I Want to Love Jesus, But I Don’t Know How

JESUS OF NAZARETH, ANCIENT SCULPTURE TEMPLE OF...

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I’ve been singing a lot of Carey Landry’s songs to Julianna lately. God hasn’t yet invented the kid who doesn’t like “and if the Devil doesn’t like it, he can sit on a tack—ouch!” But I save that for the tasks she really hates (like having her hair brushed) because the anticipation of that verse keeps her happy until we get done. It’s a reward for getting through her “chores.”

The other song I sing to her is “Oh how I love Jesus.”

Julianna, do you love Jesus?
Oh yes, I love Jesus.
Do you really love Jesus?
Yes, I really love Jesus!
Tell us why you love Jesus.
This is why I love Jesus: because he first loved me.
Oh, how I love Jesus
Oh, how I love Jesus
Oh, how I love Jesus
Because he first loved me.

I was tagged in a meme last week, entitled “five reasons why I love Jesus.” And it brought something front and center that I haven’t really wanted to look at in the light of day.

I really don’t connect with Jesus.

I believe in God; I whisper to the Spirit or to the triune deity throughout the day; I know the importance of Christ’s sacrifice, and Holy Week is the center of the whole year (although this year, because we’re not involved in Triduum liturgies, I feel rather adrift and disconnected). But when people say “I love Jesus,” my insides tense up. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to fundamentalism, the way fundamentalists probably react when Catholics talk about the Eucharist. I know I’m supposed to love Jesus and connect with him as an individual, one like me; that was the purpose of God made man, after all. But I never have been able to do it.

This has never bothered me. Until recently.

Last week, when I was driving home from the writing conference, I listened to a CD of a religious talk my grandmother had sent with me. In the course of listening to these four women speak about their love for Jesus, for Mary, I recognized something lacking in myself. For the first time, I began to long to feel that connection.

I think my problem is that the Jesus of the Bible is underdeveloped as a character. He says a lot of things, and they reveal him to be both charismatic and somebody that you probably longed to smack, because he was so contrary and difficult. What you don’t know is what he felt, how his psyche changed over the course of the years. With a person, you can get some of that from body language. In a book, you have to get it from the writing. And it’s just not there.

I can only extrapolate about Jesus; I can only project myself on him. And that is a recipe for trouble, in my not-so-humble opinion. That’s where people start making God over in their own image, and thinking they’re called to be hateful at military funerals.

There are characters in literature—let’s take the obvious bloggers’ example: Elizabeth Bennet. Everybody identifies with her. Everybody feels like they’d recognize her if she entered the room. In other words, we know her. But how do you get to know somebody who picks fights with people, confuses his friends, refuses to answer their questions straight, and you never, ever, EVER see what he’s thinking?

What am I missing? I try to love Jesus in the people around me, by caring for the least of these in whatever way I can. Is that, really, all it boils down to? Or do others who talk about how they love Jesus have some spiritual direct line to Heaven that I’m missing? And if so, how do I hook into it?

Published in: on April 20, 2011 at 6:24 am  Comments (15)  
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In Search of The Meaning of Life

Photo by Deseronto Archives, via Flickr

I came across this exchange of emails recorded in my Journal when I was looking back at them while writing my infertility story a few weeks ago. It’s interesting to see what was on our minds four months before we got married, two weeks before I graduated with my Master’s degree. Especially since I still wrestle with some of the same questions. It’s tempting to go in and edit some of the more self-important language, but I will resist.

 

Kate, April 29,1999

I’m feeling kind of like I don’t really know what my life is all about. Did you feel this way coming out of school at all, like you had a job but weren’t sure what the goal was? Like, all this time I have been heading toward a graduation—from MU, now from UNI—and then, there’s the rest of my life, and I don’t know exactly what the purpose of it is supposed to be. It makes me depressed. I sort of think, well, then, the wedding is the next goal, but then what, you know? What’s the PURPOSE of life? What is the meaning of life? I know what it’s supposed to be, God and eyes heavenward—and I know also that this is all related to the transition period. But it is still kind of overwhelming and depressing.

 Christian:

In answer to your question about whether or not I felt it when I was graduating, the answer is yes, and here’s the really weird thing, I was freaking out about the very same thing this morning. Like why do I need to worry about all this stuff, why can’t life be more directional? Is getting the house the right thing? Am I going to have the money? Is there a purpose to all this? And it was right around mid-morning [the time of the first email].

