Easter Evangelism

The beginning of spring has come to my little corner of the planet and with it a perfusion of bright and cheerful daffodils. As soon as Valentines’s Day is over and I see the first robin of spring searching for worms on my back lawn, I know it’s time to rake up winter debris from the garden beds. This must be timed so that the cleanup happens before the bulbs come up. I have snowdrops, winter aconites, crocuses and the biggest display of daffodils around! They are so beautiful, especially after winter’s dull display.

Spring cleaning has just begun in my house, just in time for Easter. That means some extra work on top of what I normally do. Cooking for any holiday is always a big chore, along with entertaining, and decorating. It brings me a lot of joy but, I have to be somewhat strategic to make sure that I get things done in time. After the house is in order, and the garden tended, it is time to plan the Easter dinner menu.

Every Christian country has favorite foods associated with their Easter celebration. I grew up with many classic choices ranging from sweet Easter bread to desserts resembling bird’s nests.  In general, my main course is either ham or lamb but sometimes both. A quiche is featured and I always have what are the spring seasonal vegetables in the northeastern United States prepared in a variety of ways. Those are: spinach, peas, carrots, lettuce or asparagus.  Dessert could be something citrusy, a fancy cake and of course plenty of chocolates and jelly beans in our Easter baskets. 

Just when I would like to keep my “nose to the grindstone” and get some work done, evangelism called. As life challenges descended upon two people close to me, spiritual questions naturally arose for them. Tatum,* is an old friend from Westchester County New York who I met at one of those children’s activities that we all attend. She has never had good health. As a young child she had learning disabilities, a thyroid problem and vision impairment. She had difficult childbirths too. Her health went from bad to worse when she took a job laying cable for a communications company. She ended up sustaining a back injury which was a career ending event. Tatum chose to go on permanent disability at that point.

Doctors did not agree on the severity of the injury or its’ treatment. Tatum who was always as thin as a rail put on weight during her convalescence and one doctor thought that only exacerbated her condition but, with diet and exercise she could improve dramatically. Another, Doctor Mandy* thought that the condition was chronic and would only get worse as time went on. Doctor Mandy thought that all that could be done was to alleviate the pain. So, she prescribed opiods.

Tatum, tough as they come, somehow lost her will to fight. She just took the pain killer route. In her mind, Doctor Mandy was the most sympathetic health care professional that she had met since her injury and if the doctor was prescribing this medication then it must be okay. She trusted Doctor Mandy.

As the years went by, I was concerned about the direction that Tatum’s life had taken. She became housebound. I would try to get her out of her house even just to get a cup of coffee or go to the mall. I eventually gave up and our relationship became one of phone calls and text messaging despite the fact that we lived a short distance away from one another and I would work out at a gym around the corner from where she lived. Her home was no longer neat and clean and so she was reticent to invite people in. She was completely cut off with her only outlet being the internet. 

She became an internet junkie, just like she was a pill junkie. Her real friends and family replaced by her online support system. The internet gave her everything that she wanted. People who she could filter. A sub-culture of people who she chose that fit her niche lifestyle. They were all pill-popping for pain relief. She could always get approval and commiseration on the internet. 

Jason* is an old friend and professional colleague. He ended up being the person who introduced me to my husband. They met while in college. It was from there, that the journey of our Christian marriage began. We haven’t stopped thanking Jason since then. Jason’s love life has been nothing like ours. Most of Jason’s relationships lasted no more than 3 years, including his one and only marriage. The longest relationship he had might have been 5 years. When I asked him why his relationships only last such a short time, his response was, “I don’t know?” Really Jason, you don’t know? 

There was the sexy doctor, the Haitian woman looking for a green card, the overbearing vegetarian, the tall Swedish girl who was stronger than him and scared him a little bit. There was a classical music student and a nuclear physicist. 

This nuclear physicist went to Moscow University and lived with Jason for 5 years. That was his longest relationship. When it ended, he didn’t know why, she then married a musician from the nation of Georgia (not the location in the southern United States). They had one son who has some mental health struggles. He is brilliant though. Gregor* lives in the tiny Georgian village that his father grew up in. He doesn’t like to leave his apartment and programs on his computer all day. Lena* and her husband often disagree as regards Gregor’s needs. This has created distance between them. 

This distance created an opportunity for Jason to squeeze back into Lena’s life. Jason always supports and agrees with Lena in everything she does, and this has only made her closer to Jason and further away from her husband. In my opinion, Jason holds all the women he has ever been with in his heart like a harem of sorts. He went out of his way to have cordial relationships with all of his exes after their breakup and would love to still be friends with all of them. But let’s be clear here, more than friends and more like part of a spiritually adulterous harem. 

