What started as a routine traffic stop quickly turned into a powerful moment of prayer between a North Carolina state trooper and a father who was undergoing treatment for cancer.

ABC7 News reports that earlier this year, Dr. Ashlye Wilkerson was driving back home from Duke University hospital in Durham, North Carolina when she was pulled over for speeding.

Dr. Wilkerson was driving her father, deacon Anthony Geddis, back from the hospital, where he was receiving chemotherapy for stage four colon cancer.

But after the trooper approached their car, deacon Geddis spoke up to try and protect his daughter.

Wilkerson told ABC7, “He was still a little weak because he had a treatment that day. He cleared his voice and said, ‘This is my baby girl, she’s driving me back home from treatment I had chemo.’”

Instantly, Trooper Jared Doty had a change of heart.

“At that time, I knew there is no way I’m writing this lady a ticket,” Trooper Doty recalls. “I had to sit in there for a while just to compose myself to figure out what to say when I went back.”

When I heard that Sports Illustrated (SI) did a story on Coach Joe Kennedy, my first thought was, “Why?” As faithful readers of The Daily Citizen know, the coach is the subject of a major freedom of religion case at the U.S. Supreme Court, which could hand down its decision any day. But that case is not about football or any other sport that SI covers.

The case involves the constitutional question of whether a public-school coach can lose his job for kneeling and praying quietly at the 50-yard line after a football game.

The coach’s story took place on a football field, but it wasn’t about the game itself. So why on earth would SI cover a legal case involving prayer?

Perhaps the title of the SI article gives it away: “When Faith and Football Teamed Up Against American Democracy.”

I’m scratching my head wondering: When was the last SI story on democracy?

The author of the piece, Greg Bishop, framed his story from the perspective of the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the rabidly anti-religious organization representing Bremerton High School, where Kennedy had coached football for eight seasons until his on-field prayers turned into a controversy in 2015.

Christians are supposed to turn the other cheek, right?

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’” said Jesus. “But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:38-39).

But does that mean as believers we’re supposed to simply acquiesce to the evildoers who want to kill pre-born children or brainwash and confuse our kids with propaganda that insults and mocks God’s plan for human sexuality?

Of course not.

Jesus was referring to our need to leave revenge to the Lord. If passivity was the ideal pathway, why would the Lord have urged Joshua to be “Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).

If we weren’t supposed to fight for righteousness in the culture, why would Nehemiah describe the scene of laborers building a wall with one hand while holding a sword in the other (Nehemiah 4:17)?

Here is the hard and fast truth:

We’re on the verge of overturning Roe because millions of Christians have been fighting and praying faithfully against an unjust ruling for nearly 50 years.