And God Smiles Back

            It had been another long day.

            At 11 o’clock that night, I was done.

            After I had successfully protected my teeth from any possible cavity invasion, taken out my contacts, and wabbled to my room, I laid out on my bed.

            My fan blew in rhythmic circles above my head, and I just let out one of those letting-go-of-the-entire-day breaths.

            I was very ready to sleep.

            But, as I went to turn off my light, I spotted my Bible.

I wish that I could say that every single time I see my Bible my heart leaps at the thought of reading the words of my Savior. It is an amazing ability; to read the words of the One Who breathed life into me. When I think about it, I can hardly contain tears. It is a dumbfounding blessing to read His Word.

But, at 11 o’clock at night, after a long day of cramming for school, in partial blindness due to nearsightedness, and my whole body screaming for the comfort of the sheets, it seemed like the most exhausting thing I had done all day was reach over and pick up that Bible.

I didn’t know what to read. I could continue my trek through the New Testament, but then again, I also wanted to further explore James and Psalms. There were too many possibilities in this little book, and I was just too tired to care.

Then I remembered something my cousin had written; I’d read it just the day before: “Have you ever really thought about prayer? About what it is? About Who you're talking to?! It’s really quite amazing. YOU'RE TALKING TO YOUR CREATOR.”

And then I realized that I really needed to just talk to God. It’d been a while since I’d really shared my heart with Him and I needed to talk some things out.

Have you ever had a friend that you don’t really talk to for a while? And usually they're the friend that you usually go to when you just need to sit down and talk about anything, everything and nothing altogether.

I have friends and family that I can talk to about absolutely everything. We can have hour-long conversations about rabbit-trail thoughts! And yet, there are times when I’ll get really busy with something, or they’ll get really busy, and suddenly we start having small-talk: “Yeah” “MmmHmm, that’s great…” asking, ‘How are you?’ and sort-of-but-not-really-caring about the response because we’re so preoccupied with our own thoughts.

Usually these spells only last a little while, and soon I’ll realized that I haven’t asked my friend how they are, I mean really asked, for a while. So, I’ll grab my cell phone, and send out a quick text, ‘Hey! How are you?’ not that I’m expecting some great issue to have come up, “Oh yes, Melissa, my whole life is in shambles and I think I just want to die.” sometimes their reply is a bit dramatic, but usually it’s the casual, “Hey! I’m good. You?” and then we just start talking about nothing; our days, our weeks… anything really, just touching-bases and checking in on each other.

And with that conversation, which on the surface just looks like a conversation about… nothing, is really an open time to share. It’s one person saying to another, “Hey. I care about you. So, tell me how you’ve been.”

And, I think it’s the same way with my relationship with God.

I’ll go through these super-busy times, and my prayer life has a way of being severely shoved to the side and the more shoved it gets, the more stressed I become, which means it gets shoved even more! Then, eventually I realize that I haven’t really talked to God in a while, and that’s where I was the other night.

I thought about Who I was talking to.

My Creator.

My Savior.

My Father and my Friend.

I breathed deeply as I sat on top of my comforter, pillows pilled behind my back. I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind, Who it was that I could talk to. Who it was that I could so easily be pouring my heart out to, and Who it was that actually… cares.

It constantly amazes me that God truly cares about my day-in and day-out life.

As I started lifting up people who were burdening my heart, and I knew that He heard my thoughts, my prayer, He knew the desires behind every word I spoke.

I began feeling complete again.

The more I asked Him to care for this person, to mend this relationship, to show me guidance in this area, all sprinkled with praises to Him after a moment of silence where, for a little bit, I was overwhelmed by the fact that I was talking to my Lord, the more complete began to I feel, until, once again, I was whole. I finally felt like me again. My burdens were lifted… and in their place, relief and peace.

I felt tears rolling down my cheeks.

Yes, this is what I had needed. I just needed to catch-up. I needed to ask for His Guidance in several areas. I needed to thank Him for being there.

And now that I had poured out everything, I just sat… not bored, but… peaceful. Waiting, listening, enjoying the moment when I knew my Savior was there, in the room. He had just listened to everything, and He completely understood.

A man I know had once told me, “Prayer is a two-way street and Christians have a way of forgetting that. They just pour out everything and then move on, but God does answer… you just have to listen.”

Ever since then, when I can, I try to just… be, after praying. And that moment of being, saying nothing, thinking very little, just enjoying that time of closeness with my Savior… that’s a moment worth living.

It’s like that moment after a really good conversation with someone and you both look at each other and smile… it’s a silent agreement that all is understood, and you mutually care for and respect one another.

That moment of silence is, for me, simply that. It’s the moment when I smile at God and He smiles back; it’s a moment of closeness that words cannot describe.

Then, the moment passed...

I opened my eyes and breathed deeply.

I then crawled into bed, snuggling deep into the sheets.

In the darkness, I smiled, and slowly drifted off to sleep.