Tonight I accompanied Neal to the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo BBQ Cookoff. It was sponsor night and Neal’s customers are a big part of the Rodeo and they invited us to come, plus they wanted to meet me.
No pressure. 🙂
Now, picture this, if you are reading my blog then you know a little something about me and what it is I’m most ‘known’ for when I speak and what I choose to write about, etc. My husband doesn’t hide what I do, but I found out tonight that apparently he sums it up by stating simply, “She works for the church.” With that fact known, imagine what it’s like to meet someone that you would really like to make sure to keep a good relationship with because it is a matter of supporting our family and this person breaks away to talk with me while my husband has a side conversation with someone else. And this is how it goes:
“So, now Neal said you work for the church or you travel with them? (he scrunches up his face, confused) What exactly do you do?”
Hmmm…this is where so many different options come to mind. I can go ‘easy’ and say, “Yes, I work at our parish part time.” and let it go at that. But, this man works with Neal on a daily basis and since the book is about to come out I figured I might as well just try and state it simply.
“I work for the parish part time and I speak on a youth conference team and do other personal speaking engagements all over the U.S.”
He gives a look of genuine interest. But here it comes… “What do you speak about?”
You see, I’m very proud of the avenues in which God has given me a platform to speak on my journey of faith but for some reason when I am in a crowded room, with a band blaring country music, and 300+ other patrons eating, talking and dancing all around it is kind of hard to really get into it.
But I did and eventually the question came up “What kind of experiences in your life do you speak on the most?”
When he asked that I looked at him and thought about my husband’s career, would he keep it? 🙂 As always I said a silent prayer for the Holy Spirit to direct me on what to say and for whatever reason I felt very comfortable in saying, “I don’t want to shock you or make you feel uncomfortable but I am a rape survivor and I speak on the experiences dealing with that journey of faith along with other issues that I’ve struggled and overcome in life.”
His eyes got wide, he nodded his head but he didn’t back away as I’ve had done before (only because, come on, it can be an uncomfortable conversation and not one really meant for a make shift country western club!). He leaned down and said, “So you focus on your faith and how it got you through?”
Yes! I nodded enthusiastically. Yes, that is what I do! It was really nice to know that I didn’t make him feel uncomfortable. We talked about our ‘journey’s’ on a general basis for a little bit and then Neal was brought back into the conversation. The man asked me to send him a copy of my book and I (of course) agreed. Hopefully he’ll continue to be Neal’s customer! 🙂
At any rate, I realized tonight how easy it is for me to be protected in my little world of my parish family, friends, coworkers and even when I speak and get to come into your life I am still protected by what is the ‘norm’ for me and that is living and breathing my faith. But there are times that I get glimpses of my world before I gave it up to God and I realize that is why I wrote the book…not in the hopes to sell it to those that have already heard my story and have been at conferences and heard me speak (though I do look forward to do that but keep reading to get my point)…I want to reach those that don’t know what it is like to have a faith based community that surrounds them and supports them fully on their faith journey.
I was there once and I know that I longed for something at the time and never really could grasp what it was…until I ‘let go and let God’. That is my desire. To reach someone who might be like me then. In a small way I felt like I got to do just a little bit of that tonight and it was exhilarating.
Thank you for allowing me to share.
Blessings
Shannon