Two Strangers Entering My Life

I call them strangers because we do not really know one another.  One of them is a young Japanese-German man who met me at the gym; another is a German lady who is one of my neighbors.  He is 24, she is 70.  I have had two conversations each with the young man and my neighbor.  Neither of them is religious [a] but both are spiritual, smart and articulate.

While it is normal for a first conversation to be light and casual, but then I am not a normal person.  Without telling them much of who I am for nothing that I am is interesting or important, I related to them some of the miracles that I encountered.  For some reason, I no longer feel uncomfortable talking to others about the miracles [1] for I am no longer ashamed of them and afraid what others might think.

Neither of them fled as a result of our talks.  Perhaps God brought us together.  If that is the case, I must have been given the courage to talk about the miracles.  Maybe they drew them out of me, or maybe I sensed that they had a need to hear them.  Rightly or wrongly, I decided that recounting my experiences would lead them to the Mother of God, so She could introduce them to Her Son, Jesus.

Perhaps this signals a new direction in my life, toward an evangelization stage, one that I have not asked for, for I am used to a semi-reclusive existence, and certainly not prepared to undertake, for my life's secular burdens continue to demand my time, exhaust my energy and create stress.  What is interesting is that my conversations did not exhaust me, stress me out and make me feel that time was wasted.  On the contrary, both strangers rejuvenated me, enriched my spirit and made me feel that my time was not wasted on things that are secular and temporal but rather invested in the holy and eternal.

If doing God's work can be so fun and rewarding, I would like to do it tirelessly -- I just need to find a way to end my secular responsibilities for good -- that will take a miracle.


[a] I found out today that the 24 year old was taken to be baptized Catholic by his maternal grandmother against his parents' wishes.  He is not practicing but is willing to attend Mass in Latin with me tomorrow, Sunday.  He actually spent a few minutes before the Blessed Sacrament today before he decided to pray before the Blessed Virgin Mary instead.  My neighbor will need a lot more time.  Only a miracle to some degree will be able to convince her.  I pray that it would happen.
[1] I am still not ready to share them on this blog.