Meeting friends
On the way back from the team retreat we stopped in Jindřichův Hradec. There we met with two families that we have come to know here.
The first couple that we met up with was Eva and Tomas. We know them from when Alex was born. Eva had a caesarean to deliver their son Filip half an hour after Alex was also delivered by caesarean. It turned out that Filip had a heart defect and had to be rushed to
As we were leaving Eva and Tomas’s place, Eva said two things, that they are atheists and that they appreciated the way we had cared for them by praying for them and Filip. What a contrast in those two thoughts!
1 comment:
Hi James and Almut,
It seems to me, that when someone says "I'm an atheist" and also says "I appreciated you praying for me", what they are really saying is "I value our relationship." It shows that the relationship has developed to the point where they trust you enough to tell you what they really think about all that god stuff, and they value the fact that you cared enough about them in their time of need to step out of your comfort zone and offer a prayer for them. Probably if you hadn't prayed for them, they wouldn't have trusted you enough to tell you they were atheists!
Seems like an invitation to go deeper, if you ask me!
Also - a lot of people use the term 'atheist' when in reality they are closer to agnosticism than atheism. It doesn't necessarily mean that they don't believe in the power of prayer. Even a purely humanist view can include the idea that prayer/positive thinking/good vibes can influence outcomes.
I hope you have lots of opportunities to keep building your friendship with these folks. :-)
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