Selina and Jim

Selina..

Selina came from a Christian family.. but not what she would call a 'normal' christian family. Her Mum had been married twice, and raised her and her 2 older siblings on her own. She saw her Dad regularly - he wasn't a Christian but that was kind of cool as her Mum was obsessed with God! Her family had been homeless a few times and  had lived in about 17 different houses by the time Selina  was 16. She still lived at home with her Mum they had a great relationship and she thought it was kind of cool now to live in a council house on an estate where no one else wanted to live. There were always sirens and fights and arguments in the street, never a dull moment... it was fine though for now as her and her boyfriend were saving hard and soon they would get married, move to suburbia and start a new life.
She had a great job with prospects and so did her boyfriend - they almost had enough money for a deposit after 4 years of saving. They had some great friends and  life was good...

Jim

Jim's Mum had mental health issues and didn't know how to bond with her  unplanned baby - he screamed all the time which made her increase her dose of anti anxiety tablets and anti depressants. She really didn't want this baby and she  couldn't cope.  Jim's Dad had a few kids dotted around, he didn't know how many. His Dad was usually drunk, this was the norm. Drunk and angry and blaming Jim for everything or so it felt. Home life felt empty and grim. At 14 he ran away - the police brought him back. His Mum didnt even notice he had gone and his Dad flew into one of his alcohol induced rages and gave Jim had the beating of his life.  A few months later he ran away again - this time they didnt find him. He went to London and lived on the streets keeping well away from the Police until he was 16 - then he knew they couldn't take him back home.

Selina

Just when Selina had thought her whole life was planned and everything was coming together her boyfriend of 4 years ended their relationship. She was stunned - and very broken hearted. She cried for months. She began drinking and drinking to excess. She would call him and he'd hang up on her. She went round his house one eve while drunk and begged him to come back to her. He was cold and distant, so different, he looked at her like she was dirt on his shoe. She was drunk and hysterical. She was sitting on the kerbside screaming and crying . He could see what a mess she was - he walked away and left her there - it was midnight and it was a long dark walk home and she could barely stand.

Jim

 Had began drinking to excess to blot out the pain of his childhood. It was easy to get high on the streets, drugs were readily available. Due to his young age he had got himself a place in a hostel. They would have wild parties and trash the place night after night. How could he know how to respect people or property when no one had taught him. He got thrown out the hostel within a few months. They gave him so many chances but it made no difference he was on self destruct and no one could  stop him.
He met a girl in the hostel who had just been given a council flat, he moved in with her and they hooked up. They  shared a mutual interest in getting drunk and high as often as possible. The place was filthy and barely furnished - they sold everything the local charity had brought for them to buy drugs - it had been new stuff so they got quite a bit of cash.  When he was 21 the relationship ended when she ran off with someone from school who she had bumped into one night. Jim was out on the streets again and homeless. The next few years were a blur for him. Drunk most of the time, and off his head most of the time. He met a girl called Zoe during this time and they became friends. Zoe got a room to rent. She had got a job in a local bar and he moved in with her.  Jim felt like he had fallen in love for the first time in his life. He even got a job at the bar with Zoe - his first job. He did a few hours a week. It was cool as he got free drinks at the end of the shift and was able to stay until 3 am after the pub shut, drinking with all the other bar staff. He was still mainly drunk from morning til night. He was closer to Zoe than he had ever been to anyone. Problem was he had inherited his |Dads tendency to angry outbursts and he had hit Zoe a few times. He was always devastated afterwards and hated himself so much he would go out and score heroin to blot out everything for a few hours. Eventually Zoe reached the end with Jim. She was due to be  promoted and felt like she was growing out of the drink, drugs and craziness phase. Not so with Jim though he was still firmly on self destruct. One evening when they both arrived home at 3 am she dropped the bombshell - she told Jim it was over and he had to move out asap.

Selina

Had to be out the house every night. Keeping busy took the edge of the pain. One night in a local bar she bumped into a girl she vaguely knew at school. Her name was Anna. For some reason Anna randomly invited Selina to come to a church type meeting in her friends home. Now Selina was up on all this - she had avoided church for many years due to the way her Mum and siblings had been treated there. It had been horrible. But anyway she was interested and as her life was on a downward spiral it maybe a good thing. So she went. She sat there in the living room with 5 other young adults and they talked about Jesus and God and the Bible but they were also relaxed and normal and friendly. In fact the 2 leaders had recently walked out their local church for some reason. This impressed Selina. The group decided to travel to the city and go to a big church there one Sunday. Selina went along - very wary. She stood there and tried to sing but the words wouldn't  form in her mouth. She could hear someone crying loudly and the realised it was her making this awful wailing noise. She sobbed for ages all the way through the singing bit. Then the speaker got up and preached a sermon he seemed to have written just for her. She felt like an earthquake had just smashed into her heart. It was god she knew it.  She couldn't wait to tell her Mum - she knew her Mum had prayed for her since she was born, that she would find God....

