“People are meant to live in an ongoing conversation with God,
speaking and being spoken to.” Dallas Willard
One of my dearest friends is a Woman Who Talks with God. She is not necessarily on her knees in a closet or screaming prayers from a corner sidewalk. She is conversational, I believe, in a way of someone who loves another with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength.
And more importantly, she knows she is loved passionately and without judgement by the One she loves.
Being soaked in this knowledge infuses her with an innate ability to love lavishly. Her metaphorical table is constantly being set with her best plates and drink glasses whenever she meets a new person. She wraps the stranger and the friend in a warm embrace and she listens deeply and comforts richly. To know her is to know love.
When she says in conversation, “I was talking to God,” you can trust she was, in that constant casual way of friends who, because they know each other so well, seek constant communion. The fact that God speaks back should surprise no one.
It never surprises me.
What does surprise me at times, though, is the depth of insight that she receives from the Creator of all things. There are times that the word spoken “just for her” is so profound that it transcends just her own life circumstances.
And I am still reeling from her last communication received in her life of prayer conversation.
My friend has been going through a relational situation for years with someone she loves with all her heart…someone whose life is characterized by issues beyond his own control in many ways. Someone for whom she would willingly give up her life.
Someone for whom she has literally endangered her own health and safety.
Because she has felt so helpless to know what the “right thing” is to do, she has been sharing her heart with God for a decade or more, wanting so badly to discern the best way through. She has not asked for the struggle to be lifted, because she is a woman who never gives up on anyone. A woman of great courage.
But she has sought counsel and direction from an omnipotent Creator.
A few days ago she shared that in her latest time of conversation, she kept asking for help in knowing how to proceed and kept listening for a answer that would help her best serve her commitment to love no matter what the circumstances. And God, as always came through.
You need to let him go, or he will never find his way to Me.
That was it. And that was all that was needed. Because this woman, whose capacity to love is limitless, would never have enough love to equal the love that was waiting in God’s embrace. Because sometimes human love is not enough.
And sometimes, the greatest act of love is to let go.
Ever since our phone call, I have been haunted by that Sacred voice speaking into my own life. Who are the people in my life that I love too much to release to a greater, more redemptive love? What are the situations that I seek to control out of the best intentioned love that need to be released to a universal source whose wisdom has no boundaries?
And what is it in me that is drifting in uncertain, treacherous waters that needs to be released to the One who calls the sea to be still.
As Rilke always reminds me, it is going to have to be enough for right now to love the questions…to let them permeate my heart and cleanse my soul.
But in my wondering, I was reminded of a conversation with an elderly woman of great wisdom years ago who had endured so much in her family. She shared openly of her struggles with various children and a less than perfect husband. I asked her how she handled all of her concerns. Her answer was immediate.
I put ‘em in a box and give ‘em to Jesus.
My friend has been given this insight. And since she shared her wisdom,
I am out searching for a large enough box.
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