Categories: uncategorized
Date: 12 August 2007 19:18:48
Some people who know me well will know that I have really been struggling over the last couple of years with my faith, but the last week God has kind of side-swiped me a bit. I have had two friends contact me to tell me that they have become a Christian/renewed their faith. Both were spectacularly unexpected.
The first one if a girl I went to university with called Thelma. She is one of the most wonderful people I have ever met. She has a deep filthy laugh, always made me laugh and she is unbelievably kind and compassionate. Just over a year (I think) ago she went to live and work in New Zealand and this week she sent me a message on Facebook to say that she recently became a Christian and is now going to a Baptist church out there.
The second person is a guy I know called Stuart. We have been friends for about 8 years when we met when I was doing my social work training and he was an acupuncturist at the drug project I did one of my placements at. He had a spectacular relapse and went back to using heroin and crack cocaine and ended up in rehab where he started going to church and said that he'd had a conversion experience, although I always wondered how genuine it was. I hadn't spoken to him for about 18 months as he was behaving like a complete tosser for a while. We never stopped being friends, but I guess I'd had enough of him not addressing his behaviours. Anyway, I sent him a text message last week to wish him happy birthday and he phoned me today to say that has done an Alpha Course, reaffirmed his faith, been going to church, had Interferon treatment and his Hepatitis C is currently undetectable. I was understandably skeptical that his “God-experience” was genuine, but he passed the phone to someone else who I know of through a friend and she confirmed it all to me.
I am really excited for both of these people, and delighted that their journey's have been so positive. Both of them thanked me for the things that I have said to them in the past and the discussions we have had about my personal faith. I have never rammed it down their throats, but if they have asked me questions then we have talked. I am not a super-evangelist, in fact I fail miserably most of the time, but it is clear to me that the smallest discussions with people can make the difference. I am just glad that the work is done by God and not by me. I fail dismally, but God comes up trumps!