A neat episode came to my mind today. It involves a boy (now a man) I will call 'Roy'. Roy sat in front of me in a class in high school. Actually, I knew Roy before I became a Christian. We hung out at the same place (a place where 'hippies' used to hang out). Roy was there with a friend, who was trying to be one of my boyfriends. My girlfriend and I would meet guys in pairs and we would match up with them. Although we were familiar with each other, I never got to really know Roy.
But something happened to me when I was in the 12th grade. God became very real to me, after I repented of my sins and trusted in Jesus Christ as my Savior. My life was changed and now I also desired to share the Gospel with people. I brought tracts with me to school (I'm surprised I didn't get into trouble). I would give them out in class to anyone who wanted them. A few people were regular tract readers when I offered them tracts. One of them was Roy, who I already was familiar with.
Roy was not interested in school and really was quiet and kept to himself. I don't know if he even graduated with us that year, but he did show an interest in the tracts. He would tell me of difficulties he was in, such as his breakup with his girlfriend. This made him very sad.
One day, I didn't have any tracts with me, and he wondered where the tracts were. I actually got bold and asked him if he wanted to become a Christian (I don't know what I would have said if he were to have said 'yes'). He said he didn't want to, but he still looked forward to reading the tracts.
Graduation time came and I graduated, went to dental assisting school, and got married, all within a year. I also joined a ministry called 'CEF' which stands for 'Child Evangelism Fellowship'. One of the assignments we had was to do 'open air' work in sharing the Gospel with children using the wordless book colors. The quota was 25 and I reached that and continued to tell children the Gospel story using the wordless book colors. (I used a walnut with a ribbon that had the colors of the wordless book story).
A couple of years later, I was going to the school behind our apartment to find children to tell the Gospel to. Today, this would probably have gotten me arrested, but this was a long time ago. There were parents back them who objected to what I was doing. But I was walking into the school yard and noticed a man who looked similar to Roy, but this man looked different. He seemed happy and organized. He noticed me and said he wanted to talk to me. He was leading a group of boys in a sporting event and got them settled, then told me what happened.
He said he had been praying to be able to find me to tell me that he had become a Christian. I could tell that this was a different person than the one I knew in class a couple of years before. He shared his testimony with me, of how he came to Christ. I saw him one time at a later date, in a Christian band.
I would love for 'Roy' to read this and respond if he does. I know he will know who I am talking about. God works in mysterious ways, and I believe He wants to encourage us when we are serving Him. God guides and directs our steps, according to the Scriptures. God is active in our lives, even during the times we don't see Him. But it is really neat when we see Him work like this.
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