{"id":240,"date":"2019-07-13T18:45:50","date_gmt":"2019-07-13T18:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/?p=240"},"modified":"2019-07-30T15:39:11","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T15:39:11","slug":"you-never-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/?p=240","title":{"rendered":"You never know…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You never know\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Shoppers\nof many varieties entered the bookstore where I once worked. And they came for\nmany reasons. To use the bathroom, get some coffee, look at the art upstairs,\nand some even came in to buy books. Many of those who sat at the coffee shop\nwere students wanting a nice place to study and of course to use our Wi-Fi. I\nalways got a kick out of those who were obviously meeting for the first time\nfor a date at a \u201csafe place\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          The\nbook Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis was a popular college age book sold. I\u2019d\nalways say to the purchaser, \u201cDon\u2019t confuse this book with the little known Mirror\nChristianity about self-absorbed Christians. Or when they bought the popular\ndevotion Jesus Calling by Sarah Young, I\u2019d tell them about my book idea:\nJesus Texting. The last chapter would be BRB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          One\nevening a large group of College students passing through town came in to check\nout the store. As usual I tried to engage the customers and make them laugh.\nHowever, I noticed one young lady appeared distressed about something. She hung\nback from the others and stood by the stairway to the art gallery. She didn\u2019t look\nlike she wanted to be there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          After\ncoffee, some greeting card and book purchases they all left laughing and having\na great time. Later that evening, I noticed someone had drawn a mustache on the\npicture of Joel Olsteen on the cover of his new book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Then\nthings went back to \u201cnormal\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Weeks\nlater my boss received an email. I will share it below. Who would\u2019ve thought\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Dear Jon,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

          You probably don’t remember me, but I just want to thank you for the impact you’ve had on my life. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

          I was in your store on March 18th I believe. I’m a part of the Navigators at Miami University in Ohio and we were stopping through Lawrence as a stop on our way to Colorado Springs for our spring break trip. At the time I was a part of a bible study through the navigators but I only knew a few people on the trip and ended up going kind of last minute, to be completely honest I’m not exactly sure why. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

          Just a quick backstory, before the trip I was having a lot of questions on what it meant to trust God completely with my life and I didn’t really understand how I could let go of the control and give it to God and practically what it looked like in my life. I had been talking to a girl I just met in the car on the way to Colorado about it earlier that day and she helped answer some questions I had but I still had not made the decision to fully surrender everything and trust God, but I knew it was something I wanted to be able to do. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

          So that night I was in the signs of life book store kinda wandering around by myself and you approached me and asked me if I could be anywhere right then where would I be and I said I didn’t know and you kept asking and I kept saying I didn’t know. In my head I wanted to be at a place in my heart where I could be content and at peace with fully trusting God with my life and surrendering everything to him, but I was too nervous to share that with you. I remember our conversation ended when you said I know you are thinking of somewhere and don’t want to tell me, but I hope you get there tonight.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

          Those words had such a large impact on my entire spring break trip. I continued exploring the idea of trusting God and your words were always in the back of my head. Halfway through the week I made the decision to trust God fully and surrender everything to him and I’m just incredibly grateful for how you’ve impacted me. I told the girl I was talking to in the car about what happened in the bookstore and she was telling me how sometimes God works through other people and I’m certain God was working through you. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

          Thank you!!! Sorry for the long email. Thanks for impacting me like I’m sure you’ve impacted so many others.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You never know\u2026           Shoppers of many varieties entered the bookstore where I once worked. And they came for many reasons. To use the bathroom, get some coffee, look at the art upstairs, and some even came in to buy books. Many of those who sat at the coffee shop were students wanting a nice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[32,33,2],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247,"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}