Unintentional Influence - Walking By Faith

Have you ever done something without ever really giving it much thought only later to find out that someone was watching…….and they were impacted? It’s unintentional- You didn’t wake up that day and say TODAY I WILL INFLUENCE ……

It’s amazing how much one small action or words or an attitude can impact someone.

I have three instances that stand out over my life time. I know there are more both in the positive and the negative but these three are some of the biggest moments that opened my eyes to just how powerful these unintentional moments are.

I didn’t do anything per se…..

When I woke up each of these mornings I didn’t wake up with the sole purpose to make people see something special about me. I remember back in high school and college how some. of my friends acted different …it was a facade they put on around unbelievers so they could make them see just how “different” they were from the rest of the world. How do I know that because I was one of them. Actually I was great at being a chameleon. I would change myself based on what people wanted me to be. In college I had 2 sets of friends…..Ones that were real genuine people and then there were those who were trying to find themselves (There was another set- the popular ones and well I didn’t really get to hangout with them- I didn’t make the cut) but I was pretty much friends with everyone else.

We have spent much of our time as young believers that we have to put on this “holy” exterior to look different. BUT as I have gotten older I have realized that different that the lost world is looking for isn’t an exterior difference.

3 Stories

These three stories I am going to tell are all about unintentional positive influence that I never really “purposed ” to have. By this I mean I didn’t just crawl out of bed each of these mornings and be like I am going to show Mr A AND the two Dr. P’s just how different I am.

NOPE that isn’t what happened at all.

Mr. A.

I started working in a pretty high stress Christian environment at about 23- by high stress I mean it was physical work and time sensitive- and I enjoyed it immensely. Summer wasn’t as high stressed as other times during the year. Pretty much everyone I worked with were Christians and had a lot of fun together.

But one day I walked into the kitchen and people were talking about this Mr. A guy. He was talked about as though he was the biggest, meanest, gruffest guy you would ever meet. He had served in the miltary during wartime. And he was coming back to work.

Time went by and lots of comments were made. And then one day I came into work and there was this big bald guy there. I walked past and said hello. What came next was socking. “You aren’t gonna try spending all your time getting me saved too are you?” I’m not quite sure what my fave did but I know I shook my head no, smiled and walked away.

The influence others had

An unbeliever working within a very distinct Christian environment is like throwing a piece of raw meat to a tank full of hungry sharks. AND everyone wanted that trophy hanging on their wall. And Mr. A knew it. People didn’t just talk to him to talk to him, they had a hidden agenda and he could spot it a mile away. People weren’t loving and kind in a genuine way- they wanted to get that man saved so they could brag about it.

After summer was over I took on a full time position there. I would later find out that I actually had taken on the jobs of three people from the previous year,

One day I walked in after my morning break and Mr. A and another cook were cracking eggs. Mr. A looked at me and then at his cohort and said “we haven’t welcomed her to the kitchen. Mary hold out your hands.” Which I naively did and within seconds I had two smashed eggs dripping through my fingers. We all laughed and joked and I am pretty sure that was the day the other chef started calling me “Sweet Mary Sunshine”

But there was a problem

I was exhausted. And I was getting sick. I was running myself ragged. I was at work from 5 am to sometimes 10 or 11 at night. Don’t worry I didn’t work that whole time. I was just on campus for that long. I was working from 5 am to about 2:30 pm.

The only time I sat down was for a morning break after breakfast and lunch time. Otherwise I was on my feel and moving.

And as the exhaustion of doing the job of three people began to wear me down, I began to not move as fast, and my clarity of mind was fading.

And out of that came a co-worker who was downright mean. During this time I got screamed at in front of most f the student body for missing crumbs that weren’t on the table in from of her baked goods five minutes earlier.

She would stand over me at the serving line during peak rushes and yell at me for not doing things right. Including wiping down the area (which we were told not to do until the rush was over). and the list went on and on and on. I don’t know why she didn’t like me but the treatment was rough. Then in my people pleasing younger self (ahem It’s still a problem today) I asked her what I could do to get better- I was crushed when she let me have it with both barrels. Basically I was a failure in her eyes who couldn’t do anything right. And she pretty much told me I wouldn’t’t really be able to do better.

Sick and devastated

I pretty much had brought the devastated state on myself and I was told so a few weeks later by a co worker who had overheard the whole conversation. He told me that I knew she didn’t like me so why did it matter what she thought. He encouraged me to not give her criticism much thought and the reality was I was doing the job of three people and that I was working really hard.

One day Mr. A. and the other cook came to me and tried to encourage me. I didn’t realize so many people were seeing and hearing how she treated me. Not long after that I cracked. Hubby and I were sitting in out car and I was sobbing. I don’t remember what happened that day but it all came crashing in. Hubby didn’t realize things had gotten so bad. I was holding it all together. He saw how sick I was and they wouldn’t let me take off more than a two days because it was “impossible to find people to fill your job”.

