So it’s my third night here at my boss’ place, and God is SOOOO good! It’s just absolutely astounding what has been happening. Yesterday, my boss dropped me off at church! I didn’t even asked for a ride, I mentioned it to him on Saturday to see if he was interested in going to church, and Sunday rolled around, and he offered me a ride there! Background information, my boss’ wife has Rheumatoid Arthritis, and is in severe pain. She had to go into the hospital today to get some stuff done to her. I don’t really know the details, but I know she had a doctor’s appointment. Since I am staying at my boss’ place, he dropped me off at work this morning. And I didn’t expect him to be in at all today due to the fact of the of doctor’s appointment. So throughout the day, I’ve been just praying constantly for opportunity to speak to my boss about spirituality, especially since I am living in his place. It’s like Paul when he was chained to Roman soldier… can’t get away from me now!

Anyways, I worked 9-7pm, and he came by to picked me up. I can tell he was really bummed. So I asked him about his wife, and how she is doing. Proceeded into asking him how he is doing; on the ride back in the car, he was tearing when he talks about the pain she has to go through. He says that he can only sympathize her, but not empathize her, because he does not know how painful it is. She has had this disease for the last 30 years. And when we were getting off the ramp, he saw these clouds, and was telling me how cool it is… and I made a comment, yea, God is pretty amazing. And that was the beginning of our conversation. He replied, “Yea, He/She/It is amazing”. He is definitely a deist.

When we got home, Kathy have already cooked dinner for us, but she was upstairs resting. So it was just my boss and I eating. I proceeded asking him more about this disease that she got, and how it is effecting him spiritually. Also asked him who he thinks God is, what he thinks about afterlife, and what Catholicism’s view on a lot of things. It became clear to me that he is confused on a lot of things due to the Catholic society, with the way Catholicism would guilt people into doing things. That’s the reason he stopped going to church. His point of view on spirituality is basically life, appreciation of life, manifestation of God’s purpose. Which all sounds really weird but, it’s really cool to had him talking about this. He believes there is a creator, and that we will be doing fine if we are manifesting/fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives (more in the works aspect, did not touch on faith).

It was so interesting hearing what he has to say, and then he asked me, so what is your background? I told him about where I come from spiritually, and unfortunately I got cut off early before I was able to share how God took hold of my life. He goes on tangents a lot. However, this was not necessary a bad thing, the next set of tangents led me to asking him what he thought about me, and he said a lot of encouraging things. He said that at first I scared him, coming to him asking for a job but then said something about Campus Crusade. It scared him, thinking I will be some crazy Bible lunatic, that is until he saw what I was capable of doing. I gained his trust very quickly early on when i first started working for him. He appreciates me a lot in ways that I’ve helped him take time off these two months, and was able to be with his wife. He complimented me about being very smart guy, not just in computers, but understood a lot of things that is beyond my age. I asked him about my faith, and he says that he is glad that I am a man of faith, and that I got to be part of his life; I made him think about a lot of questions that haven’t surfaced in awhile (seed planted! YES!). He said what was cool was that I did not wear my faith on my sleeve, but I wore it on my face and my heart. Meaning, I did not come across as condemning, or judging, but I showed what I am all about through my actions, through my heart. That REALLY touched me, it was so cool to hear that from an outsider, and a non-believer. I told him, I am bold about what I am about (I’m here on a 10 week service learning project with Cru… blah blah blah) because I feel like I should be honest about why I am here, and not be dodging bullets. And he told me he really appreciated and respected me for that, even though it scared him at first, it turned out to be a good thing. He said that was a good attitude to have, and really showed my character. I thanked him for what he said for what it’s worth and affirmed that I really appreciated him. And I replied saying that, that is how I live my life, I take what people says at full value (going back to the “for what it’s worth comment”), because that’s all I have is their word to base upon. If people said they appreciate me, it’s sincere, same reason why I am bold about who I am, and what I am about, or if I say things to people (criticism or compliments), its meant to be taken for what it’s worth.

It was at that point, he said “Right on!” and gave me a hug. I then proceeded in asking him that I am curious why he took me in to his house. He said that is who he is… which is true, that is how he is. But I explained to him that if I was in his position, being an employer just hired some dude 2 months ago, suddenly was asked if I could stay at the place, on top of that given the fact that I never come in to work to check on the dude… I would think twice before I let him in my house. He explained that he trust me a lot, and can tell I am not gonna wake up middle of the night and murder anyone. Then he said something… forgot what he said, but he prefaced it by saying, as a friend, not an employer. I wish I remembered what he said, but it was still awesome that he acknowledged that we are more than just employer employee relationship.

There are soo much I left out, due to my inability to remember it all (I got off work at 7, and we didn’t start heading upstairs till around 11pm), and I am tired. But I have a good feeling about all this, and I know this is not gonna be the last time we talk about deep stuff before I leave. This is only the tip of the iceberg, there will be more follow up conversations with him.

God is SO good!

This whole thing has just been an emotional roller coaster for me. I was nervous in asking my boss if I could crash at his place, worried about how my personal image would look upon him if he asked what happened, worried about how the image of Crusade would look like if he asked. In [...]

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