Hope or Else!

I was proselytized today. It was a little scary, actually. I was driving back to the office from a Chamber networking event, when my gas light came on. So I dutifully stopped at a gas station at a busy intersection. As I watched the electronic display, the numbers went up, up, up…

A mini-van pulled up, I thought, to the pump on the opposite side. I nicely dressed, middle-aged lady stepped out. Still in networking mode, I flashed a shiny smile and gave a friendly “hello.” I thought maybe she was from the same event.

Then she whipped out a piece of printed paper and told me something about wanting to spread hope in “these times.” She gave me the latest edition of “Watchtower," a publication of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Then she got back into the van (the passenger side, I now realize) and the van drove off back into the street.

It occurred to me that for someone reason these two people spotted me from behind and pulled up into the gas station, just to talk to me. I felt a little vulnerable. Who knows how long they had been following me. Did they see me get lost in that industrial park? And do I look that hopeless and helpless that someone would think, “We gotta save her”?

I don’t know that I’ve ever used that word before, but it definitely feels right in this situation: proselytized.

I pray my witness is a little less scary and in-your-face. I promise never to accost someone at a gas station. Yikes.