"so...you believe in Jesus?"

Last night my wife suffered from painful nausea. We had to conclude our date while at dinner and rush home because of her pain. Not the way we love dates to start. Maybe you've been there.

A couple hours of what I've heard only happens when you drink the water in Mexico, we found ourselves in our Town and Country for a midnight trip to the ER.

The doctor gave her fluids for dehydration and prescribed an anti-nausea. We were told of the only known 24 hour pharmacy in Frisco and headed that way around 2:30am.

I met a great pharmacist and wished I was more awake to get to know him. You never have time to actually TALK to a pharmacist--unless it's 2:30am.

While he was at his computer filling the prescription (whatever that means) God actually gave me grace to think about a conversation.

"Man...I'm tired." [no exaggeration]

"well...it's 2:30 in the morning." [that's why he's a pharmacist]

"yeah...hey here's an invitation to our church and a booklet on joy if you have time to read it tonight." I set it down for him to grab later. I thought about how I wished the quality was a bit less "tract-like."

"great..." [kept working]

I was going to leave it at that. But he was curious. "So...is your church non-denominational?" I said it was and learned he attends the local Catholic parish and that he was pretty regular.

Then he asked something like "what are you guys like?" I have a hard time getting into a conversation about the gospel with Catholics in the past. So, I thought I'd say something about substitutionary atonement [oh yeah..at 2:30am with a sick wife in the van that was my trajectory choice of conversation]

"well...we are a church that believes in the gospel of Christ as an atoning sacrifice for our sins..and we gather in large meetings on Sunday, and in small groups during the week around His life he gives" [as I'm writing this it sounds a lot better than how it came out--it was choppy bad...]

[He nodded approvingly as if to say..."uhh..okay"]

Then I asked an very open-ended question I wouldn't recommend to anyone who has less than an hour to chat. The prescription was filled at this point.

"so...you believe in Jesus?" [couldn't believe my ears]

"Yes..(sincerely)" [...thinking back even the demons believe--who wouldn't say yes to this?]

"Great to hear....well have a great night."

I know, I know. You would never have asked a question like that without follow up right? You would never have left the conversation there right? Well, I did. I was thankful that I had some literature and website that could fill out what was lacking in that too-open-ended-at-times and too-religious-jargoned-at times conversation. So on a scale of 1-10 this was a 2 at best.

But hey--to God be the glory for helping me with a 2 (at 2am).

Very thankful for the openness and helpfulness of the pharmacist.