Friday, March 1, 2013

People are watching...

Today is a horrible day, one of those days where you just want to hop back in bed and sleep through it.  Today i'm fighting with my wife (over something I did), my kids aren't listening and appear to hate me, things are breaking at work, stress is at an all-time high and I'm completely frustrated...a regular soup-sandwich over here.  (Okay, i'll explain:  a soup sandwich is something that is completely useless...you can't make a sandwhich out of soup...it's a Navy term, sorry)  In fact, I'm supposed to meet with my mentor for our weekly get together but I don't feel like talking about anything so I think I'm going to cancel on him. 



That was 2 hours ago...not a great way to start the day...



Well, I didn't cancel on him;  I went because I figured something good had to come out of it...the only place I had to go was up, so I might as well give it a shot...and God came through in a tremendous way.  After meeting my mentor, Shaun, at Panera he asks if it's ok that a mutual friend of ours, Bruce, meets us here as well...of course, brother Bruce is always welcome.  In fact, I first met Shaun and Bruce on a missions trip I went on late last year to Honduras;  I was so impacted by them and how, as grown men, they were so open about their faith and love for Jesus.  That's not something that I was accustomed to, or was comfortable with either, but I knew then that I had to get time with men like these two.  So we're sitting there in Panera, drinking our coffee, and talking about what's going on with the adoptions and I'm sharing some ideas that Christy and I have for a non-profit helping to supplement orphanages around the world.  We're talking about how great God its, about how it's amazing when we look back on where we were and where we are now and where God is taking us, and a stranger walks up to our table.  He proceeds to tell us that he was sitting at the table next to us and was evesdropping on our conversation;  I'm thinking he's not happy with all of this God-talk and is going to ask us to tone it down...he is, by the way, one of the employees there.  Instead, he proceeds to tell us that he's an ordained minister from a local community church and it was so encouraging to him to hear us talking openly and freely about our faith and that he just wanted to come over and say thanx!

Wow...

Here I am, trying to get time with guys who share their faith openly and now I'm part of a group of men that has impacted someone else in that very same way.  That, right there, was a turning point in my day and a huge sign for me that these things that I'm struggling with, the things that are getting me down today, are just the enemy attacking me.  He didn't realize it, but him coming to our table and saying thanx for encouraging him in turn provided a huge lift of encouragement to me and taught me yet another lesson that I thought I'd already learned:  People are watching you, especially as Christians;  how you act and what you say will impact them for good, or for bad. 

So, I'm changing the first sentence of this post.  Today is going to be a great day...


God Bless!

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