My outlook on the whole thing couldn't have been more wrong.  After all, is this how I want my son to approach God?

After talking with someone about this, I realized I was not allowing God to work in my life through this approach.  So, I began praying and opening my eyes, and then I decided to try the project again. But this time I would take a whole new approach to it. I prayed harder asking the Lord to open my eyes and my heart to the Saving Message that Paul had to share with me.

It was like the views I often have from my office window: awesome, inspiring, life-changing.  From 30,000 feet, it is amazing what you can see -- even about yourself.  So, I started by reading and studying the letter of 1 Thessalonians. I took on the vision as if Paul were on his way to my house. Knowing that he was on his way to talk to me about The Saving Message of Jesus Christ, I wanted to make sure I was ready to listen and learn about what he had to say. So I began each day reading 1 Thessalonians from the new Coffee with Paul translation. Every day I would read the whole letter, and only that letter, and every day I would get more and more out of it. I would mark things within the letter that stuck out to me. Just when I thought I couldn't get any more out of it, I would read it again and see something that I didn't see before.

After reading and studying 1 Thessalonians, getting everything out of it I possibly could, I felt myself ready for Paul's arrival. When Paul arrived, I felt so good about everything I had been doing to prepare for him. I was excited to learn about this Saving Message that he had to offer me.

As Paul and I started discussing the Saving Message of Jesus Christ through the Coffee with Paul book, my whole world began to change. My eyes began to open up to things that I had never seen before. I started learning things, growing in my spirit, comprehending the things that I was reading.  And for me that was a feeling of accomplishment in itself. The way I viewed myself, others, and life itself started to change. I could not only feel the changes, but I could see the changes happening in my life. Talking with Paul every day has helped me talk to God -- more confidently and more often.  It also helped me find positive solutions for the not so positive things that were happening in my life.  This allowed me to get stronger and overcome times of distress in my life.

Coffee with Paul has done wonders for me in how I view myself, how I want to teach my son, how I look at a situation, how I view others, and how I pray and talk to God. It has also helped me find a sense of peace that only God can bring. Being able to sit down with Paul every day and discuss his life and my life side-by-side, to see how similar they are, even though in different time periods, has been eye-opening. Being able to use the times of distress in Paul's day to relate to the times of distress in my own life and then being able to see new ways to deal with them and find good within them, and even possibly help others all at the same time – all of this is just amazing!