 

What I can see for yourself is what I see you doing: spreading your fantastic talent of music to everyone you meet, sharing that talent and knowledge with young learners, accepting and giving love to people around you through many of the things that we have talked about before—volunteering, music, just smiling. And then making life better for everyone you meet each day. We should have a little sign, maybe in our bedroom, that says something like “have I made another person’s life better today?” and ask ourselves every day. Even if it’s each other, if we can answer yes, then I think that we’ve had a good day.

 Kate:

I wondered why I’ve been through all this, school and stuff, and learning to do everything so blasted well—I’m a great writer, a great flute player, a great musician, at least a good teacher—why have I worked so hard to master everything? (no comments from the peanut gallery on my writing, you write journalistic and you’re great at it, I write more personal and I’m great at it.)

 

And then I realized that I am now a medium. I just now realized that it isn’t just for music, either. I have so very much knowledge, so very much capability, for so many things; it’s not hard for me to play, or teach, or write, or analyze. And so now, what do I do with it? All I have to do is say, OK, God, here’s a very well-trained soul and body. Start using it. Because it’s ready to go. How can I fail—as long as I am being a medium, and not trying to take control of the reins.

Mama's Losin' It

 

 

Published in: on March 23, 2011 at 5:36 am  Comments (6)  
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God In the Middle, Round 2

Every so often, I run across something that evokes such a visceral reaction in me that I think, Oh, man, I’ve finally crossed the line. I’m a liberal. But every time that happens, two hours later I encounter something that evokes an equally strong reaction in the opposite direction, and I think I must be super-conservative. Which tells me that I continue to inhabit the middle.

But mostly, it tells me that human beings tend to embrace the extremes.

A few weeks ago, I reflected on a quote from Donald Miller’s book Searching for God Knows What. Since then, I’ve read the whole book, which lays out the argument that we’ve turned religion into a bunch of rules and regulations, when it’s supposed to be about relationship. Knowing (because he more or less says so up front) that he is liberal, I kept expecting to smack into one of those “clearly I’m an ultra-conservative” moments. The thing was, I never did. Although I often felt he rambled on and on, I never felt like he said anything inappropriate.

In fact, at times, he echoed John Paul II’s beautiful, and integrated, view of the human person. Here he is, talking about Adam & Eve:

So here was this guy who was intensely relational, needing other people, and in order to cause him to appreciate the gift of companionship, God had him hang out with chimps for a hundred years. It’s quite beautiful, really. God directed Adam’s steps so that when He created Eve, Adam would have the utmost appreciation, respect, and gratitude.

I think it was smart of God because today, now that there are women all around and a guy can go on the Internet and see them naked anytime he wants, the whole species has been devalued. If I were a girl today in America, I would be a feminist for sure.

He says “feminist,” but he doesn’t add that this is a radically different—and truer—view of feminism than what NOW espouses.

And even when he tackles the hot-button topics of conservative vs. liberal, he does it in a way that makes a lot of sense to me, despite my conservative leanings:

I realize there are people reading this who will automatically dismiss me as a theological liberal, but I do not believe a person can take two issues from Scripture, those being abortion and gay marriage, and adhere to them as sins, then neglect much of the rest and call himself a fundamentalist or even a conservative. The person who believes the sum of his morality involves gay marriage and abortion alone, and neglects health care and world trade and the environment and loving his neighbor and feeding the poor is, by definition, a theological liberal, because he takes what he wants from Scripture and ignores the rest.

Notice he’s not trying to argue that Christian beliefs on abortion are wrong—just that they can’t be the only thing we pay attention to. A “God is in the middle” moment, for sure.

So, all in all—a worthwhile read. I’d hoped to share some of my own thoughts as I read the book, but it’s 8:15 a.m. already; my kids are at school, and I’m still working on my blog post for the day. In case you’re wondering, it’s because this cutie…

Look, you can even see it in his eyes: "You only THINK I'm angelic! Just wait till 3a.m.!"

…decided that a runny nose was justification for being held ALL NIGHT. Waking every twenty minutes to half an hour, and griping.

So I’ll refrain from the eloquence today. Because I’m tired. And I have a book to write about Lent.

Published in: on August 30, 2010 at 7:29 am  Comments (5)  
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Who Needs What?

“Why are you here?” Monsignor asked us during his homily this morning…and then fell silent. I felt the ripple of discomfort ripple across the church, beginning in my chair. We’re used to hearing rhetorical questions from the pulpit, but somehow this one sounded like a real question.

He let us stew for a couple of seconds, like the disciples in the Gospel who Just Didn’t Get It, and then went on. “A lot of people don’t come to church because they say they don’t get anything out of it. But it’s not about you—it’s about God, and worshiping God.”

