The crazy things God is doing in my life: part 1

This all started about four weeks ago. It is going to take me awhile to catch you up to speed, but here is how it all got started:

It is always weird when you are randomly thinking about someone and then you “bump” into them after not seeing them in forever. A few weeks ago I totally had one of those moments. I was laying in bed one night and for some reason I thought about a boy that I had dated for a few weeks in the 10th grade. I remember that we had become facebook friends a few months back but we hadn’t really talked. I made a mental note that it would be nice for me to write something on his wall and then I fell asleep. The next day, I had forgotten all about it until he popped up on a facebook chat and started talking to me. It was just so weird that I had just been thinking of him the night before and after having no contact since the 10th grade, he started talking to me!

On the very first day:

After awhile of catching up and finding all about the many hardships he has faced over the years since high school he began sharing with me his new religious beliefs. The things he was saying was so far from my own beliefs or the beliefs of anyone I know that it was difficult not to think of him as crazy. I have had people in the past who believed in things that I didn’t even think existed, and often I am quickly to dismiss them. It is so easy for us to “respect” someone elses beliefs and as a Christian for me to say “ok, well, I think they are nuts but that is what they believe” and walk away. It is so easy to not talk about their beliefs and to just ignore them because I assume they are too far out of reach. I just assume there is nothing I can do to change their minds and so I let them go without ever talking about what they believe in. This time was different though. It was clear that this boy was living in a world of pain and anger and I was convicted to not walk away.
Without giving you too many personal details for his own privacy, I’ll share the basics of what he told me: I know he has come from a difficult and broken home life and he was telling me a little bit more about that. His relationship with his mother is broken. He ended up going into the marines after high school and got married. The marriage lasted only a few months for all sorts of reasons and he was miserable. He needed help and he needed someone to talk to and he wasn’t finding love or support anywhere and so he tried to take his own life. He told me that when he did, he was actually sent to hell for not being proactive enough in the world, for sitting on the sidelines and letting things happen, but he was sent back to Earth for another chance. He is currently working on writing a book that mirrors his experiences. He felt that because he was sent to hell, God had rejected him. He said that he was a Christian before but now he didn’t like Christians and wanted nothing to do with Christianity, now he is pagan. He believes in all gods and he does magic and has met the other gods. This is about all I learned on the first day about him (I have since learned so much more, but I will share that later).

As he talked to me I kept hearing this voice in my heart saying “love him, show him My love” – this killed me, I just couldn’t ignore it. So as I was on the phone with this friend, let’s call him Paul (hehe I picked this name for a reason, I’ll explain it later), I kept asking questions about his beliefs and experiences until I eventually had to go. The rest of the evening God kept speaking to me telling me that He wanted me to show Paul love, to reach out to him and to open his heart. I went through the “God, are you serious???” phase for about a day. I knew He was serious but I think that everyone goes through this thought process at least a little when God suddenly calls on them for something big. Every question I asked the Lord and every doubt and fear that I had, I already knew the answers to, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t ask. I was a little annoyed at first because I was already in a tail spin trying to balance my own life, school – got to keep that 4.0—friends, fiance’, apartment and I just felt like the timing of this wasn’t great. However, I know better than to be concerned with my own timing. I knew that if God had placed this in front of me then it was an honor and I was not going to be selfish. I also for a period of time was terrified. I was scared of messing up, this poor boy has been lied to and failed so many times in his life, I didn’t want to do that also. And I didn’t want to fail God. However, again, I know better. I know how these things work, I can recall the countless Bible stories and I know that God will give you everything you need for the tasks He gives you. I also know that because my God is all knowing, He already knows exactly what mistakes I’m going to make and He has prepared for them – you can’t do anything to mess up God’s plan—I knew no matter what I couldn’t totally screw up. I also just kept thinking about the difficulty of what I was being called to do. Paul came to me talking about paganism, magic, dying and coming back, other gods, and other worlds. All sorts of things, so much information that I was having a hard time processing everything. Mostly, I was just having the “why me” moment and even though I didn’t have the answer to that, I knew that I didn’t need one. God has his reasons and I was pretty excited that I was going to get to be part of something really cool.

I went to William that same night at dinner and told him all about what had happened at home that afternoon. I was half expecting him to tell me that I was crazy and that there wasn’t much that I could do – but he didn’t. William listened and he encouraged me. He started listing off my characteristics that he thought would make me perfect for such a task. He told me that I’m caring and creative and I can find holes and loop holes in any argument. He told me that if anyone was right for the task of opening Paul’s heart to God, it was me – God used him to tell me “why me.” I kept trying to make some sort of game plan or strategy for talking with Paul, I mean, this was going to be a difficult challenge – I’ve got to know what I’m going to say to him, right? Wrong. God wasn’t telling me anything along those lines and I think that if I did “know” what things to say to Paul then it would have taken some of the magic and Golry away from my God. He kept telling me to love him, to accept him, to become friends with him, but mostly to love him. God wants him to know love.