Sorry for this late post!
I look back over my time here so far and think: He could have called me here for the sole purpose of doing just one of those things or having just that one conversation with so and so person, and yet, He's blessed me with so many amazing encounters.
Today, God used me to encourage Christians. And I seriously think I got blessed more. In encouraging them, in sharing scripture with them, in reminding them of God's faithfulness, goodness and promises, my own faith was refreshed.
Please pray for a dear friend I've made at Carrubbers. I'll keep her name under wraps to respect her privacy. I went to her flat to cheer her up a bit as she was feeling really ill. God had placed several scriptures on my heart to read over her. I was so puzzled when she started crying. She told me that ever since the Fringe started, she and so many others at Carrubbers have been experiencing incredibly heavy spiritual warfare, to the point where people are in pain and nauseous for no apparent reason. She talked with some pastors and they said that most everyone serving at Room 65 has been feeling the weirdness and heavy oppression. She was crying because she realized how much God loved the Christians laboring in Edinburgh because He sent someone like me to encourage them and bring in a freshness of His Spirit. She said that God knew how much of a toll the Christians there would have because of the great evil that was proliferating in their city during the Fringe, so He sent in reserve Christians like me to hold them up by praying for their city and serving alongside them in their time of need and discouragement.
I was blown away by what she shared. How great - how vast are the sum of His thoughts towards us! Ps 139
Jane and Dan - probably in their early 50s. Dan was a really quiet sort of man. Said he was a Christian, but really struggling with his faith. He's lived very discouraged for the last 10 years out of his 30 years knowing Christ. He tried to kill himself last year. I told him that in all honesty, I've been a Christian for less time than he's lived as a discouraged Christian; that I hadn't walked in his shoes, and that I didn't really know what he's gone through, and I won't know until I've walked with Christ 22 more years, and that there are definitely times of grief that I've experienced that I have no idea how to explain or why God allowed it. I empathized with him.
I shared with him the basic disciplines in Christ I employ that have helped me in getting past discouragement or the enemy's lies: reading a bit of scripture - God's promises to me - everyday, praying and giving my thanks to Him everyday, hanging out with God everyday, being in good solid fellowship, memorizing bits of scripture to fight off the enemy's whispers, blessings others to feel blessed myself, etc. He and Jane realized they both weren't doing but needed to.
I told him just how incredibly loved and valuable he was to the LORD. I prayed over him before I left. Jane, who was also struggling in her faith, and Dan were both crying when we finished up. He said that it's been very rare for him to meet a Christian in Scotland who's shown him compassion and Christ's love when he admitted to being suicidal and discouraged. Most Christians he's confessed to to get help have condemned him. :(
He said that He felt, after so long, that God indeed was trying to comfort him and encourage him to keep pressing forward.
Praise the LORD!!!
Lastly, Bella and her son, a homeless lady I came by while I was pray-walking.
I sat down beside her.
Me: Hi. Has anyone told you about Jesus?
B: Aye. A Christian told me about him yesterday.
Me: What did you think of what he'd said?
B: I liked it.
Me: Why?
B: [Long silence. She pulls out a slip of paper from her pocket.] He said if I believed in Jesus Christ in my heart, there'd be hope for me.
Me: He's right.
B: Here what he gave me. But I can't read it.
Me: [I took the slip of paper and read it. It was a scripture from Isaiah].
If you know what you know about Jesus, why are you out here?
B: Tomorrow morning my son and I are catching a bus back home. I wasn't supposed to come here, but I did. But I know now I got to get right with God. I'm going to church when I get home - a good Christian one, not one of those cooky Jehovah Witness ones - and get my life turned around again.
Me: Good. Go to a church that preaches Jesus Christ. If you don't hear his name in a sermon, leave and go to a church that does.
B: Ok.
Me: I won't give you money, but I'll buy you two dinner.
B: Thank you!
Me:The food will fill you up for tonight, but Jesus Christ inside you will fill you up for a lifetime. You've got to stick close to Him. Read your bible, pray to Him, listen to Him.
B: Yes, I see. I understand.
In all honesty, I purposely didn't feel like taking her through the sinner's prayer. I know we talk about giving people the choice to choose Christ in their hearts that day, but I need to pray about this more. I just don't remember Christ or his disciples leading people through sinners' prayers to accept Jesus into their hearts. He expressed how imperative it was to repent right away, but it just seems like He left the actual sinners' prayer as something they were to do in secret in their heart. That the evidence of their choice would come out in their lifestyle. Anyways, these are just my raw thoughts.
God bless!
Shruti
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