You never know the impact one positive interaction will have on someone

What is one thing one person did or said one time that has left a lasting positive impact on your life?

For me, it was seeing “The Cross and the Switchblade.”

The woman, her name was Lori Hoyt, who was roped into teaching that group of 6th graders on Wednesday night, was very well intentioned.  She was definitely in over her head.  We were not easy… no 6th graders are easy.  She didn’t last long in that role, either.  It might have been 6 or 7 weeks she was there before she ran screaming into the sunset to get away from us.  I don’t blame her.

She wanted to give us a passion for ministry and expose us to things we had never seen or done before.  I remember when she took us to pass out tracts at the Cherry Festival in town.  She wanted us to share Jesus with people, we had no idea how and it felt uncomfortable.  But God had a plan and purpose for her time and it did not turn out void.

She showed us a movie from 1970 during her time with us.  It was 1988 and we were watching some hokey movie from 1970.  It had old music, really cheesy… not something 6th graders would take seriously.  

But, God.  But, God.  He used that one thing to shape my entire walk with Him.

I had just actually committed my life to Jesus, which means, I had just deeply in my soul realized that I was a sinner separated from God and that I needed to be saved from that sin… which can only happen through trust in Jesus.  This was the time where I was ready to start to figure out what that looks like.  It’s funny because God doesn’t just tell you who you are and what you are doing in life.  It happens through a reciprocal relationship with Him.  He gives you little pieces.  There are many aha moments and when the next step or the next depth of understanding happens, the dots start to connect.

So, I watched The Cross and the Switchblade.  Everyone else was acting terrible and laughing.  And I just couldn’t look away.  I was captivated.

A small town pastor, David Wilkerson, from Pennsylvania drove to New York City because some boys from the streets who were part of a gang were on trial for murder.  He wanted to share Jesus with them.  He wanted to see them transformed.  This was HIS first step.  He didn’t know what it would lead to.  He didn’t know how he would do it.  But, he went!  

Without getting into the entire movie, there was a scene where a boy from the neighborhood, I’m guessing he was about 12 years old, went up to this pastor and was admiring his shoes.  He made such a big deal out of the shoes that David Wilkerson, right then and there, gave him the shoes and walked around the city with him in his ORANGE SOCK FEET.  

That was my moment.  That was my one thing.  My prayer…  “God, I want to be just like David Wilkerson.  I want to go into a community and change people’s lives who are not reached by other programs.  I want to be part of deep, meaningful, soulful transformation that takes people from the worst situations and helps them see Jesus so they can be saved and healed.”

I didn’t remember the rest of the movie.  I knew David Wilkerson, orange socks, Nicky Cruz was no longer leading a gang because of Jesus.  I was 13 years old!  I wasn’t paying attention.

That orange socks moment shaped the rest of my life!

All my decisions about life, ministry, church, college, major, interests, were connected to those orange socks… that modeling of sacrificial love.  I went on missions trips, read books, built relationships, with the narrow vision of giving someone my shoes, even if I didn’t have another pair.  It was that real to me, that important.  A seemingly little thing, SO HUGE!  

My next aha moment.  I was hanging out with my now husband, Dave.  We weren’t even friends, we were more like nemesis.  It was 14 years since I saw the movie on that Wednesday night with my middle school friends, tormenting that poor woman who was putting up with us until her teaching duties were fulfilled.  Those orange socks were still vivid in my head.  

Dave and I were working at the same ministry and he needed a ride to this other place he went to on the weekends.  I was enough uninterested in him that I didn’t even know where he was going when he was gone.  So, I agreed to give him a ride.  We got to talking in the car and he told me all about Teen Challenge, the program he went through to recover from his drug addiction.  As we were driving out of the city, into the dark woods, along bending roads, up a mountain, where Bigfoot probably lives, he told me all about David Wilkerson founding the ministry that went INTERNATIONAL.  That was it!  David Wilkerson.  I literally didn’t know about Teen Challenge at all and got so excited.  Now the impact on that 13 year old new Christ follower was coming together more.

Well, a year later, Dave and I got married (that’s too long of a story to tell), and a year after that, we moved to Teen Challenge to minister.  Here I was LIVING the ministry I SAW when I was that young girl moved and changed by orange socks.  But, it didn’t stop there.  Six years later, we moved to our house in New Kensington, in the middle of an under-resourced community during a very hard season of crime and violence.  And through many interactions, deep understandings, and personal transformations living in the community, Sonward Youth Programs was born.  

Now I have the opportunity EVERY DAY to sacrificially impact many people who are missed by the other programs.  I have the privilege to live out what was planted in me that Wednesday night at age 13.  Those orange socks, ingrained in my brain forever, are the symbol of what Christ’s love looks like.  Lori Hoyt, I don’t even know what ever happened to her, did not know the impact one interaction one time would have on me.  That’s how God works.  

Be faithful, pray, listen, do what is right.  We are all changing the world!