If you must, skip the intro.

Probably my favorite God-book aside from the Bible is Windows of the Soul by Ken Gire (and no, it has nothing to do with dating) because it talks about how God knows us intimately. Gire asserts that when we train ourselves to look for Him, we find God trying to speak to us through many different facets of life...like poetry, stories, art, dreams, even movies. He doesn't necessarily mean that we look to all things in our lives as "signs" telling us this or that, but that when we view this life in light of Christ, we see that God desires to speak to us, to reveal Himself through creation. I can't seem to put it quite so articulately, but some bizarre events last night reminded me of one of my favorite chapters in the book and sent me into a fit of silly grinning when I realized that God used a good friend of mine to speak personally into my life. I'll let Ken explain first...

"God spoke to [people in the Bible] then and speaks to us now in the language most familiar to us. I'm not talking about our native language...[but] about the language of our heart. And not the human heart in general, but each individual heart, with its own intensely personal images...for each of us over a lifetime has compiled our own dictionary of emotionally rich vocabulary...

"Skim through the pages of your past and you'll find a few of your own. Maybe one of them is teh cuddly feel of grandma's quilt. Or the familiar smell of a lumpy teddy bear. Your mother in the kitchen baking cookies, maybe. Or a tree house...All these images are words from the language of your heart."

Then speaking of a rough time in his past, Gire explains, "[God] had spoken to His children in times past, and we heard echoes of His voice in the Scriptures, but [my wife and I] longed to hear Him speaking not to Moses or to David but to us, directly, personally, intimately."

Gire was skeptical when his wife called one day describing a dream she had the night before about being asked to dance before a crowd of strangers. Not sure whether to claim the event as God speaking or as his wife's mere sub-conscious ramblings, he eventually comes to this conclusion:

"[God] paged through my wife's dog-eared dictionary of childhood memories, picked out an image that was dear to her, and one night bent down and whispered it in her ear. That image touched her in places where words alone couldn't reach. And with that touch, brought healing...

"Do you see the ways of God revealed in the way He speaks? He didn't require Judy to go to seminary and learn Hebrew, the language through which He first spoke to His people. Instead, He learned hers. He learned the language of her heart, which He had been studying since she was a girl. And it's a different language...than He uses when speaking to you and to me. Can you see how incredible that is?

"...He picks images that are as indigenous to our world as...crayons are to the world of a kindergartner. The images may be so personal as to mean little, if anything, to anyone else. But they mean everything to us. He searches our heart for just the right image...That is how well He knows us. And how much He loves us."

I hope through my cutting and pasting, some of these words shine through. Sometimes I read stuff like this and I think that maybe if I were just more articulate...if I could just somehow bottle the emotions coursing through me--to share even a glimpse of God's goodness in my own life would convince the whole world that Christ is King.

***

Of course, I won't ever have enough of those right words to say because it's not really up to me. But what I do hope to share (and I hope you'll forgive the long intro into this), is that God has so personally loved me. I am amazed at how someone as blessed as I am could ever go through periods of sadness. How dare I? Because moments like last night remind me that God listens to my prayers.

How to explain without giving away the precious secrets of the inter-workings of my heart...

But that's just it--God knows those inter-workings better than I do! Before I lose you, let me explain. So last night I had a really bizarre conversation with this guy who asked some very pointed questions and made some even more intensive assertions that made my conversation with that guy in the thrift store a while back seem like a walk in the park. An entertaining chat, nonetheless, that will make for great campfire conversation for years to come, but it was the dialog that took place directly following that received the most attention when I journaled and prayed about the whole thing later. Still this morning, I am elated to think about how God used the second conversation to encourage me so intimately. The last several weeks have been quite the tough time of transition, and lately I've felt really disconnected not only from God but also from the people around me. In times like this, I feel like my prayers are going nowhere. I talk to God, all the while thinking that if I were Him, I wouldn't bother with me either. Like Ken and his wife, I too longed to hear God speak to me in a way that was meant for my ears...for my heart. I know that Scripture is truth, and when it comes to dealing with different problems, my church upbringing has taught me all the "right" answers for each one.

So I think through God's promises in the Bible like so many mantras, but the words just sound empty in my head...until God uses the voice of probably the one person in my life from whom they would mean the most.

He tells me I'm beautiful. He reminds me that I can trust Him.

And in that moment, God makes it all ok again.