I WANT TO CRY…

Shopping at the grocery store this morning I struck up a conversation with a very sweet woman standing at the butcher counter next to me.  The store just opened and certain of the meats were on sale. Italian sausage was one of the sale items and we began to discuss the quality of the sale item and how much we should buy to sample. I told her my Dad used to make homemade sausage with a funnel and she told me her Mom used to make homemade sausage with some kind of machine. Then we learned that we were both Italian and we both were born in Brooklyn. What a great conversation we were having! She told me she was 81 years old!

As we continued our conversation I reached into my purse for one of my little red and white Bibles. (It’s a Bible tract, but because it’s in the form of a little booklet people seem to hold on to these rather than toss them.)

I handed her the little red Bible and then the conversation changed to heavenly things. I told her I was raised a Roman Catholic and so was my husband. She said the Catholic Church never had us read the Bible. She told me that she prayed to God but didn’t get any answers so she prayed to Jesus and started getting some answers to her prayers. But then she said when she started praying to Michael, that’s when her prayers really started getting answered. I gently began witnessing the Gospel to her, and sharing some of my testimony.

When I started talking about the need to be born again her countenance changed. She said her son was born again, but that he returned to the Catholic Church. She seemed pleased with that. Not a good thing. I wish I had asked her what made him return. I didn’t think of that util after I got home. 

I was happy to be witnessing. I love it when the Lord gives me an opportunity to witness. It happens so naturally. No striving at all.

But after I got home I felt really bad for this woman.

I think of the many times that the Lord puts these precious Catholic souls before me.

And I think of the evangelical preachers of our day who join with Rome and send people back to the Catholic Church for discipleship. 

I want to cry.

Jeremiah 5:31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?

Here’s a photo of the little red and white Bible (tract).