Life and opportunities are too short to sit and complain or to wait for something to change or happen. Does God not know our innermost thoughts? Did He not knit us together in our mother's womb? He knows us. He CREATED us! Then why, do I inquire, do we not come to Him in our time of need? Why do we try to handle everything on our own? I know that I myself am guilty of it. I bottle up everything inside until one night I'm crying myself to sleep and I don't know why. Is it because I am unhappy? Or is it simply because I try to control everything in my little world only to watch it fall apart from under feet? HE KNOWS ME. Who else knows me as He does? He can answer those questions that keep you awake at night. He knows everything you feel beneath the surface, beneath the front of how you allow yourself to be perceived. To try to understand the complexity of the Almighty God is too intricate to attempt to describe. Get started! He tells me. "For what?" I ask. "Get started for what?" I ask again. The answer is simply this: Its time.
I could simply ask the same question once again of, "for what? It is time...for what??"
Yet, instead I sit in silence and I wait...He knows my innermost thoughts. He knows my doubts. He knows my anxiety. So I wait.
God has always had a sense of humor with me. Ever since I was a child. He always talked with me and allowed me to feel his presence, He did this so I would never doubt His existence. Yet, I still did; I still doubted him. Everyday. Why? Because I am human with a human mind. Simple I know, but true. A mind that tends to wander, and a mind stuck in a flesh body with a spiritual freedom it cannot comprehend. I always wandered, aimlessly really, in some attempt to find myself, "away from God." He talked to me too much, or so I thought. (Little did I know that this is a gift and I should cherish it everyday. Little did I know that some people struggle to hear the voice of the Lord and I am running from it!)
When I was a little girl about 4 years old, I knew who Jesus was, but I had no idea that He was the one speaking to me all the time; So lovingly, so father-like. I would sing all the time as a little girl out of the pure joy I felt with God and when He was communicating with me. As I got older, and not so naive, I started to think I was a crazy with this voice in my head and I would try to block it out. You know how they say you reach a point when you don't think like a kid anymore? I think that point was when I had a, what I call "Samuel experience"...
I was 11 years old and in my family's spare room, (spare 'oom:) unplugging my Cd player from the outlet, when I heard someone call my name loud and clear. "Melissa". I heard the voice say gently. Being caught off guard, the voice started me so that I hit my head under the table. Thinking that my dad was calling me, I went to go find him, not knowing where he was. I look to see that he was in out backyard tending to the pool. "That doesn't make sense". I thought to myself. "How could I hear my dad's voice so gently when he is all the way outside?"
Shaking it off, I went back to the spare room in a second attempt to unplug my CD player, since I had got too startled the first time to succeed. I bent down once again and went underneath the table and heard the voice again, just as gentle as before."Melissa." I don't hit my head this time, but the voice still surprises me. This time I run outside to see my dad still tending to the pool, just like he was just a couple of minutes ago. I stand there watching him a couple of seconds. He skims the pine needles and dead bugs from the pool with his handy dandy net, or "skimmer", as he called it.
"Hey Mels." My dad smiles and looks up at me from his chore.
"Hey dad," I say contemplatively. "Dad?" I ask.
"Yes, daughter?" he answers me.
"Well, see, um... I was unplugging my CD player from the guest room and I thought I heard you calling me."
"Nope, that wasn't me," my dad says simply.
I stand there in silence for a little while. I was confident I had heard something.
"Well, if it wasn't you, then who was it?" I said to my dad, knowing perfectly well that no one else in that house had that father-like voice that I had heard so clear.
My dad stopped skimming the pool for the unwanted insects, and stopped and thought without looking at me.
A minute passed.
"Maybe, just maybe, it was God calling your name," he says after much thought. My dad smiles a knowing smile.
I think about this. How? I ask myself. I knew who God was. I knew about the Bible. I knew about church. I knew that God loved me, I had grown up on Bible verses and sunday school telling me so. But, I still didn't understand. I knew about God, but why was He calling My NAME??
My dad suggested I go back into the room and answer as Samuel did when he was informed it was God who was calling him. "Here I am". Of course I knew of the story in the Bible.
Little did I know at the time that that experience was only the start of the many experiences that I had yet to experience God talking to me. At 11 years old I was attempting to try to understand what many people have unanswered questions about: separating God in heaven and in church, and God, who is real, who knows each and every one of us and how He tries to communicate with us everyday. The Almighty God in heaven who created both the heavens and the earth talks to us? He knows the comings and going ons of our daily lives? He cares about whether or not I get a job? He cares about my struggles and my insecurities? He cares about me finding love? Its the idea that most people have trouble grasping onto, separating God in heaven, and God with us, communing with us.
I took to heart what my dad said about God calling my name and instead of embracing it as a young girl, I was fearful. I went right into the spare room, shaking, as I have never done before. I bent down underneath the table and yanked the plug out of the outlet and then what did you think I did? I ran out of the room as fast as I could. Thinking that for some reason, me being under that table was the cause of me hearing that voice, calling my name, so gently, so father-like, so... familiar. Little did I know that I didn't have to be under a table to hear God's voice; He would use many different ways of getting my attention...
(To be continued...)
