When the night-shift janitor questions God, asking what purpose he could have working in a dark and lonely place, the man receives an answer through a powerful vision that brings him to his knees.

Silas dunked the mop into the sudsy water and stood for a moment, taking in the hallway and the long stretch of linoleum in Business Suite A. It had broken his heart that the elementary school couldn’t afford two janitors because of budget cuts, but he understood. Still, he liked being known as “Mr. Sigh, the janitor guy” and not just the old man pushing a broom on the night shift.

“Well, I guess there’s one good thing about working alone while the rest of the world is asleep,” he mumbled, leaning on the mop handle. “There’s no one around to eavesdrop and call me crazy when they catch me talking to myself.”

He sighed as he squeezed the water from the mop head and flung it to the floor with a smack, talking as he scrubbed while carrying a heavy heart.

“I don’t understand any of this, Lord. I don’t understand why I’m here. You know I loved those kids like they were my own grandkids.”

As sweat trickled into his brow, Silas smiled as he recalled the day little MacAlister “Mac” Cromwell returned to school wearing a superhero cape after kicking the tar out of leukemia.

The elementary school hallway had been buzzing with anticipation while the students and staff held “Welcome Back Super Mac!” signs. Silas wished he hadn’t taken his place beside Mrs. Pierce, Mac’s English teacher, since the tender-hearted poet started to sniffle as soon as the principal announced Mac and his mother were about to enter the school. Silas had to bite his lip to stop himself from getting emotional to keep his reputation intact since all the kids thought he was a tough bird, breaking up fist-fights in the gym, giving bullies a stern glare while threatening to offer a new detention for such offenders involving scrubbing toilets and floor tiles, all-the-while offering fist bumps and high fives in the hallways when the kids aced their exams.

But no one knew when everyone had gone home at the end of the day, and he was left to finish up, how Silas walked the school and prayed—his hand gliding across the lockers, his voice pleading the blood of Jesus Christ over every soul that passed through—those coming in and going out.

“Mr. Sigh, are you crying?” sweet, freckled-cheeked Lucy, a third-grader at his side, had asked.

Thankfully, there was no time to admit to his tears because the hallway erupted with cheers and chants of “Super Mac!” as the young boy wearing a ballcap and Superman cape rounded the corner and smiled, giving Silas a fist bump as his pale blue eyes twinkled before he flew through the crowd to his homeroom class.

Silas choked up at the memory as he continued mopping the floor. No one knew how he’d prayed on his knees at Mac’s locker, at his seat in room 203, and every night before falling asleep and again before his feet hit the floor in the morning. Mac was more than a student at the school where Silas worked—he was one of his own—a soul needing prayer.

“Oh, Lord. Please help me to understand why I’m here and not there, where I had a purpose,” he whispered.

As he neared the end of the hallway in Business Suite A, Silas paused to double-check his work to ensure he hadn’t missed any spots. But as he inspected the floor, the glossy beige linoleum suddenly began to change as if someone had poured a can of gold paint in the corner that started to stretch out and move as if alive.

He shook his head. “This midnight shift is already getting to me.”

Silas rubbed his eyes and pinched his arm like a schoolboy, but he was wide awake. Realizing he wasn’t sleepwalking, Silas began to tremble as the golden tone softened and became like transparent glass, spreading and covering the hallway floor and every threshold to every closed door. All doors but one—the door at his left side. There, the floor appeared like ugly cement while thick darkness spilled out from under the door into the hallway. There was a deep crack with a foul stench where the darkness and gold met. Silas lifted his head and read the name on the door.

“MacAlister Cromwell, Sr.”

He gasped. The office belonged to Mac’s dad. Silas closed his eyes, and a flood of pictures came to his mind: a man with pale blue eyes, seething with rage and clenching his fists as he cursed God, tossing his fist into the air before smashing a beer bottle on the sidewalk, and shouting, “First the divorce and now this? It wasn’t enough that you took my wife? Now you’re trying to take my son’s life?” The filth MacAlister spewed, the way he criticized Christ, brought Silas to his knees as a powerful fear gripped him—fear for the man’s soul.

Unable to move, Silas saw more of MacAlister’s history, the abuse he endured as a child, and the abuse he dished out as a man. He was a broken man. A broken man in need of forgiveness and healing. A broken man who, even though his son was cancer-free, found it hard to trust anyone and nearly impossible to believe in the goodness of God.

“But nothing is impossible with you, Lord.”

Silas pulled himself up and began to pray for MacAlister, the father of the boy he’d prayed for many times. Gently, he touched the lettering on the door as he wept for the man.

“Oh, Lord. Help him. There’s a split in his soul, and it’s filling with anger. It’s keeping him from coming to you. If he only knew the truth about you…”

Suddenly, the vision disappeared, and the appearance of the hallway returned to normal. After taking a moment to thank the Lord for bringing him here to work in darkness, Silas reached for the mop to finish, knowing his work would not be finished on this night.

And so, Silas flipped the switch and turned his back on the wet linoleum and darkened hallway of Business Suite A but not on the man who was lost in the dark. Silas would continue praying for Mac’s dad as if he were one of his own, knowing that’s precisely what the Lord wanted—that MacAlister Cromwell, Sr. would become one of His own.

“I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. For there is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity-the man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 2:1, 3-5 NLT.)

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