Moved with Boldness

“And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” – Acts 4:31

Recently, we read in Scripture about boldness (Acts 4:23-31), and I witnessed some boldness that moved me internally.

Divine Mercy is very special to our family. We LOVE this devotion! We know full well the mercy that has been gifted to us, and we truly hope to extend it to others as much as possible. Our friend, Karina, introduced us to a beautiful deacon, Deacon Alfredo, who resides at the Holy Spirit Monastery in Conyers, Georgia. He has given us THOUSANDS of images of the Divine Mercy to share with everyone we meet in Costa Rica. These images remind us that God’s mercy is far greater than any sin, and most of them have prayers of repentance and acceptance of God’s mercy on the back. We have truly shared this with everyone we know, and it seems that God is multiplying the images because they never seem to run out!

The day the church in our town had a feast specifically for Divine Mercy, we went to our son, CJ’s, last Sunday practice in San Jose. I had a box of images ready to distribute to CJ’s team, but I was super nervous about it. These guys come from ALL walks of life—they are from ages 18-40, super confident, and they are HUGE! I wasn’t going to make a big deal. I was just going to ask if they wanted one, and if they did, great. If not, that was okay too. While I was expressing my anxiety to one of the single girls there with us, my husband Chris was just watching the practice and playing with our other son Job, calm as always and saying nothing about it.

Practice ended. I prayed a spiritual warfare prayer and went to grab the box of images of Divine Mercy. Chris already had a stack of cards in his hand, and before I realized it, he called out, “Hey guys! I want to tell you something about God and His mercy…” and he began to give a little sermon in front of them. I froze, and kind of cringed. Here we go! I was expecting some disrespectful persecution (I know, this is a bit dramatic, but you can see how the enemy already “wooed” me with fear), but then a couple of the guys asked everyone to be quiet and to listen. Not everyone was enthralled, and some still got dressed while he was talking, but it was respectful. Chris didn’t hold back.

He talked about Heaven, Hell, suffering, sin, and God’s mercy overriding our selfishness. He was great in my eyes, and I was watching the reaction of the guys. Not all, but probably half of the guys were really listening and interested, and that was better than I expected. Most took the image afterwards, and many of them wanted the small cards with the prayers for their wallets.

I’m not gonna lie, as I passed out the images, I was still a bit shaky. Only one guy gave me a dirty look, but his teammate saw this and said, “Y’all are doing great work. Thank you. Keep it up!” I gave that guy TWO cards!

I am not sure why fear gripped me so tightly, but how grateful I was for my better half, who ten years ago was not much different than many of these guys in their faith. The boldness of someone who shared their faith with Chris is now taking fruit with Chris sharing his—not just with large, intimidating men, but with his family as well. I walked away that morning truly appreciating God’s mercy shown through this boldness.