Disclaimer: This may be a long post, so bear with me.
Last night, at around two AM, I was hanging out in a mall parking lot as a bored young man is wont to do. I was with some friends taking part in their weekly Honda club meet, but that’s really just background information. The true meat of my story is my experience with a young girl I met there, named Constance (fake name used for her protection).
Constance was blind. She was also a Christian. She approached my group and asked us if we knew the Lord. Everyone else just mumbled in an attempt to get her to leave us alone. But I, being the humorous and good-natured man that I am, said that I did not. I asked her who this Lord fellow was and she jumped into her routine.
At first I just silently laughed at her, a visible (to everyone but her) look of glee on my face. As she continued, however, a change came over me. She not only talked to me, but allowed me to talk. She asked me questions, such as why I was an atheist and why I didn’t believe in the Bible.
Now, I’ve never been very “in touch” with my emotions. That being said, I can’t really explain what started to come over me. All I can really say is that I felt I was on the verge of discovery. After several more minutes of discussion, I had an epiphany. And now I’m a changed man.
I realized that my self-professed atheism was merely a defense mechanism I was using as a reaction against the rest of society. I deemed the majority’s values as inferior to my own, though I actually held very similar ideas in my own head. As such I began telling others that I did not believe in any gods. In the end, last night, I decided to cast away this veil I’d be covering myself in. I owe this all to Constance and her gift.
The question I have to ask is, how many of you have experienced something similar to me? It doesn’t necessarily have to be religious in nature. Any great experience where you have discovered something important about yourself due to the intervention of a stranger. What did you learn? How has it affected your life? What have other people thought about your prior retelling of your experiences? For me, personally, I can’t really really say what is going to happen, although I am planning on attending a few churches near where I live. I’m very excited to see what my future holds.