Jim

Was suicidal and suicide would be easy for him. He had the drink he had the drugs. No one would care or notice and they may not find his body for days/weeks. He had nothing left to live for. He had no where left to go. No family, or real friends. The only person he had ever loved had rejected him.
It was over.

As he was walking around planning his suicide he bumped into Jack. Jack was someone he had hung around with before when he had been homeless. Jack had a friend in a small town in the Cotswold's who he was going to visit and hopefully stay with for a while.  Jack asked Jim if he wanted to get out of London and give small town life a try. This came at the perfect moment for Jim. He said yes and they caught the bus out of the city first thing in the morning. Jim never looked back, not once as the coach pulled away...
They arrived and Jacks mate had a tiny 1 bed flat right in the centre of town - right opposite a large bar/restaurant. Jim stood  looking out the window idly watching the comings and goings from the bar opposite. Suddenly he  had an idea - could he? would he? could he really get a job there after everything?  He decided he would go in and ask  the next morning if there were any vacancies for bar staff. Of course there were!!  He did his induction and began work all within a week. He had enough money to pay Jacks  friend a bit of rent and so he stayed  in the Cotswolds for the time being. The flat was a mess and grubby and he felt the same. He couldn't be bothered to wash much he didn't bother with his clothes or hair. He was surprised he kept his job, but then again they were always short staffed. He was 37 but looked 47. He still felt like giving up and that his life had no purpose but he had free drink most nights and was making a few friends locally so he kept going..

Selina's

world had just been turned upside down. She came home after church in tears. She felt like she remembered who she was. Before she met her boyfriend she was planning on going to Uni to train for Social Work. But all that changed, instead she got a good job with prospects and 4 years in was on great money for her age and had saved a few thousand.   Her priorities had changed dramatically over the past 4 years. She had begun to look down on people without jobs people who abused drugs or alcohol. She had become someone she didn't like. But now she felt like herself again. Her heart had been moved by God. She needed to get out there and reach the lost. No one had told her to do this she had never read a Christian book in her life. She needed to do it. She told her Mum - she needed to do it and now!
How could she get to these dark places where Jesus needed to be?
In a flash she knew. She would go for a job working in a bar in  town. It was a well known chain,  a bar/restaurant.  It hadn't been opened very long but it had become the centre of the nightlife in her town.
All Selinas friends thought she was bonkers. She would be working full time at her office job then working 2 nights a week in the Bar/Restaurant. On her first night she was petrified. She had never pulled a pint in her life and all the different drinks she had to learn and the place was heaving...
On her first shift she started sharing her faith. Not in a forced way just in a natural course of conversation. She loved it.

Selina and Jim.

He noticed her on her first ever shift. She seemed different that the regular girls who worked there. She was pretty but more than that she seemed to have light shining from her face. He watched her closely from a distance. She was sweet and funny and loud too! After hours she stayed back with the rest of them and had a few drinks. He studied her every time he saw her. She had something. She was making friends with the younger staff members and he was hanging around on the edge of the group. Gradually he got to know her, she didnt seem to care about how old he was or what a mess he was - she was called Selina and she worked a full 5 day a week job in an office and did this as well. She was weird.
On evening he heard her talking about Jesus to another staff member. That was odd. No one had ever done that before in all his time working in bars.  Did she have mental problems he thought?,.. and she kept doing it. Sometimes they would all sit in the bar after it closed until 4am in the morning talking about crazy stuff like the meaning of life,  God  and religion. He had never thought about this - ever. If anything he was an atheist. After what he had been through in his 37 years why wouldn't he be. Selina was the first Christian he had ever met. In all the years on the streets and in hostels and squatting and struggling to survive he had never met a Christian, and to be honest Selina was nothing like what  he thought a Christian would be like. She was warm and non judgmental, she was funny and witty, and on his wavelength - not on planet church,
They started to hang out a bit, Selina  was interested in having conversations with him and she was also direct which he kind of liked. Once when they were walking down the street together she asked him "Jim why do you wear your  hoody up over your head and covering most of your face?' He told her because 'life is shit and I hate the world and I don't want to have to see it or be part of it in any way'  Selina loved Jim with the love of Christ. He told her about his past - really personal things about how bad it had been, he could talk to her about anything.
One evening abut 3am they were all in the bar drinking after hours when Selina just randomly asked - 'so who's up for coming to church with me next Sunday?' Jim heard himself saying 'yep' I'll come' - and a few others also said they'd come....

