Unauthorized Prayer
My landlord professes to be an atheist and I sent her a funny, cute email like I often do to cheer people up. She has recently lost her two sons, one to HIV and one to suicide. Very sad!
The email mentioned God in it. I didn’t mean to disrespect her atheistic beliefs with my email.The email didn’t name “Jesus”, just “God” in general. She got VERY upset me. She asked me to not email her anything with God’s name or any mention of faith. I just wanted her to know that I cared.
The next few days were silent between her and me. I prayed behind her back like we learned to do in the Doable Evangelism Seminar. I prayed for her health, for her well-being, for her happiness and for good things for her.
Guess what!??!! She called me! We then had the nicest, loving, God-inspired dialog. A good ending to a well intentioned email gone bad!
-Sheri
July 14th, 2008 · 4 Comments
Categories: OA Stories
Jim Henderson said
am July 16 2008 @ 1:22 pm
Loving people is tough work.
They often will not extend to you the benefit of the doubt they themselves expect.
They will compare their best with your worst.
They will hold you to a higer standard than they hold themselves to.
I wonder what went through Jesus mind the myriad of times he extended himself and was either rebuffed or eventually killed for offering.
Thats one reason I like praying behind peoples backs- they cant stop me from doing that:-)
I appreciate that in spite of her immature response to your genuine extention of sympathy - you were able to recover and once again look for the good in the other person.
Her atheism is most likely a way for her to tell teh world to screw themselves due to the fact that someone (maybe a religious person) hurt her once and she cant move passed it.
She is far more vulnerable to love than she may seem.
When people like each other the rules change
Helen said
am July 16 2008 @ 3:35 pm
Sheri, I’m glad it worked out well. It sounds like the landlord realized later she overreacted, that you’re a kind person who meant well. I expect it’s very hard for her right now and small things set her off.
Having said that I do think it’s wise to be careful how you bring up God around atheists - they might have had bad experiences that make them think any mention of God means you’re about to move in with hardcore proselytizing.
Jim I don’t think it’s fair to call the landlord immature. She’s in the midst of grief and if she’s made it known she’s an atheist maybe it makes her feel invisible and unlistened to when people mention God to her as if she shared their beliefs.
Randy said
am July 17 2008 @ 6:24 pm
Nice recovery, Sheri! Way to care about people different from you!
A lot of people like to point out that the apostle Peter, when he stepped out of the boat to walk on water toward Jesus, fairly shortly SANK. i’m afraid that misses the point…which is he got out of the boat and actually WALKED ON WATER. Not sure how many steps, but SOME. And it appears he walked back to the boat with Jesus as well. You may have unintentionally offended your friend by trying to offer her comfort and sympathy, but your persistent love seems to have won the day. Way to love. Way to get out of the boat!
Helen said
am July 17 2008 @ 10:52 pm
Randy wrote:
Do they really? What’s with those guys? Do they have the ministry of discouragement or what?
I think the hidden part of this story is that Sheri had been kind to the landlady before the email mistake and so once the landlady got over the heat and frustration of the moment she came back to Sheri because Sheri is the sort of person she doesn’t want to be on bad terms with.
This speaks to the value of relationship - if there’s a good relationship already established then if you do make a mistake the other person is much more likely to forgive you (once they calm down). And it’s to Sheri’s credit that she established a relationship like that with her landlady.