This is such a full circle moment that, if I wasn’t living it, I might have trouble believing it.
I am currently reading a book called “Draw the Circle,” a 40-day prayer book that our church back home is reading together. They had invited us to join them, and I had the best intentions to do so, but days turned into weeks, and I never got around to starting the book. Yet I continued to feel a tug in my heart to begin reading, but I wanted to do it with others as my church back home was doing.
To fully appreciate this story, I have to rewind to March 2024, when we had our first church service. We invited everyone we knew, and a little over 20 people showed up. Of those, one saw our invite on social media and came out with a few friends she invited. After the service she called us and shared how blessed she had been as she asked for Bible studies. We were on cloud nine and could not believe we had our first request for Bible study.
Sadly, that was short-lived. After a few studies, our new friend shared that she was moving back to her home country to be closer to her family. We were so sad but knew we needed to support her decision. We asked God why she was removed from our lives so quickly, but for her, He had greater plans.
When we were in Florida to be with Gabe’s family during his father’s passing, this same friend was also in Florida. Her husband is a captain on a Disney cruise ship, and they invited us to visit Disney with her and her children, their treat. We spent the day together talking about God and the struggles of raising our children in a world that seems to want to tear them down.
When we returned to Croatia, she and I began talking almost daily. Even with this distance between us, God somehow made our friendship stronger. My friend came to visit Croatia for a while and invited us to be part of her baby’s dedication. She even recently shared that she is moving back to Croatia and cannot wait to join our church services and restart the Bible studies. With her sharing such enthusiasm for the Lord, I felt confident asking her to read the 40 days of prayer book with me so that I did not have to read it on my own.
One chapter, “The Speed of a Seed,” says, “We worry far too much about outcomes instead of focusing on inputs. We cannot make things grow. Period. All we can do is plant and water. But if we plant and water, God promises to give the increase.”
We are now on day 15, and each day we share highlights from what we read and have begun journaling our prayers together. Who could have seen this outcome a year after our Florida church mentioned the book to me?
Far too often, we have our own plans and paths for people we meet. We think, and let us be honest, we sometimes hope that we can lead them to Christ via a simple, straight line. But that is not the case most of the time. The Lord has His own path for each of us, and we need to be patient and walk with others as the Lord leads them because, as this book says, we cannot make things grow. All we can do is plant the seed, water it, and watch how the Lord grows something more beautiful than we could ever have imagined.