This reminds me of the 1984 song sung by Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson entitled “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.” Jason loves to tell me about,🎶”All the Girls he’s loved before, that traveled in and out of his door.” 🎶  I recently got a call from Jason with some sad news about Lena. Lena, the Nuclear Physicist has come down with cancer. She is young and it is aggressive. It is the kind of cancer that is often associated with jobs in the nuclear industry. The prognosis does not look good. 

Each of my friends, both Tatum and Jason, had reached an emotional and spiritual turning point. They were both trying to cope with questions of health, life and death and the meaning of it all. They each contacted me while I was making my Quiche Lorraine, Jason by phone and Tatum by text. “Let me put this in the oven and I’ll get right back to you.” I got my quiche in the oven and started to put together a vegetable side dish while I began to text with Tatum.

A crisis had happened. Her medical case was being reviewed. What was once called okay in pain management has effectively been revised. Medicine can sometimes be capricious. Doctor Mandy’s cases were being reviewed and Tatum’s life was about to change dramatically just before Easter.  Another doctor reviewing Tatum’s case concluded that Dr. Mandy had prescribed her as much painkillers as a terminal patient would get to ease their pain. She would no longer be able to get her painkillers and she was in a panic. 

Tatum voluntarily agreed to reduce her dosage under a doctor’s care but, she is worried about how this will affect her health and her pain level. Tatum, who can run hot and cold on the topic of God, was running hot again!  Jason had phoned me, just as I was answering questions about God by text and he was essentially asking the same questions.

I began to see a deeper meaning in my Easter celebration this year. As Jason’s story unfolded he confessed his love for Lena and told me he would do almost anything to save her, even bargain with God. He wondered if he should go to church and light a candle and beg God to save her. Where do I start?

Although Tatum and Jason do not know each other and are different in many ways, they do have some similarities. They both came from homes with several religious Catholic family members. This left an impression on them and although they were not religious, they never had hostility towards Christians the way some other people I know do. 

Over the years I have planted many little seeds of biblical truths and prayed for their salvation. I have spent copious amounts of time studying the Bible with them and answering spiritual questions only to see them pull back from a final commitment to God once they realized what they would have to give up. Of course, they were not ready to understand the biblical passages describing God’s comfort, guidance and the help available to us as we deal with life’s struggles.

But, this Easter, something seem to be different. Jason, for example, seemed to have a more open attitude. Seeing Lena sick has made Jason realize what’s at stake. He was willing to hear more about who Jesus was and what his earthly mission was. For the first time ever, Jason seemed to connect with the fact that he was a sinner. This was huge. Over the years, he would continually tell me that,” he was a good person.” Or, “why did he have to go to church if it was so boring.’ If Jason, you, or I are such “good people” then why do we need a Savior? The answer is we don’t. Now, Jason finally realized, that he needed a Savior. All the years that I have know him, I have never heard him cry until that day on the phone. He cried out that he needed “a savior, and that he could “not do this alone.”

At this point,  Jason could finally look at his life and realize that he did not meet God’s standards. He emotionally repented this Easter and stated that “with God’s help he would sort out his relationship with Lena”and would “follow God” in his conduct with her. He was also able, from the bottom of his heart, to pray for Lena’s marriage on the telephone. He wanted to be a good role model to her and her husband now, especially because he knows that Lena’s condition is so dire. He would do that for God’s sake and for Lena’s soul.

This Easter one is saved and with God’s help from grace to grace, Jason will choose to continue to make the changes in his life that he needs to make. With Tatum however, she is still playing the same games. She wants God but is not willing to give up living with a man outside of marriage. She will not stop foul-mouthed tirades against people who she perceives to have done her wrong, or accept responsibility for some of the things that she has done wrong. She got closer this time to almost accepting the Lord in her heart! Closer than she ever did. “Close but no cigar.” The cigar being forgiveness of her sins, comfort for the tribulation she must now undergo and eternal life with God. Will getting off the pain meds give her a new attitude toward life and God? Only time will tell. 

I know that I must be patient with Jason, and Tatum. I must also remember to be patient with all my friends and family who do not yet know the Lord. I can see what that patience did for Jason. I am literally the only Christian that Jason knows. Finally, this Easter season I must remain strong in the Lord, and pray and never give up hope for the unsaved people in my life. What about you? Will you have patience and hope for the salvation of others? Remember the most important thing that you can do this Easter season and always is to talk about God, talk about Jesus, talk about sin, resurrection and how Jesus saves. A small planted seed can grow in time. 

* The names are changed to protect privacy.