Alex

I've mentioned Alex before. He was the reason (well; sort of) for my obituary I wrote a few months back. I also talked about him in our newsletter if you get that (You should; it's great when we get round to writing one). I have been coaching Alex on a course organised by Agapé's Workplace Initiative, looking at the "Habits of the Heart" - our deepest connections and convictions. It's a great course, but I'm not always a great coach.

My role was to walk Alex through some areas of growth and development that we'd identified, but all this dabbling around in the inner self tends to lead to talking about the spiritual dimension. This is the reason Alex and I ended up in Starbucks talking about prayer for three hours instead of our 'official' coaching appointment (writing a life map for one hour).

I really like Alex. He's a deep thinker and I was happily pummeled with questions I've never even considered asking before. I'd be delighted to tell you the tales of that conversation next time we see each other. We did, however, leave on the note that Alex was really interested in becoming a Christian....he just didn't quite believe in God, which, you have to admit is a bit of a hurdle in the whole "being a Christian" thing.

We chatted and texted a few times over the next few weeks, but didn't manage to actually arrange to see each other until we were due at the next 'Habits of the Heart' group session. The session was the final one of the course and each participant had to give a 5 minute presentation on a personal issue related to the course. It was because I had our last conversation in my mind that it completely blew my socks off to find out that Alex's chosen topic for his presentation was titled "My recent conversion to Christianity".

We met up a couple of days ago to talk through this spiritual leap he'd taken, which in his mind was no leap at all, but just a quiet recognition of what God had been doing in his life. Over quite a while, as it happens. It started when he was 11 yrs old with a friend's father chatting to him in McDonalds about who was in the 'driving seat' of his life and ended (or started for real?) with a drive down the M6 when it 'all seemed to come together'.

There are many things that bring joy in life, but seeing someone take this step into a full-on relationship with God is just the best thing in the world.