Hello Doves,
 
God bless you, and Jesus Christ is the Lord, and He loves you!
 
As is my custom has been for months, I go to my local Starbucks to use the free WIFI, and to get a cup of coffee. There, I'm able to access to read and post on Five Doves, and to do other work, such as network with others, and as the Lord gives opportunity and leads, talk about Jesus Christ.  Amen.  
 
On Sunday, my time at Starbucks was unusual.  As I had been there for awhile in the day with not much activity, all of a sudden, a few girls came in, who are college volleyball players for our local college, to study and get on their laptops.  They ended up sitting next to me. One of the girls was from Colorado.  She was very pretty, but her countenance was dark, and standoffish, as I could perceive in my spirit that she was holding onto some kind of bitterness from something that happened in her past.  She sat three chairs down from me.  The other girl was from Washington.  She also was very pretty. Her countenance was bright, being opposite of the other girl.  She sat two chairs down from, sitting between the other girl and me, with the chair next to me open.  A moment came where my laptop was running slow, and me, not being anywhere near an expert in computers, I as the girl closest to me if she could help me, and she did.  For that brief moment, she got up out of her chair and came over to me to work on my laptop. I was able to look into her eyes.  That's when I notice the light within her.  I told her, "I perceive that you have Jesus in you."  She replied yes I'm a Christian.
During this entire time of her and I talking, the other girl was going about her business, although paying attention to our conversation.  Then, after about 15 minutes, I went over to the other girl and I asked if I could talk with her.  She said yes, and she came over to the empty chair next to me, where I then asked her if she believed in God. She said that she believes in a "Higher Power". This led me to talk to her about Jesus Christ and how much He loves her, that the One who created her, had died for her, so she could be made free. I had told her in the beginning of our conversation that I perceived she was bitter.  She became teary-eyed, astounded that I could perceive this, as she shook her head in agreement that something did happen. After I expounded on giving the testimony of Jesus Christ, and how He is the only One Who could heal her of that bitterness, there was no reaction or response from her, and she went back to her seat.  I was thinking to myself, "how can one not desire to be healed of that bitterness, especially of her learning what our Creator did for us because He loves us?"  So I left it alone for another 20 minutes, and I went back over to talk with her again, and asked her pointblank, why she is hesistant to believe?  She said, in essense, and not in these exact words, that believing His testimony would cause me (her) to have to change, and cause her to admit her lifestyle being contrary to Him. In short, she wasn't willing to except His forgivenss so she could forgive the one who caused her to be bitter.  I told her, we can only love and forgive others because He first loved and forgave us.  With that knowledge now given to her, having that thought seeded in her mind, she left.
This left the girl from Washington sitting next to me (the one who has a bright countenance).  Because she had headphones on, listening to whatever, not paying attention to the other girl, when she had a moment I proceeded to fill her in on my conversation with the other girl, and asked her to continue to be a witness. It was then she told me that it was not very long ago (March 2012) she became lit up, that before this time, she was not lit up by Christ, like she is now, because of personal family issues.
Apparently there were things that tore the whole family apart, something to do with her dad.  And when her dad called the entire family home (sons and daughters living in different parts of the country) for a family "talk", that then he revealed some gross sin, and for the last three years (although having received Christ, and his father a pastor of a Spirit-filled church) said, and I quote her words, her dad was "living for the devil these last few years", and that the Holy Spirit had convicted him of whatever he was doing, where he was coming "clean" with his family, asking for their forgiveness, and telling them that time is short, and that they also needed to repent.  Apparently, this "family time" this past March left such an impression on this girl I was talking with at Starbucks, that it caused her to get serious with the Lord.  God is convicting in this late hour calling us to repent!
 
I said all of this, to come to this:  After she had told me these things about her dad, family, and herself, and how her father came clean, and how the Lord has/is healing this family, drawing them close to Him, that her understanding now, which given by the Holy Spirit, is that He expects His children, that call Him by His name, to depart from iniquity, to cease from doing the sins of the flesh.  She told me that before this family meeting, that she had been living in the flesh, being presumptuous, but now she is back IN Him. When I was led of the Spirit to tell her that true Christians cease from the sins of the flesh, she responded and said, this exactly what her father told his family, as she was in agreement with this truth.
 
In closing, when I got home, I noticed I had leftover change in my pocket, which I knew I had, as I brought  a few coins (3-5 coins). I honestly do not remember buying anything at Starbucks, but I most probably did, which would explain why I had more coins than I brought. And when I got home I emptied them out on the table.  It's value came to:
 
88 cents: 2 quarters; 3 dimes; 3 pennies = 8 coins:  888!!!
 
In Christ,
Greg