verbatim: sharing faith

1:00 p.m. no answer

4:28 p.m. Hello?

Hi Grandma, how are you?

Oh, Good.

It's Amber!

Oh, AMBER!
How are you doing today?

Good.

Are you busy right now?

No.
How have you been feeling?

Good.

What did you do today?

Nothing.

I heard Holly, Jason, and the girls came to visit.

Yeah. On Friday.

I bet the girls are getting big. Was it good to see them?

Yeah.

My Grandma suffered a series of strokes a number of years ago, and has never talked much since then. She can talk, but I think she's embarrassed of the way she talks so she never bothers to. Either way, I knew I could only continue on with the surface stuff for so long. That wasn't why I was calling. Last night in growth group we watched a video where Francis Chan talked about leading funerals for people who he saw no trace of faith in. I immediately thought of my Grandma. Not because she seems faithless, but because she hardly talks, so I've never known. For years I've wondered if she had a relationship with Jesus, and after watching the Francis Chan video, I felt compelled to call her. It was a hard call to make. The only memories I have of her going to church are ones of her coming to our kids' programs, coming to hear me sing a solo, or on Christmas Eve. That's about it. How am I to know if she even believes in God?

So, I asked her if she had a minute to talk. Of course, I think her mind went somewhere serious right away thinking that something bad had happened, but I just explained to her that I talked about her in growth group last night, prayed for her, and loved her. I told her that as I was talking about her to the other women, I wasn't sure if I knew about her faith.

Grandma, I just want to make sure that you know about God.

Yeah.

And you know that Jesus loves you.

Yeah.

Last night in our group, we were talking about the end of our lives, and I want all of us to be in heaven together someday (probably not the right thing to say)

(crying) Yeah.

You know, if you're ever lonely, you can talk to God.

Yeah.

When I get lonely in CA, that's what I do. God is always there to hear me.

Yeah.

I thanked her for being such a good Grandma, told her again that I loved her and so does God. Is that enough though? She never really said, "I believe!"

As I reflected on this entire conversation, I'm still kinda frazzled from it. But why? That's what ministry is all about. Why was I so scared to call her and tell her about Jesus? Is it easier with people you don't know as well? I sure hope so. I was sitting at my desk this afternoon about in tears at the thought that I didn't know how to tell people about Jesus. I'm thankful that the Holy Spirit was working through me as the phone rang, as I fumbled through my words, and as I spoke the love of God to her.

I was thankful there were other things to keep me busy today, because knowing that this conversation had to happen was stressing me out. I went to a planning meeting for ShareFest at Awakenings Coffeehouse in Lomita. I heard Eric Bryant from Mosaic in LA talk to us about the hope of the future if we work together. This theme of futuristic hope has been coming up a lot lately. I learned yesterday when Bob and I met that this is called prolepsis. I visualize it like a fishing line that you cast out into the future, and it's the thing that your line hooks on to that is your hope. The thing it, most of us hook our lines on jobs, family, retirement, money. The only sure hope that we should cast our lines out to is the hope that God offers us for our future. This future may happen well beyond our marriage, children, and vacations. Then again, it might come before then. We don't know. We're foolish if we set our hope on earthly things, because they'll only break our lines. God is the hope that hooks our line and anchors us to a future far more promising than we could ever come up with on our own.

My prolepsis for the last 2 days has been on the hope of a yummy supper with the Luhmann's. Tonight we had steak, mashed potatoes, and CORN ON THE COB! My favorites. Linda promised me that if I came back to CA after going home for Christmas, that she'd make me steak and potatoes. I finally collected after over a month. Then we watched Pride & Prejudice, painted our toenails (complete with cute flowers from my nail pens), and ate Kahlua cream pie from Marie Callendar's. We really had fun when Linda left to go huddle. You know what they say: when the cats are away, the mice come out to play! She'll never know where we spilled the toenail polish remover. Look closely Linda! ;)