During our conference in Bielsko Biaa, a handsome, well-dressed man came up to us with a smile on his face. “I wanted to greet you and thank you,” he said.
We looked at him with surprise as we tried unsuccessfully to remember who he was. “I came to a conference for parents a few years ago,” he continued. “You devoted a lot of time to talk to me while I related my problems with my daughter and asked advice. You encouraged me not to give up and instructed me what to do to win her heart. You also talked to me about trusting God. I did as you said, and now I have a wonderful relationship with my daughter. My wife unfortunately did not come back to me as she has already started a new life with someone else. But my daughter and I are very close and she lives with me, so I just wanted to thank you.”
He must have seen a blank look in our eyes because in spite of our best efforts, we still didn’t recognize him. He said that we met again sometime later during a church service in his town and talked with him again. And then it came back to us—but it wasn’t the same man we remembered! The one we had talked to was a shabby-looking, unshaved alcoholic with blood-shot eyes and gray face, desperate to get help.
“You were a different man then,” we told him. “That’s why we didn’t recognize you.”
“Yes,” he said, “I have changed. It’s God’s love that changed me, God’s love.”
