differently. And sometimes, it begins not with love — but with the awareness to admit we don’t want to.

Rev. Kirsty Randle, OMC, is a Pathways of Light minister living in Dorset, UK.
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