I
wish I were as good at preaching the gospel as I am at preaching Blackletter, and Do It Tomorrow, and Burning Wheel. Somehow it's way easier to get a good, sympathetic ear for wargames and time management systems and role-playing games than it is for the Word of God; to be fair, with the former, people usually don't have a lot of preconceived notions to deal with, while with the latter, our culture was built on these Words. People have made a choice before you ever talk them. I suspect it's actually a lot easier to talk to people about Jesus when they've never heard of Christianity, actually.
When you're commiserating with somehow across religious boundaries, things don't necessarily line up the way you'd like them to. If there's one piece of advice I wish I could give to my friends and family, it's to be thankful for bad things that happen to you. This is foundational to Christianity, that God makes wonders happen through tragedies, and that we learn that greatest of virtues, humility, by being humiliated. Shall we praise God only when He blesses us? No, we praise Him whether we receive the good or the bad.
This isn't an easy thing to say to secular people. Some people get it, but for so many, they just want to feel injured, judged, affronted, so that they can feel the release of injuring, judging, and affronting back at those who have maligned them. It's again difficult to warn people about how danger this cycle of frustration and retribution is, especially since most of the time, the affairs "aren't that big a deal". But habits are habits, and eventually, it will be a big deal; and which muscles will you have strengthened?
All this is to say, it's a great blessing when one of your oldest friends joins you on a spiritual journey. Having such a shared vocabulary with a loved one is a tremendous mercy, a respite in a life that can be trying. Eli recently had a long-looked-for hope disappear in disappointment. This hurts; always does. But he praises God, and is moving on. Sand or rock; where will you build your house?