Always Be Ready

(Note: the italics are my thoughts.)

I had a very strange experience yesterday. I was at the mall, eating in the food court, when all of a sudden, a guy walked up to me and said, "May I join you?"

Axe murderer? Purse-snatcher? Super-agressive flirt? Oh well, he's not that big. I can take him out if I have too. "Ummm...Okay."

It turned out that he was indeed a super-aggressive flirt. He had dropped off his friends, parked the car, then been unable to find the friends...or so the story went. He said he was in high school, and I told him I was 25, but that didn't slow him down a bit.

Since when do high school guys flirt with 25-year-old women?

"Do you like video games?" Oh good grief.
"Are you on MySpace?" Don't even try it, buster.
"Do you have email?" I'm not THAT old...and...I give my email address to you over my dead body.

Ummmm, God? I didn't really pray for a witnessing opportunity today, and even if I had is THIS it?!?

Well, to make a long story longer, we ended up talking briefly about homeschooling, college, his idea of becoming a fireman, what the best store at the mall was, the language barrier he has with his parents (their English is lousy; his Vietnamese is lousy), and the value/torture of reading books. Guess who was on which side of that debate?

Somewhere along the way, the topic of movies came up. It just so happened that I had seen "Amazing Grace" (excellent by the way) just that afternoon!

Aha! I don't want to ask this guy a lot of personal questions or get into a very deep conversation, but THIS I can do.

So, I had the chance to tell this, uh, weirdo about John Newton and William Wilberforce. He'd never heard of either of those guys, so I told him where the title of the movie came from, which is the song. The story of how the song came to be written is basically the gospel.

So, a random high schooler at the mall got someone to talk to over dinner, and a history lesson, and the gospel.

And I got a great story.