So anyway, yesterday was day 4 of week 1. As part of Day 4 you are supposed to "cross your fence," "cross your street," and "cross a social, political or ethnic barrier." Basically, be intentional about practicing "sentness" by just talking to people you don't normally talk to. So, all day I was struggling with how to do this in a way that would make me the least uncomfortable (you know for some reason it always seems to come back to what I want...). It was rainy and cold which gave me an excellent excuse not to do anything. Feeling kind of bad about failing at an activity in week 1, I came home from work and sank into the couch ready to turn my brain off. Then I remembered that I needed to pick up my dry cleaning from cleaners across the street. I could talk to the nice Bangladeshi lady who works there. She always wants to talk to me, but I am normally in a hurry and, unfortunately, never really give her the time of day. So feeling righteous about being able to do my activity, I set off planning the conversation in my head. She would be so grateful that I was kind to her and she would thank me for taking the time to encourage her (yep, it seems to always be about me). I got there and we chatted a bit, but then a lady came in and was in a rush and so I quickly scooted out of her way. That was it. Rather anti-climatic. I guess I could have waited around for her to help that lady and talk to her afterwards, but that would have been kind of weird. Well, I was a little obedient. Maybe God is opening a door for next time. Too bad that was the only pair of pants that I own that require dry cleaning...
So, I crossed the street to the dry cleaners, but I still wasn't able to cross my fence to talk to my neighbors. It would be weird for me to knock on their door just for the heck of it...and God knew that. Today, we were blessed to have a vendor bring in cake balls. If you have never experienced (yes, experienced) cake balls you are missing out. They are little balls gooey goodness that are heaven sent, literally. So, we had some extras at the end of the day of one of the managers came up to me and asked if I would like to take some home to my NEIGHBORS!!! I said to him, "Did you know that God was going to use you today?" I don't think he's a believer and he looked at me like I was crazy. I told him the story about how I needed to talk to my neighbors as a part of this book we were going through, but I didn't have a reason to knock on the doors. So not only do I have a reason to knock on their doors, I was able to share a little with my co-worker!
I was so excited. I rushed home, but then I realized that people probably weren't home from work yet. So I had wait 30 minutes to give people time to get home. In the meantime I took a picture with my phone of the cake balls (below), to remind me of God's faithfulness to equip me to reach the people he tells me to go to. So, finally the time came to pass them out. I was nervous, but I knew I had to do it. Out of the 15 apartments in my building, only one opened the door and her family can't eat egg. I am pretty sure the cake balls have egg in them. Ugh. At least she took some for her friends. Her name is Marthali and I will be praying for her. A couple of places I could hear people, but they didn't open the door. I may make another round in a few minutes to hit up the places where I feel people just weren't home. Anyway, God is good and so are cake balls. I will give a shout out to Austin Cake Ball (http://www.austincakeball.com/) for being an instrument of change in my life as they were truly sent to me by God today.
No comments:
Post a Comment