I’m sure everyone has heard the I-don’t-get-anything-out-of-it complaint, as well as the counter-argument: you get out of it what you put into it. Monsignor’s take is a little different—his point is that such arguments miss the point altogether. The point is God. Church is about God.

And yet the Sabbath is for people, and not the other way around. These two ideas seem to be at odds, but as I got to thinking about it, I realized that they actually aren’t.

Two nights ago at dinner, Alex was telling his daddy all about playing with his little neighbor friend. “Did you tell his mommy thank you before you left?” Christian asked.

Alex froze in the act of spearing a bite of chicken and threw him a puzzled look. “No.” Why would I do that?

“Well, you should,” Christian said. “You should always say thank you when you played at someone’s house.”

“Okay,” Alex said. “But I probably won’t remember.”

“Oh, but this is something that’s easy to remember, isn’t it?” Christian said.

I wanted to say that our neighbor doesn’t really care if he says thank you; adults generally don’t need thanks from children. It’s nice, but it doesn’t change anything. We’re so used to taking care of kids, we don’t expect gratitude. Of course I didn’t say this, because the point wasn’t that the neighbor needed Alex’s gratitude; the point was that Alex needed to be grateful.

One of the prefaces in the Roman liturgy says “You have no need of our praise, yet our desire to thank you is itself Your gift.” God doesn’t need our thanks—it doesn’t make him better or holier. We do it because it makes us holier.

So no—God doesn’t need us there on Sunday morning. But we need to be there, to re-center ourselves, to remind ourselves that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. It’s a gift to us. At a minimum, the simple act of sitting butt in a pew forces us to set aside time for someone other than ourselves.

But imagine—just imagine what would happen if everyone came into church with the eagerness and the mental presence that we give to golf or scrapbooking. If we came expecting this to be the best hour of our week. I highly doubt that there would be boring liturgies. Not for long, anyway. People wouldn’t stand for it. They’d leap in and do something about it. What form that might take, I don’t know, but I am sure of one thing: it would change the world.

Published in: on September 20, 2009 at 2:01 pm  Comments (4)  
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God is in the middle

It’s tempting, because it’s so easy.

We live in a culture where everything is reduced to sound bytes. A writer has one sentence to hook a reader or listener; going “in-depth” on the nightly news takes two minutes; each movie shot lasts two seconds, tops.

In a sound byte, there is no time for detail, no room for nuance. Pollsters ask us to offer our opinions: Yes or no? Democrat or Republican? For or against health care reform? “It depends” is not one of the choices. We are forced, by lack of options, to pigeonhole ourselves, when reality is that our opinion lies in the middle, and that we probably never had the information to form a proper opinion at all. Yet the resulting numbers are broadcast as inconvertible truth, shaping the universe we live in.

Once, during a heated debate, a man I know raked some of us over the coals for sitting on the fence—for taking the easy way out, trying to play both sides. Someone much more eloquent than I pointed out that those who sit in the middle are the ones caught in the crossfire. Holding the middle ground hardly constitutes “taking the easy way out.”

I live my life in the middle of two groups of people. On the one hand, I am a teacher of Natural Family Planning, which plants me among deeply conservative Catholics. On the other, I am a liturgist and writer, whose ranks run the gamut of political philosophy, but who, as a group, tend to lean to the left. Many of the people I know on both ends of the spectrum, in both the secular and the sacred political spheres, come across angry, bitter, and blind to the inconsistencies in their convictions. I want to jump in and try to moderate the rhetoric. But I’m afraid of damaging relationships, and I’m also well aware of the limitations of my own understanding. So except among my closest friends, I keep most of my opinions to myself.

But how can I make the world a better place if I don’t say what is given to me to say? I firmly believe that God—and thus truth—is in the middle on almost every issue, both in politics and in the Church. (Almost.) Our world is painted in black and white—in “red” and “blue”— and maybe it is easier to give in. To choose a pigeonhole based on one issue, maybe two, and hitch a ride on the bandwagon. But God is not a Republican. And God is not a Democrat. I reject all attempts to classify the world—political, religious, or everyday—in either/or terms. I reclaim the middle ground. And beginning today, I’m going to take the risk, and say it out loud.

Published in: on September 17, 2009 at 1:54 pm  Comments (14)  
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Holy Week Reflections

The Lord GOD has given me
a well-trained tongue,
that I might know how to speak to the weary
a word that will rouse them.
Morning after morning
he opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.

