That Guy.

     I saw him on the end of the row across the aisle from me. The sermon was excellent but this man kept me me distracted. There was something in his death grip on his chair, the keys he alternately jangled and grabbed, the hat he wrung in his hands. There was a familiarity, like of a story I had heard. It seemed he was having a moment. Then I heard the Voice. The one that is so familiar to me that I snap my head up and listen with every fiber. The One Voice said, "Go, and pray for that man."

     I attend a church that stuff like this happens often. But, you know, it never really seems to happen too much to me. The battle began. A long drawn out two syllabled "Go-od, (you know like a teen says, Mo-om) I do not know that guy. I'm a girl. They encourage us to pray for people in our own gender. I don't wanna. Go-od. Really?"  "Yes. Go, and pray for that man, take your friend, Kevin (who was sitting next to me)." And so it went for the rest of the sermon. I felt like that famous friend of Ferris Beuller. "I'll go. I'll go. I'll go. I'll go." The battle raged on until the prayer portion of the evening came. It was make or break time.

     I told my husband, Pete, to get the kids, I grabbed poor Kevin and ran to that guy. "Hi, I'm Karen, God really wants me to pray for you if that is ok with you. Is there anything I can pray for you right now?" His next words took my breath away and made Kevin's eye's fly open. "I need strength on my journey. I feel like God has always been with me, but I am deciding between Christianity and Islam. My friend brought me last week and this is my second time." Inwardly I begged, "GOD! Give me words!" I prayed a simple prayer for strength and guidance and afterwards I answered his questions. He said he still wasn't ready to commit, but that he was truly considering what I said. I gave him my information and invited him to small group.

     Then I remembered the story. My grandfather whom I affectionately called, "Pappy," had sat in a pew wringing his hands and fighting with Jesus. The love of his wife compelled him to come for many years to the church and the love of God finally compelled him out of his pew, down the aisle, and into the arms of Jesus. The nudges we feel from God seem hard to validate in the moment, but every time I have followed them, it was just the right thing to do.