One of my students has a sweet, kind personality that seems to attract difficult-to-love people. I say difficult-to-love because I am trying to give grace to people who, in reality, are users. Selfish people who want to take advantage.

My student, who has spent the last year growing in her new-ish faith by leaps and bounds, endures these “friends” and tries to help them because it’s her nature. She supports them in their occasional efforts to improve (quit smoking, get better grades), but she also sets boundaries for her own sake. I am so proud of her, and I pray for her all the time. I pray that she would flee temptation, and instead have boldness to proclaim Christ to these people. They know there’s something different about her, and they think it’s weakness. I pray that God would show her how to put His strength in her on display for them.

Recently, she got some awful texts from one of these friends. Turns out they were meant for someone else. You should have seen me. I was so mad! I said, “you need to tell her off! Tell her if she’s going to write things like that she needs to be darn sure who she’s texting!” My friend was hurt, but she seems to brush it off. Later, though, she was telling me about how this girl talks.

I hate it when she says, ‘oh, God,’ or ‘Jesus,’ It’s not like she’s asking God for help or praying. It’s like she’s blaming God. That’s what she’s doing! She fails a class and she says ‘Jesus!’ like it’s his fault or something. She’s blaming God for something that is her fault!”

This was one of those moments. My friend gave sin a name not because she’d heard me say it but because the Spirit within her was offended. She is exactly right; taking the Lord’s name in vain is blaming God for something He didn’t do. It’s blasphemy! I don’t think she remembers the commandment. I don’t think she could define blasphemy in a test. But her heart was broken because the name of her savior was defamed, and that is worth so much more to God (and to me!) than obedience to His commands or knowledge of His ways.

This weekend we were blessed to present at First Baptist Church of Bellevue, a church so close to ours we consider them a kind of “sister” church. We showed up really early, and as we were setting up our display board we discovered a missing ‘a.’ The board said, “The Duryees t king Christ to Spain.” Since we were so early and so close to home, we decided to drive back to find our ‘a.’ Fortunately my scrapbooking supplies included an extra, because the missing letter must be somewhere in Burlington.

It was a good reminder to relax and make the best of these sometimes stressful situations. We did things slightly differently for this church, presenting about Spain during the main service rather than Sunday school. I would say we were feeling some insecurities about the whole morning because we’d made more last minute changes to our presentation and we wanted to be a blessing to this church – not to mention the missing ‘a’! Chris and I each shared the short version of our testimony and then Chris shared about our plans in Spain to lead youth and college ministries.

FBC Bellevue was a wonderful host and very kind to us – they allayed all our insecurities with their welcome and the tremendous support they are already providing to the church plant in Spain. Many of the church members have even visited the Browns! But the best part of all was hearing from the youth leaders that the kids really seemed to be listening intently to Chris’s presentation and that they had questions after. One mom thanked me for sharing my testimony that two friends persistently invited me to church, even though I said no many times, and Chris for pointing out that although he grew up in the church, as her own teens had, God had spoken and moved in a mighty way in his life.

If teens will be impacted by our humble story and the way God has placed His call on our life, then we will gladly endure the insecurities that comes with presenting before large groups!