“I want you to quit”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing my husband say- I had only been working there since the summer. It was now October. But in my sick and exhausted state I agreed and I gave my two weeks notice the next morning. The boss tried to get me to stay but I couldn’t. I don’t remember much of the next two weeks but I know that the two main cooks (one being Mr. A) told me how much they were going to miss me and that they would happily give me glowing reviews for my next job. And that I needed to come back and visit.

And then like a flash

Those two weeks were done and I was wrapping up my last shift. I didn’t want to leave. I had met some wonderful people. But I needed to be home at least for a little while…..I needed to refocus.

SO I wiped my hands on my towel that hung from my apron strings wrapped around my stomach. I pulled it from my side and tossed it into the dirty towel bin. I took off my dirty apron and tossed it into the dirty Apron bin and I hung my jean baseball cap on the hook and I began to give hugs and say my goodbyes. I said goodbye to everyone- but one. No one said I had to say goodbye to her. I could just slip away and never think twice about it. I couldn’t tell her I was going to miss her because I wouldn’t. I remember very clearly whispering “God give me strength” because I didn’t know what she had for me as parting remarks.

I walked over to her said goodbye and she hugged me. I was stunned. I walked away not sure what had happened. I hugged her back. I walked around the end of the grills and I felt the tight grip around my arm and I was whipped around to come face to face with Mr. A who had tears in his eyes. And what he said next I have had echo through my ears so many times over the last 18.5 years. “In all of my time working here, that was the most Christian thing I have ever seen anyone do.”

I have zero recollection of anything else after that moment. and as I have processed this moment over and over and over again I have come to realize a few things.

Mr. A knew what was most important as a believer. The walk matching the talk. Mr. A and I never had a spiritual conversation…EVER.
It’s about our ripple effect. When I choose to give that bitter woman a goodbye it was hard for me. I had to trust God that it was right and good. NOT what was easy.
I need to be intentional with my choices so when the time arises the unintentional positive influences can be made.
People are watching and when our walk doesn’t match our talk we become a negative influence

Dr. P #1

Now I saw A LOT of Dr. P. for about 6 months. He saw me at my absolute worst. He was honestly one of the most attentive Doctors I have ever had. If I was in the ER he was there checking in on me If I was recovering he was there checking on me. I didn’t know what to make of him the very first time I met him in his office. He basically told me after he did this procedure I would be in the worst pain of my life and he was kinda gruff- but still nice.

What I found out was he was very sympathetic. He saw me in the absolute worst pain I had ever been in. He was patient with my drugged out my mid questions and he rolled with my spunky “we gotta talk” statement after the nurse was forthcoming with some rather horrible “news”.

And he said as he left that morning as he patted my foot “I don’t know how after all that you have gone through how you can still be so sweet and smile and not be angry and frstrated.” And then he turned and walked out of the room.

He would go onto tell me that three more times. The last time as he said that I looked at him ad told him it all had to do with my faith in God. He then left quickly again

I planted a seed. Not just in words but in the peace I had despite all of the medical chaos. Despite all the missing of hubby and the kids he could see the peace that passes all understanding.

Dr. P #2

My dentist- I broke a tooth a few weeks ago. I hadn’t seen him in a while (Umm covid!) and He and I were chatting about the events of the last year and a half. And he asked how we had handled quarantine and the like to which I responded “we loved it”. Not a lie. We actually REALLY enjoyed quarantine because we grew so much as a family. We did some crazy stuff. We read a bunch of books together. We spent a lot of quality time together in God’s word. It was just great.

He was stunned when I responded with we loved it so he asked a few little questions and he replied “you are breath f fresh air” as he started to drill out the tooth.

iI sat in the chair as he fixed it unable to say anything else. Yes quarantine had it’s hard parts but because we chose a different perspective- focusing on what we had rather than what we had lost- I could easily say we loved it because we did. It was a heart choice a year and a half ago. We could have easily had a spirit of complaining but we made a choice to live in gratitude.

Influence begins in the Heart

I know I have said it a bunch but out of the goodness in our hearts good things are done by good people. Our speech and our actions are an outpouring of what is really in our hearts.

And in each one of these influential moments it was a matter of my making a choice LONG before I was ever in the moment .

And then in the moment I had another internal choice to actually do what I had chosen to do so long before. And even when we are intentional with our choices we have unintentional influences,

But what about the Negative

These three instances are the only three I can think of over 41 years of life I know there are positive and negative. I think the biggest thing is we in most often cases don’t know about the negative influences. People don’t just walk up and say “yo, you were really…..” Sometimes maybe but often times it is left unsaid.

But we have to be aware- awake. Paying attention to the fact that all of our choices good or bad impact other people and have either a positive or a negative influence. And we need to do the hard heart work we have talked about over the last 9 days to make sure that when we are faced with this spur of the moment decisions that our hearts are prepared to make the choices for us to be a positive influence to the world around us.