Orchestration

I have a dear friend who is not a Christian. She claims that she doesn't believe in all that God stuff. It's been a challenge for me to be her friend, and yet, I am her friend--and my kids are her friend and her kids' friend. She is having a really hard time lately. Her mom has been diagnosed with cancer again and she is the only person in her family left to care for her mom. She is also a single mom (with a dead beat dad for her kid) and so the burden of being the only one weighs heavily on her. Shawn and I have been reaching out to her for over 3 years now, loving her, hanging out with her and her boy (that we consider our 4th boy!). We love her. We want to speak life into her life, and yet we know that our job is just to love her and be "Jesus with skin on"...so we try. Last week my friend was let go of her executive position--sent home with 3 weeks severance and a "We're really sorry but we're not able to keep you, we hope everything turns out ok for you." She was devastated, to say the least.
Monday night at dinner I shared with Brennan about what had happened that day and that we needed to be praying AND extra loving to our sweet friends because life is pretty hard for them these days. The next night when I went to up to tuck in Brennan he was sealing a letter for his friend. He had a stamp on it and it was missing the address. He asked me if I would please address it for him and make sure that it got into the mailbox--so that the post office could deliver it to his friend across the street. I didn't ask him what it said, and he didn't offer. I took it downstairs and laid it on the counter. The next day I was on the phone with my friend and mentioned that I was putting a letter in the mailbox for the postman to deliver across the street to her son. We haven't been able to talk much lately because anytime I start to tell her that I'm praying for her or wishing I could make it easier for her, she cuts me off and hangs up. (She's not a big communicator! :) )
Fast forward to Friday....My friend calls me after school to see if Shawn and I would like to take the kids to see the movie, "The Blind Side". Shawn and I both really want to see it, so we agree. She also mentions that they got Brennan's letter and that it was really sweet, it made her cry. She asked, "Did you ask him to write it?" I laughed and said, "No, I don't even have any idea what it says, I was just charged with mailing it!" She read it to me and I teared up too. My boy wrote to his friend and told him that he was sad for him that his grandma had "the 'c' word" and that he was praying for her to be better and to not be in pain. Then he said, "And, I am sorry that your mom lost her job. I'm sure that's scary for you. I am praying for you and your mom that she gets a new job and that things are easier for you. God loves you. I'm glad you are my friends. Love, Brennan". She was in tears at the end of the letter and said, "You really didn't ask him to write that?" I assured her that I didn't. I said, "We all feel like that, you know. We hate it that this is so hard for you right now. We're all praying!". The call was quickly over and we agreed to meet for the movie soon.
Brennan was going skating with a friend that night, so he was going to miss the movie.
We looked online and found out that the movie was sold out at home. There was a theater in Dayton where it was showing on two screens and they're huge cinema's so we figured we could just go there. We agreed to meet there. On our way, she called to tell us that it was sold out and that they were going across the street to the "Dollar Theater" to see what was on there. I tried to look online on my phone but none of the titles at the theater were familiar to me. Most were rated PG-13 or R and only one rated PG. So we went in to see about the one PG movie--The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry. The lady at the counter said that it was a good movie. She also said that adult tickets were $8! This is the dollar saver! What? I asked, "Is it a good movie for kids?" She said, "Yes!" I said, "It's not scary or anything right?" She assured me that it wasn't. My friend said, "It's fine, lets just see it!". So we bought our tickets. (We even had to pay $ to get cash out of the cash machine because we didn't have enough cash with us because we thought we were going to the other theater that took debit cards! It would have been really easy to walk away from this whole thing, but we just kept pushing forward--which is NOT like me! :) ) So we went in, sat down and watched the movie. The movie was a straightforward presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! It presented Jesus and my friend who will not let me say more than two sentences about Jesus to her sat there the whole time and listened and cried. I was praying the whole time as we watched that God would somehow use this time to speak to her soul. Then I realized that God had to have orchestrated our whole evening for her to have this time in the theater with Him. Brennan's letter spoke to her. The movie spoke to her. Afterward, we didn't say much. She just said that she liked the movie and that we were surprised to see "Benson and Captain Steubing (from the Love Boat)" in the movie.
Then we left.
Today during church prayer time I remembered that I hadn't told Brennan about Friday night. I told him very briefly and he just started sobbing. He cried and cried. That made me cry. To have your kid love his friends so much that he cries because they are hurting and he wants so much to be able to share Jesus with them because he believes that knowing Jesus would help them get through this very difficult time. It touched me. I believe that God is using these things to get my friend's attention. I believe that we are being used to show His love to her--through our actions and our friendship. And I'm praying that she will come to the realization that He is the One that she's been searching for--and that He will be with her. Isn't it amazing that God is willing to go to that length to orchestrate events on our behalf so that we can hear and choose? And, isn't it amazing to be a part of those events--even 11 year olds!
Still praying and believing that He will win her heart!