A post by Mary

A most unusual experience today.

I noticed the beautiful smile of a young man as he was checking out my groceries. I told him so and he graciously thanked me over and over. He told me that he needed encouragement because the devil was seriously attacking him. I remarked that he must be doing something right and not to worry about it. He thanked me and said I had greatly encouraged him, and he needed it badly at that very moment. Then he fell to his knees on the floor in front of the cash register and began sobbing and calling out to Jesus and thanking him over and over again. There was a lady bagging my groceries who was a manager of the store and she went over to the cash register and finished checking out my items. I was concerned that he might get in trouble for his public display and she assured me that he would not. Moments later she raised him to his feet and he finished his task, as he told me, “you will never know what your encouragement has done for me”. I reached out and took his hand and told him that I needed to make a connection with him and that I would be praying for him.

As I left, Matthew, another store employee whom I know from church, asked me what had happened and I told him and also said that as a fellow Christian he should encourage him. He said he certainly would and then he asked me if I remembered a time when he was seven years old and he had come into my office and I had encouraged him. He said, “you did that for me too, and I will never forget it”.

As I was putting my groceries in the car, a man walked up to me and asked me what I had said to Martin to evoke such an outburst of emotion. I relayed our conversation and said that he was not ashamed of his Lord. That was exactly what our Sunday school lesson was about yesterday, and if a bold witness was ever more needed it is today. He thanked me and walked away.

As I got into my car, I rejoiced, thinking that I encountered four people in the space of five minutes and Jesus’s name was passed from one to the other. That must have been how it happened in Paul and Timothy’s day.

I will pray for Martin every time I think about him.