to hear yourself.

A couple of months ago, I met a girl in a coffee shop who reminded me so much of me, I felt the making of a "God thing." My very own God thing.

As we talked about Christianity, and Christians, and Christ, and the peculiarities of each, I found myself saying things that aren't a part of any conversion pitch I've ever heard. Things like, "I don't always believe," and "Some days, I wake up, and have to remind myself of the logic of Christ," and "Honestly, sometimes I wonder if this is really true."

So I won't ever be guest-lecturing in any evangelism classes.

But I was honest. And she smiled. She considered me in a way that she had not considered the woman who'd attempted to witness to her before I sat down. I don't say that to elevate myself, because trust me, I just barely made it over there. The me in my head was shaking like a leaf through the whole front end of the thing. I say it because God knew. He knew that before she could hear of Christ, she needed to hear what she felt--uncertainty, and doubt, and sincere yearning to find God. She needed to be understood by a Christian, because she was so desperately hoping to be understood by Christ.

We come to Him in varied fashion. Some completely ready to fall, practically throwing ourselves down to His feet. Some sort of tottering on the edge, silently begging Him to push us. Others crawling forward, sticking out our necks, thinking, "What's down there?" Some others still entirely differently--far from the edge, or sitting stubbornly with our legs dangling over that edge, or refusing to acknowledge the edge, or perhaps like me: trying to rappel down the side, at my own speed, in control of the rope.

Sometimes, by His grace, I see. I understand that though I'm scared, He made me. And any moment that I am anything other than what He made me to be is one in which His great plan for others is weakened. Not that He can't work without me, but He does seem to work through me. He worked through me with the girl in the coffee shop. I was completely the person He made me to be in that moment, and honest about the parts of me that were not in fact a part of His creation. She saw my fear, and doubt and uncertainty. But because she saw me in Christ with them, I have to imagine that as a smart girl, she saw that Christ did not ask her to be above them, but to bring them with her.

What a beautiful design. That God would create us with a purpose for others. And what a terrible consequence of failure, or refusal, or stagnation. That others would miss out on their purpose in God's creation.