Talking With God

I have been talking with God since I was four-years-old. I remember the first time  he spoke to me. I had just moved to North Carolina to live with my Aunt Mattie, Uncle Homer, and Grandma Juanita after living in New Orleans with my mom for a short time when she and my father divorced. I don't know what terrible things happened to me while I was living there but when I got to North Carolina I was terrified...of people, and the dark, and the vivid, horrible nightmares I had on a regular basis (and still have frequently, today).

On the night God first spoke to me, I was sitting in the dark in the  middle of Aunt Mattie's big bed and I was frozen, afraid to move, afraid to call out to anyone. I heard God clearly in my mind say, "Get the Bible from the nightstand, Little One." The Bible was a little blue one that Mattie had purchased for me at the airport. I saw it in the shop and really liked the pictures in the middle. I was too afraid to ask her to buy it for me, but she did anyway. I wouldn't let it out of my sight for the first few weeks. So, I crawled over to the nightstand, grabbed it quickly, my heart pounding with fear for whatever might lurk in the inky black on the floor, and went back to the center of the bed. God said, "Now, put it next to your heart and hug real tight. I'm here." When I did, I immediately felt better. I was still afraid, but I was no longer paralyzed by that fear. I don't know how long I held it that way before finally falling asleep, nor do I know why I wasn't afraid of God's voice in my mind. I did, however, use that strategy many times over the weeks and months that followed to help beat down my fears into something I could manage.

That memory is one of my first memories, ever, and over the years God has communicated with me many times. I didn't really understand this dialogue with Him until years later (and I don't always think of Him as a "He"). When my mother died in October of 1997, I was so distraught with grief I wasn't sure I'd ever heal or feel whole again. A friend of mine recommended a book series to me called, Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch. He even sent me the first book, writing in the front: "Dear Amy, Conversations With God provides a voice of distinct clarification--omnipresent. 'I AM--I AM NOT'--please enjoy. Love you in all-ways, Giovani." These books changed my life, gave voice to things I believe in deep to my core (I would often read a passage, my mouth agape, thinking to myself, "That is EXACTLY how I feel."). I have post-it notes sticking out of them everywhere with notes to myself on them. I have highlighted many passages, writing notes or comments in the margins. Perhaps the fact that God talks back to me all the time and has for nearly my entire life is too fantastical for you to believe, so I'll leave you with His own words.

Neale Donald Walsch--"How does God talk and to whom?"
God--"I talk to everyone. All the time. The question is not to whom do I talk, but who listens? First, let's exchange the word talk for the word communicate. It's a much better word, a much fuller, more accurate one. When we try to speak to each other-Me to you, you to Me, we are immediately constricted by the unbelievable limitation of words. For this reason, I do not communicate by words alone. In fact, rarely do I do so. My most common form of communication is through feeling. Feeling is the language of the soul. If you want to know what's true about something, look at how you're feeling about it." (3)

Whatever that voice is inside my head, I know this--It gives me hope, when I despair--It shines a light in the dark when I'm afraid--And it fills me with peace down to my bones. In my eyes, nothing else could be more Divine.

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