Ignite with Barry Meguiar Podcast

Speaker 1 00:03
Hi. My name is Valerie Rivas, and I absolutely love sharing my faith anytime the Lord just presents that opportunity. One of my favorite things to do is to meet new people and just to cultivate new relationships, new friendships. And when God presents that opportunity, and you just know it, you are able to just step into it with just so much excitement. And you know, okay, God, you you’ve put them in my path, you’ve placed them here at this very moment. And of course, at that time, you know, it’s like, what? What do they need to hear? And it usually just happens naturally. First week, we tend to overthink things, but when you just start with a hello, how are you doing? As many times as I’ve done this, I still will get emotional. It still takes me by surprise at how God can use us in those moments, and how God does place people in our path in the strangest places. A lot of times for me, it is if I’m in a supermarket, if I’m shopping, and it always happens when I’m in a rush and I feel like I just want to go in and get out and I’m at the register, and of course, the line is taking forever, the person at the register is having a problem, and now I’m stuck, and I can’t go anywhere else. And there’s a time that comes to mind when there was a young woman standing behind me, and I could hear her sighing, and I don’t turn around, and I hear her sigh again. So I’m like, okay, she’s frustrated, too. And so by the third sigh, I turn around, and I just smile at her, and she looks up at me, and she smiled back, and I said, how are you today? And then she just put her head down, and she said, I’m not good. And do you know that it’s been a long time that anyone’s asked me how I’m doing. So at that moment, I just continued to just talk to her, ask her about her day, ask her what she does, what she’s been up to. And of course, it was, you know, a sad story. And of course, there was a lot of things in her life that were going on. There was a heavy, just heavy burdens that she was carrying. And again, this is a young woman. This is an unmarried young girl. She was separated from her family. She found herself alone at the time, and she just needed someone to tell her that she was loved. And so I had the opportunity to not just tell her that Jesus loved her, but I was even able, at the end of our conversation, to say, and you know what, I love you, too. And we exchanged phone numbers, and I was able to stay in contact with her for a little while, and I, you know, still pray for her to this day. It’s just those moments that you know we just never know. And I just encourage you to be bold, be courageous, no matter where you’re at. God is going to put someone in your path. He’s going to use you for His honor, for His glory, because it’s all about it’s not about ourselves, like we I felt rushed. I just wanted to get out. But sometimes we just have to remember it’s not about us and it’s about somebody else, and it’s always about just sharing the love of Jesus Christ and who he is. And it’s that simple. It’s just sharing the love of God.