what if all you had was 15 minutes?

i hadn't planned on talking. in fact, it's the one thing i can't stand to do when i'm sitting half naked in a hot tub, especially to strangers. but i was sitting by myself, and so was she. so i began to talk to her.

her name was jill, which she told me right before she left.

her son was sitting on a lounge chair reading harry potter, not enjoying himself one bit, you see her son has only one leg, and the "water park officials" wouldn't let him hop up the 10 flights of stairs to go down any slides, so he chose just to read.

when i inquired about how he had lost his leg. jill opened up and told me just about everything. like how at the age of 6 they chose to amputate it due to an infection, about how 6 years in the hospital had affected the family.

the family: four kids, a house in suburban Minneapolis, mom is a bartender, dad is self employed, which is why he wasn't "on vacation" with them at the water park that day.

she told me about the oldest boy who was has been in and out of drug rehab at the ripe old age of 16 and had just declared that he was an atheist. her middle girls are into horse back riding which are $170 per lesson, they all had braces put on in one year, and in that same year she was diagnosed with breast cancer. and for some unknown reason she dove into faith issues. she admitted not going to church at all, and maybe that's why her family is being hit with all this "stuff" at one time.

i didn't say anything.

i was silent.

she had answered her own questions. questions that she has asked herself over and over again for some time now i presume.

i'm not suggesting that not going to church is going to cause you to have horrible times, not at all.

but what i am suggesting is that maybe God puts deep into our hearts the desire to cling to something much greater than ourselves in hard times, and for many, churches is a start to begin to hold onto God, until your strong enough to hold on to God by yourself.

so i told her what i believe is that God wants a relationship with her, not a religion. then, i asked if i could pray for her. she was kinda taken back, but she agreed.

her name was jill, which she told me right before she left.