- Is. 50

 

The most important week of the entire year has begun, a week beginning with heady acclamation, descending through humiliation and unimaginable death, and ending in glorious triumph. It is my favorite week of the year, although this year I feel kind of, well, distracted. (Imagine that.)

 

I thought Holy Week would be a good time to reflect on Jesus the man. Chances are, the TV stations will be showing various epic productions of the Passion this week. I’ve never really enjoyed those movies, because Jesus always acts so unrealistic. I think that in our desire to be reverent, Christians often forget that Jesus was fully human as well as fully God. I think if Jesus had acted like he acts in these movies, nobody would have paid the slightest attention to him.

 

Think about the people who capture hearts and imaginations these days. People like Barack Obama. Whether or not you like and approve of him, he is clearly an inspirational force. The world may be different now than it was two thousand years ago, but human nature is the same. People respond to fire, to passion, to humor and warmth. They would not have come in droves, from distances so great that they ran out of food, for anything less. I’ll bet when Jesus told parables, he was darned funny. I’ll bet he took people from rolling in the aisles to breathless poignancy in the space of a heartbeat. I’ll bet people left his presence with tears crusted in the corners of their eyes, from laughter and painful self-recognition, from joy and inspiration.

 

On Palm Sunday, as I listened to the Passion through the walls of the sacristy, where I was nursing, a verse from Mark’s Gospel leaped out at me—a verse I’ve never caught before, despite hearing it many times:

 

They gave him wine drugged with myrrh,
but he did not take it.
Then they crucified him.

 

They gave him wine drugged with myrrh, but he did not take it.

 

Is it possible that the Romans, the quintessential villains, were actually trying to show mercy to the condemned? Were they trying to dull the pain of crucifixion, the way that lethal injection is supposed to offer the modern condemned a painless death?

 

And if so, what does Jesus’ refusal mean?


It means that he accepted, and embraced, the full measure of pain. If he was going to be the sacrificial Lamb, he was going to do it without crutches. He was going to drink deep of agony, spare himself nothing…and in so doing, spare us everything. This must be at least a part of what Paul meant when he said that Christ “emptied himself.”

 

This is the man—the God—whose human journey, with its divine ending, we remember this week.

 

Happy Holy Week.

Published in: on April 7, 2009 at 7:40 am  Comments (3)  
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Teachable moments

“Mommy,” said Alex at lunchtime, “strawberries are red, just like blood.”

 

Wow, I thought. Never thought I’d hear that one! “Yes, Alex, they are.”

 

“Blood is pretty. But I don’t like ouchies.”

 

How could I not laugh at that? “Me, either, Alex. Me either.” Then, remembering his temper tantrums and flying feet, I had an inspiration. “Hey, Alex, remember how Julianna went to the doctor and got a big boo-boo, and we had to be really gentle with her for a while?” (Julianna had open-heart surgery at almost six months old.)

 

“Yeah,” Alex said around a mouthful of grapes.

 

“You know, when the baby comes, I’m going to have a really big boo-boo, too, just like Julianna did. Right here.” I showed him. “That’s how the baby’s gonna come out.”

 

“That’s how the baby comes out?”

 

“Yes.” Then I thought, oh, man, my kid is going to grow up thinking a C-section is the normal way to have a kid! “Most babies don’t come out like that,” I said, “but you had to, because you were so big, you couldn’t come out the way most babies do.”

 

Thankfully, he was too distracted by the reference to his own birth to ask how most babies come out! He chewed thoughtfully on a chicken nugget for a minute. Then, “Mommy,” he said, “when you get your boo boo and the baby comes out, can you give me a horseyback ride?”

 

Fast-forward to that evening, when we were all driving to choir practice. “Daddy,” Alex said, “I want to tell you something. When Mommy has the baby and has a big boo boo, she can’t give me a horseyback ride, because if she does her boo boo will break open and there will be blood everywhere!”

 

I started laughing so hard I cried. Christian frowned sideways from the driver’s seat. “That’s a pretty good description,” he said. “What’re you laughing at?”

 

“I’m laughing,” I said, “because that’s word for word what I told him!”

 

After I related the rest of the conversation, with its “where do babies come from?” overtones, Christian shook his head. “I don’t even know why you get into these things with him,” he sighed.

 

The answer is that I don’t want sex ed to be a conversation held behind closed doors, as if it’s something shameful or embarrassing or essentially unclean. A topic to be dealt with once, and then, with relief, avoided, trusting in fear to keep their behavior in line.