Selina went home and woke her Mum up at 4 am jumping about all over the bedroom. She was overjoyed that Jim had said yes! She was please the others were coming but it was Jim who God had put on her heart. It had been a crazy night, she was nearly in tears... her Mum was already crying she had been praying for Jim too.

Jim went home and lay awake all night. He felt weird. He felt angry. He was intrigued. He thought about his past he thought about the future his thoughts would not stop racing through his mind all night.

Church.

Selina picked Jim and a couple of others up at 9 am on Sunday, Jim was an alcoholic so he'd had to have a small drink to keep his body going but that's all he had. He was petrified. He was expecting pews and a sombre mood and smart people and a vicar etc etc. What he got seemed to be a rock concert. It was all very peculiar. He felt out of place  he was so scruffy so he just tried to look straight ahead. He was trying to make sense of it all when the singing bit started. The kids on the stage were like mini rock stars he thought. Part of him felt like church shouldn't be like this but another part of him felt moved. The lyrics were making him feel emotional and something deep within him seemed to be waking up. That was the only way he could describe it. The sermon was good and he wasn't expecting that at all. A woman spoke about her childhood - she had been abused and Jesus had set her free, healed her  and given her purpose... Hmmmmm he thought!!!  The whole service went by so quickly, and then it was over. He saw that people were stopping to chat, he felt so out of place and was aware suddenly that he had B.O. He wanted to escape now. Amazingly Selina seemed to sense this and she walked slightly ahead of him and fended off anyone who may approach them, phew! He thought that she really was a shining star that had come crashing into his life..

They all went home and Jim walked into Jacks flat and he felt different. The place was disgusting. 3 males living there and they never tidied up and they left food lying around to go rotten and there were dirty clothes strewn everywhere.. he set to work cleaning and tidying up.... 'that was weird' he thought while he was doing it, he'd never done that before. He made a cup of tea and sat down to think about what had happened this morning. While he was drinking the tea he suddenly realised he hadnt reached for a can of lager... He thought about God - did he really exist? He thought about the feelings he had experienced in church. Was that real or just emotionalism? He did feel different now though that was a definite. He was pondering all this when Jack came in. He told Jack where he'd been and Jack laughed his head off and told him he had been indoctrinated already after just one visit to church. Yep maybe he had been. After all the he knew the Bible said God made the earth in 7 days which was ridiculous. He firmly believed in evolution. He tried to put the whole experience out of his head. He had work later and he  would get drunk for sure tonight.

3 Days Later.

For some reason Selina had took a christian book to work to read. It was a book about the basics of the faith. She had never read a Christian book in her life. All day she read it. She got home and her Mum saw her carrying the book. What are you reading her Mum asked? Selina told her about how she had read all about Evolution v Creation. Selina knew all the arguments on both sides and knew all about Darwin and his writings. Selina had the ability to remember details accurately something she had always been good at.
Meanwhile Jim had spent 3 days googling Evolution V Creation... he was determined to catch Selina out next time he saw her.
That evening Jim went to the bar - he knew Selina was working that night. He sat at a table near the front of the pub with a couple of friends.
Selina was a bit nervous... she hadn't heard from Jim since church.. she walked in the bar and nearly fell backwards at the shock of the sight she was met with. She felt her whole body shiver and tingles run down her spine... There was Jim but he was almost unrecognisable. His hair was washed and combed, he had a clean  (new) jumper on and  he looked so different, when she got close he didn't smell either.. He turned to Selina and smiled, she smiled back. He looked calm and relaxed. His eyes were clear and blue and she could see Gods presence all over him. It was mind blowing for her. She felt like she would burst into tears any second. He opened his mouth to speak to her... He said 'So Selina do you believe that God created the earth in 7 days'? She was dumbfounded... she had spent all day studying this. She replied with the knowledge she had learned and Jim was impressed.
Later that night after she finished work she and Jim sat discussing evolution for 2 hours... he was coming round...


Selina and Jims friendship continues. This is where we are today. Jim is fine. The hound of heaven is after him...