On the Sunday when the messy cross ornaments were given out, I immediately knew who I wanted to give mine to, but I wasn’t sure how to do it. It took me several weeks and prayer to decide to give it as part of a grouping of Christmas gifts and a thoughtful note.
In the note, I thanked my friend for being brave in the past year by being transparent and sharing their “messy” life with me and I explained what the messy cross means to me: hope that God will take my messiness and turn it into something beautiful.
On the day I was able to meet them, they were still at work and having a rough day. I left the gift along with a hug and later received a text that the gift touched them so much they cried.
Thank you for a practical and beautiful tool to get us thinking about creative ways to share the love of Christ.
Had a great conversation at work today! I have a new Muslim coworker (as of last week), and I was talking to him and two of my (nominally Christian) coworkers. Somehow we got on the topic of his halal diet (my coworkers were unfamiliar with it and were asking), and we got into a long discussion about the Bible vs the Quran, how we each pray, what each of our end time prophecies are, how Muslims get to heaven vs how Christians do. My Christian coworkers still seem to think I’m surely “Christian enough” to get to heaven so I was able to re-emphasize how much I actually don’t deserve to go to heaven and that I need Jesus. We even talked about what the Quran says about Jesus vs what the Bible says! This conversation started right before lunch and lasted til we realized it was 1 p.m. and should probably eat something/get to work. Everyone was cool with the conversation and all asking questions. I’m hoping this opens the door to future conversations but am seeking wisdom from God in not overdoing it because I’m so excited about this!
Dane and I had a really cool experience at the least expected location – the car dealership.
As we were driving to the dealership we asked God to lead us in a conversation with the car dealer who we had previously met. While we didn’t get to have a conversation about Jesus, we did get to encourage him, explain how we worked with Northwest Bible and our heart to adopt from the lens of Christianity.
But later that day, as we were in financing with a woman …, we got to have a surprisingly easy to start conversation with her. She was a woman of peace who began asking questions about us, our marriage, our faith. We got to explain our love for Jesus and the Rock He is to our marriage and our purpose in life.
She told us that she was in a relationship where her boyfriend was a Christian and she was Catholic and she has been checking out some Bible churches with him. She also said that she’s interacted with lots of pastors and church ministers recently who have been encouraging her. At the end, we asked if there was anything we could pray for her about. She immediately teared up and asked for prayer for her father who is battling cancer. We got to pray for her right there in her office and it was such a blessing to us all!
We walked away reminded of how good God is.
Recent Conversations
The Holy Spirit is working to bring us into conversations about Jesus, all over our city!