This past week I was at a youth camp in Senecaville, Ohio. I hadn’t ever heard of it either. Often when we go to a small, nowhere town bad things seem to happen to us. This week was no exception. At 5:00 AM on Monday as we were preparing to leave, I cut my index finger’s knuckle on my trailer door, which ended up needing stitches except I didn’t find that out until after it had bled for two days and I missed the 48 hour stitch deadline. Then there was the whole disaster involving the mountains and my transmission. A few other mishaps and bad circumstances and I was sure this week was doomed to be a miserable disaster.

Then someone at the tow place asked me about my “I Love My Wife” shirt and everything started to change. She asked where she could get one for her husband and we ended having a nice conversation about Oak Leaf Church and how Jesus Christ has changed my life. One of the wrecker guys overheard a bit of our conversation and commented later on how he “cool” he thought Oak Leaf sounded. Before I knew it, the shirt I had on helped opened to door to have about five basic spiritual conversations with total strangers getting gas and grabbing snacks while I waited for someone from the Christian camp I was playing at to come pick us up.

I’ve been thinking about it all week. My transmission could have given out anywhere and yet it completely died on an exit with a wrecker service and a transmission shop, which also happened to be just a short drive from the camp we were playing. I could have chosen to wear anything that day to make the 10 hour van ride a little more comfortable but I chose to wear my “I Love My Wife” shirt because I am both proud of my wife and the church for which they were made. I could have had a completely different attitude after all the bad stuff kept piling on, but I couldn’t help thinking about the much longer list I had to be thankful for.

The week ended up being a blast and God reminded me of something very important. We wear the name of Jesus whether we have a church shirt on or not and should never be so caught up in our little world of comfort that we miss the everyday opportunities to show people the love of Christ.