I’ve been spending a lot of blog time talking about people who do good. This time, I’m going to focus on a do-goodee.

The Rev. Nathan M. Quick will tell you prayer is a good thing. He knows first-hand how the good words (including prayer), good wishes and good deeds of others can help a person push through when times are not so good.

Some folks may recall that Quick was shot during an attempted robbery Jan. 10 at his neighborhood store in Petersburg, Quick’s Stop and Go Mini Mart on South Street. Quick, a Chester resident, also is pastor of Living Word Ministries in Colonial Heights.

He humbly told of the hundreds of people that circled around him after news broke about the robbery. They prayed at their homes, the waiting room at the hospital where he was admitted and in the community where he is a well-known leader. Quick said a bullet grazed his heart during that horrible, near-fatal incident at the store, resulting in open-heart surgery to repair the damage and stop the bleeding.

If he was ever in need of divine intervention and good wishes, it was during the operation and a week in the intensive-care unit at Southside Regional Medical Center. “Hundreds of people were praying for me,” he recalled. “Prayer was instrumental in my recovery. I even think the doctors were praying for me.” He spent another week in a regular room while he recovered from his wounds. 

Prayer was good. The answer was greater. Quick said he returned to his pulpit at Living Word in late March.

But I asked him to discuss other acts of kindness during his ordeal that stuck in his mind. He didn’t hesitate in responding.