A Wrong Number That Turned Into A Witnessing Encounter

I woke up one morning a little later than I normally do and noticed that I had a missed call on my cell phone from a number that I didn’t recognize.

Curiosity got the best of me and I called the number back @ 11 am and got the person’s voicemail, which was full and an impersonal message with no name. Around 3:30 pm I got a return phone call from a person who identified herself as Daphne.

We struck up a conversation and I asked Daphne who she was trying to call that early in the morning. She admitted to me that she was a bartender who had been working and was drunk at the time and thought she was calling her brother but mis-dialed the number.

Now when I talked with Daphne she still sounded as though she was feeling no pain and I asked her about it. She opened up about her life and things that she was going through.

Things such as being abused during her childhood by her parents and by the nuns where she went to school. By an abusive husband. Daphne really felt as though life dealt her a tough hand. On top of that, Daphne is dealing with cancer.

During our conversation, I asked Daphne what she thought would happen to her when she dies and her response was that she felt that she would go to heaven. I asked her why she thought that and based on that fact that she is caring for her abusive mother and other things, she stated that she was a pretty good person.

I had the opportunity to walk through the 10 commandments with her and shared with her what God’s definition of good truly is.

I asked her that if God judges you based on that standard, would He send her to Heaven or Hell? Daphne didn’t believe that her God would send her to hell. I told her that was a form of idolatry and that she had made up a god that she was comfortable with. The reality is that all law breakers will not enter into God’s kingdom.

Despite the fact that she was using some colorful language, I asked her why she thought that Jesus came? I shared with her the good news that He came to live life keeping the law of God perfectly that we are incapable of and that he took our place, and taking the punishment and death sentence that we deserve. That He died and resurrected for us that we may live.

I was also able to share with Daphne that we must all repent and put our trust in Christ and we will have eternal life. It’s then that we will begin a new life in God’s kingdom.
I closed our conversation by point her to scripture, Genesis 1-11 which tells us why this world is in the state that it is and then to the Gospel of John which is God’s answer to the mess. I also have been praying for Daphne.

Daphne reminds me of the story of a little boy who was running through some woods. He suddenly tripped over a log and cut his jugular vein on a stick. His father quickly picked him up and held his finger tightly on the vein to stop the blood flow as they rushed the child to a hospital.

As they entered the operating room, the distressed child held out his thumb to the surgeon. When he had fallen, a splinter of wood had entered his thumb. Of course the good doctor ignored the boy’s plea to remove the splinter, and immediately set to work on stopping the blood flow from his jugular vein.

We expect God to immediately fix what we consider the most serious wound, when God wants to first deal with the “sin” issue—that which will be the death and eternal damnation of us. So, if we as Christians care about the will of God and the eternal welfare of the person to whom we are speaking, we will go for the jugular; we will speak about the sin issue.