When God speaks

I have believed in God my whole life. Even when I was a very little girl, I talked to him in my head all the time. Even when I was a cynical preteen, and hated the church we went to, hated the hypocrites that went there. Even when my parents got divorced when I was a senior in high school, and they became the ultimate hypocrites. Even when I studied the I Ching in college, tossing coins in sequence to create the symbols that predicted the future. Finally I met him, my spirit to his spirit, when I was 27. It was the end of wondering who he was, and where he was, and knowing he was who I had been talking to all those years. Since then, the conversation that has flowed between us has deepened and matured. I have read the book he wrote for us many times. I have talked to him with words of love and anger, fear, pain, frustration, joy. We have talked through financial problems, marriage problems, child rearing problems, false friendships, troubled churches, twisted theology and, especially, hypocrisy. He has taught me about forgiveness, peace, patience, grace, kindness, suffering, hope. I listen for him to speak to me all day, every day. He always does, in an endless variety of ways. I know his voice, it's the one full of love.