Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Back in ninth grade, I was a knucklehead. Even worse, I was a Christian school knucklehead.

Those are the worst kind. Six days a week between that Christian school and the church that operated it,

I was in the same building hearing the same

Bible lessons often from the same people. In fact, it was sometimes difficult to know where

church ended and the school began. Church projects would often become school projects and students

often became church volunteers, although not always voluntarily. That's how I met Ms. Omega Buckner

on the last day of school before Christmas

break in December of 1990. We expected a party, but instead our Bible teacher, who was also our

pastor and principal, announced that our Bible class was being sent out to visit the elderly

shut-ins from our church. The only thing we wanted to do less than academic work on the last day of classes before

Christmas break was to visit old people we'd never met. And so I was paired with my friend Brian, who also shared my disdain for the assignment. I've got an idea, he said. We'll go visit one of the people, but say that we couldn't find the other person's house. That way, we'll be done early, and then we can go to the mall and meet some girls.

So that's what we did.

The name that we did't find the other person's house. That way, we'll be done early, and then we can go to the mall and meet some girls. So that's what we did. The name that we did not throw away was Omega Buckner. She lived down a windy rural Virginia Road and a small little apartment built on the end of her grandson's farmhouse. There we were, an 11th grader, a ninth grader, an 89-year-old widow. We didn't have a lot in common. And just when we thought it couldn't possibly get more awkward, Ms. Buckner suggested, well, let's sing some Christmas carols together. So we stumbled our way through Silent Night, and she decided that one carol was enough. Well, Ms. Buckner, Brian then said we'd best be on our way. Yes, I lied. We still have another person to visit before

heading back to school. Before you go, she asked, could we pray together? Now, at that point in my life,

I'd heard thousands of prayers, but I had never heard anything like this. Ms. Buckner spoke to

God as if she knew him with a confidence and a humility that only comes when you know you're

actually being heard.

Two years later, sometime in late November, I woke up one day just thinking of Miss Buttener.

To this idea, I have no idea why.

All I knew at the time was that I just had to go back and visit her.

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