you never know...

You never know who you are impacting in your daily life. A few evenings ago, my husband and I were out walking with the kids. It was lightly sprinkling, we were kinda cold, and hurrying to get home. As we went through the park by our house, I saw a guy coming towards us. He was in his early twenties, bluetooth in his ear, wearing his "bling" (huge diamond earring studs), wearing hip clothes, etc. You know the look. Anyhow, as we passed him, he looked down at our son and said "Hi Jake!" Jake said Hi back, and I said hi. Jason just smiled. We never stopped walking, and as I looked back I felt kinda weird....

"So....how does he know our son's name?" Jason asked me.

The story is that I had met that guy in the park in front of our house one day while playing with the kids. We had left some toys on the bleachers and were off across the park chasing squirrels. When we went back to get them, he was sitting by our things and said he was wondering who they belonged to. And so we started talking. We talked about the kids, and I mentioned that I was a Christian. He told me that he is Muslim (nominally so, is my guess). He said he had a girlfriend, and hopes to have kids one day. He talked to the kids a bit, and then we headed home.

That is the only time I've talked with this guy. I've seen him since, walking past our home on his way to the metro, and prayed for him, but never thought much of it. I don't even know his name. And yet, it seems that our little family made more of an impact than I realized. Hopefully it will be something that will end in eternal good.