Telemarketing for God

I am enjoying a quiet morning at home, catching up on some reading, writing and finding lost objects in my office. Then the phone rang. It sounded like my friend, Belinda, but it wasn't. It was a telemarketer.

But this one was different. She was pleasant, had a great laugh, and I didn't mind talking to her. And it may have turned out to be one of those God moments.

OK, I know you're probably rolling your eyes and thinking, good grief, Kathy, how do you spiritualize a telemarketing phone call and turn it into an outreach conversation. But you will probably discover, if you haven't already, that I can spin just about anything into a connecting point with others.

But here is what came to mind. And back to Shane Claiborne and his observation that Christians act the same as everyone else. I wouldn't particularly enjoy being a telemarketer (only a collection agent ranks lower in my mind...and Matt recently got a phone call from one of them regarding a hospital bill he didn't even know he had) but as Christians we shouldn't respond by being rude, snapping at the poor voice on the other end of the line, or any other number of exasperated, cranky ways.

I listened to what the fun gal had to say, and actually noted that we didn't need any of the services she was offering as we were doing OK. She remarked that God had been good to us, I agreed, we laughed together, connected and I invited her to visit the blog. I hope she does.

And if she does, I hope she comments. But I think the conversation put a smile into both of our days.