Yesterday at work I had a student stop by my office. Now, this happens quite often with the work I do. It is the best part of the job. The reason I felt this was worth posting was because the student that stopped by was one of the least likely to stop in for a chat. You have the handful of consistent stop-in students who want to catch up about life, ask questions about college policy or tell me about the date they had on Friday night. There are even the students who stop in sporadically to "confess their sins" and ask me to pray for them or hold them accountable because they want to change these parts of their life. There are also students here with some animosity towards the office I work in because we have to do the disciplining of students who violate the rules (this is the least fun part of the job). This student is one of those "we know you're doing stuff that isn't the best but we can't prove anything" kinds of student. He usually avoids us and doesn't do much socializing with any of the faculty or staff. I was just struck by the fact that he came in for a chat. He was in my office for a short amount of time (5 minutes maybe) and we didn't talk about anything particularly deep but I keep trying to figure out why he stopped in. Is he really lonely being here on campus and was desperate for human contact? Does he feel guilty about something he did and wants to see if we've heard anything about it (we have students who get struck with paranoia at times)? I have been working here for three years and I have never had a real conversation with him. I was confused but excited about the exchange. I don't know why it happened or if it even means anything but I can't stop thinking about it. I could very well be trying to analyze it way too much.
What random conversation have you had that made you think, think about why that conversation happened or made you think about the way you thought about something or someone, made you change a behavior or even change the way you felt about your faith, about God, about humanity? I'm curious to know if anyone else has felt this way.
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One of the first conversations I had with Eric was back when the only time we talked was right after church for a few minutes. It was when I was shopping for a car because the explorer had died. I said something about how I was worried about finding a car, but felt guilty praying about it because I knew God had much more important things to worry about. He said "God cares about the things you care about, and he wants you to talk to him about it and ask for what you want." It has changed the way I approach prayer and the way I view God. Eventually, when I realized that I was in love with Eric, I put his advice into practice and started asking God for him. Now we are ridiculously happily married. Maybe God wants you to marry that kid! :)
Well, I will email you and tell you his name and then you will know why it's weird. I don't want to put his name on here.
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