By guest writer Susan Windley-Daoust.

Recently I accepted a new position to work more directly in evangelization, and while I am excited and grateful, there are a lot of days where there is spiritual warfare going on in my head. Today was one of those days I was not feeling great (an understatement) about my ability to sense God’s inspirations, and then respond to them, and feeling “the voice”: “Seriously, YOU’re going to do evangelization?” self-defeating thing. It’s one thing to recognize rationally this is not from God, another to live through it… it’s hard to escape your mind, you know. It was bothering me a lot the past few days and especially this morning.

At one point in the morning, as I am mentally talking back “the voice,” I grabbed God and brought him into the conversation. “Holy Spirit, you know, it would be easier if you just made it obvious. I’ll do what you want if you just let me know. Please just make it obvious.”

My husband Jerry and I went to eat at a fast food restaurant for lunch, and there was a woman there who we both know a bit from around town as living on the margins and mentally ill. It was frigid out there (below zero) and she was nursing a coffee in this warm restaurant at lunch hour. (Holy Spirit: nudge, nudge, nudge.) Jerry said first, this woman… we should ask if she needs… something, like if she has a place to stay tonight. I actually knew more of her history than he did and said she’s not homeless, but she is mentally ill. But… yeah. Something. We decided to buy her a gift certificate to the restaurant and offer it as a random act of kindness. (I was still unclear if this was a Holy Spirit moment or a person in need moment. Nothing prevents us from doing the good, right? But I suspected the former.) For some reason, I took the lead on this, and approached her and said we wanted to offer her this gift card as a happy new year gift, to use now or later. She smiled, jumped up, and hugged me. And then said with some force, “Don’t let *anyone* tell you God doesn’t exist.” And then addressed a couple more things, directly, I was internally struggling with. I had said nothing other than introduce myself and offer a card. Then after a couple of minutes of conversation, she asked me where I went to church, I told her, and she said, “I’ve been there, but not in a long time. I’m going back to church tomorrow, this gives me so much hope!”

People, we noticed her and bought her a $10 gift card to a fast food restaurant. That was all.

God works in really weird and mysterious ways. I encourage people to go with that Holy Spirit flow.

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Susan Windley-Daoust is a Catholic theologian, married, and mother to five children. She is currently associate professor of Theology at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota and will be taking a new position as Director of Missionary Discipleship for the Diocese of Winona, MN in the summer of 2018.

Image: PD-US