My Shamrock Fell
Katie, a sophomore leader of the InterVarsity chapter at the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, invited Megan, the InterVarsity staff member, to be the guest Bible study leader one week. At the end of the meeting, the girls shared prayer requests and used their “prayer tree.”
Each week, the girls write a request on different shaped construction paper. These shapes, shamrocks for March, are hung on the prayer tree in Katie’s room. When the girls see God answer a prayer, the leaf is removed and placed on the pile at the base of the tree.
Katie, a sophomore leader of the InterVarsity chapter at the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, invited Megan, the InterVarsity staff member, to be the guest Bible study leader one week. At the end of the meeting, the girls shared prayer requests and used their “prayer tree.”
Each week, the girls write a request on different shaped construction paper. These shapes, shamrocks for March, are hung on the prayer tree in Katie’s room. When the girls see God answer a prayer, the leaf is removed and placed on the pile at the base of the tree. “There’s quite a pile of answered prayers collecting there,” says Megan.
“The prayer request that I wrote on my shamrock was that God would give me a GIG (Groups Investigating God) Bible study for non-Christians. I was praying specifically for an opportunity to get a GIG going with Mary, an International student from Hong Kong,” said Megan.
Things started to happen at InterVarsity’s next Large Group meeting. Megan and Mary sat next to each other. The speaker for the evening talked about God’s desire for Christians to spread the Gospel of Christ throughout the university. The group was asked to turn to the person next to them and share what they would like to do for their next step in evangelism. Mary started the conversation. “We’re supposed to say what we want to do for evangelism? Well, since I’m the one who’s not a Christian, I guess my next step is to have a Christian meet with me to explain it all,” Mary said.
“Sure, I’d love to meet with you,” Megan replied. Megan knew this conversation wasn’t an accident. She knew God was beginning to answer her prayer that hung on the tree in Katie’s room.
Megan met with Mary to discuss Christianity. “Mary’s Mom is a Christian, so she knows quite a bit about Christianity,” Megan said, “But Mary doesn’t want to become a Christian just because she knows something about it.”
Mary is excited to learn more about the Christian faith and wants to be sure that Jesus is the answer she’s been looking for. Mary shared some difficult situations in her life. “God might be using these situations to draw you into a relationship with Him,” Megan told her. Mary was amazed and agreed with Megan.
“I’m anxious to meet with Megan again and begin going through the Gospel passages,” said Mary, “what Megan said keeps going through my mind and makes me feel much better. I decided to let go of all the things I can’t control, and I’ll let God decide them for me.”
Megan asked Katie to move her shamrock to the answered prayer pile, because God had faithfully and promptly answered her prayer. God used Megan’s prayer to encourage Mary to discover more about Christianity. God is at work, using Megan to help Mary learn more about faith in Jesus Christ.