You Never Know

It’s a puny planet, a wee world.

A limited venue.

Okay, okay—so much for trying to avoid the “small world” cliché. But it is so true.

We meet unexpected people in the most unexpected places. Coincidence? Hardly.

As in my recent acquaintance with a deceptively soft-spoken woman named Joy.

I say deceptively soft-spoken because she is a warrior. As author of the book Identifying the Hierarchy of Satan: A Handbook for Wrestling to Win! Joy A. Schneider is not to be underestimated.

Joy was one of my roommates at the Colorado Christian Writer’s Conference in Estes Park last month. I was there hoping to interest an agent or publisher in my proposed devotional book, Sometimes Life’s a Rodeo. In the process, I learned more about how rodeo has impacted people who have nothing to do with the cowboy world.

Like Joy.

One Sunday morning 35 years ago, Joy turned on a televised broadcast from Calvary Chapel in Denver, Colorado and heard the testimony of a man with a painted face, baggy pants, striped shirt and red suspenders. No, he was not the preacher, nor was he with the circus. He was rodeo clown Wilbur Plaugher, co-founder of the Cowboy Chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, today known as the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys.

Joy trusted Christ as her savior that morning, right there in front of the television set and the rodeo clown. She has not been the same since.

So you see, you never know. You never know who may be listening to your life on this spinning speck, weighing your words and changing their course.

Regardless of how heavy your makeup and mismatched your clothes.


For more information on the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys, see http://www.christiancowboys.com/