 

I got “the talk” in grade school, when one of my classmates asked me a question I didn’t understand. Mom took me in my bedroom, closed the door, and started drawing diagrams that served only to embarrass me—so much so that I blocked it all out, and had to have the talk again when I actually reached the proper age. And it wasn’t until Christian and I learned Natural Family Planning that I understood why and how my body did what it did. By that time, sex had so many layers of baggage built up around it that it took me six years of marriage and some counseling to dig back down to the initial truth, which is this:

 

Sex is holy. It is part of who we are as human beings, one that we can use in a holy or an unholy way—just as we can use the gift of language to build up or to tear down. It shouldn’t be cordoned off, relegated to a place behind closed doors where even God is told to butt out.

 

I want better than that for my children. I want them to grow up with and into a healthy understanding of sex—which does not mean that I want them to “experiment” or “explore” or whatever other words the basic sex ed courses use as euphemisms for completely inappropriate use of sex. What it does mean is that I want them to understand the underlying beauty of the gift, which I hope will then lead to respect for themselves and their peers, and to an appropriate use of the gift.

 

So I look for teachable moments, where I can incorporate concepts at an age-appropriate level. The first time it happened, I was trying to explain to Alex, then just barely 3, that there was a tiny baby we couldn’t see inside my tummy. He said, “How did it get there?”

 

“Wellllllllllllll….” I said, as my brain screamed, Oh, crap! And then it came to me in a flash. “Mommies and daddies have a special hug they can give each other,” I said. “And sometimes, when they give each other that special hug, God puts a baby in the mommy’s tummy.”

 

Only time will tell if this approach fulfills my hopes. Parenting is not a science, exact or otherwise. J But there’s a story I’d like to share that illustrates the varying ways we can view the human body. Two priests were walking down the street one day when a prostitute passed by them. One averted his gaze, knowing he couldn’t look at her without impure thoughts; the other met her eyes and wept for sorrow at the way she was hurting herself.

 

Both responses are appropriate, depending on the mindset of the person in question. Me? I’d be in category #1. But I would love to see my children living in category #2.

Published in: on March 6, 2009 at 6:24 pm  Comments (3)  

Heaven

What is your concept of Heaven?

 

Mine is very simple, and, well…selfish. I’ve had bad eyes since the second grade. I dream of opening my eyes in the morning and being able to see…without glasses or contacts. I’m too chicken to go for Lasik…and anyway, my eyes are so bad I’m not sure I’d qualify. So when I imagine Heaven, that’s my first thought: sight.

 

When someone passes away after a long illness, we tend to think in terms of what is no longer “wrong” with them: “She’s no longer in pain. He can walk now. He is finally able to live the way God created him.” We know we’ll get our bodies back at the end of time, but in a “glorified” state. We tend to assume that that means everything that was wrong with us on Earth will suddenly be fixed.

 

But a few weeks ago, I heard something that made me stop and think. Fr. Richard Hogan, who does the video clip on theology for our NFP classes, said something along these lines: When we get to Heaven, we’ll be able to put our fingers in the holes in Christ’s hands and feet and side.

 

That one simple statement opened up a whole new line of thinking for me. When Christ appeared on Earth after the Resurrection, he wasn’t suddenly “whole” again. He retained the wounds of his Passion. So the marks of our human journey stay with us through eternity. And after all, it only makes sense. Our bodies are the way in which we experience God, come to know God, come to follow God. How could we take away that which we have been, that which we have experienced, and still be the same person?

 

Anyone who reads this blog for a week knows how passionate I am in asserting that there is nothing “wrong” with my daughter. Down syndrome is simply part of the fabric of how God created her, and God doesn’t make mistakes. It’s our perception that distorts something out of the norm into something “wrong.” Shortly after Julianna was born, Christian and I received a note stating that “there is no Down syndrome in Heaven.” I started spitting nails. (I’m very good at outrage. J) There will be Down syndrome in Heaven, and MD, and cerebral palsy, and ADD and ADHD and autism. Those conditions are an integral part of the people who have them. If you take my daughter’s DS away, she wouldn’t be “Julianna the way God intended.” She’d be somebody else.

 

But if those conditions will stay with us into Heaven, then doesn’t it follow that all the other “marks” of our human journey will stay with us, too? Missing limbs, skin cancers… bad eyes?

 

I’m no theologian. If by some chance someone reads this who can offer a more informed perspective, please chime in! These are just my own reflections, which I share as food for thought.

Published in: on February 26, 2009 at 11:07 am  Comments (7)  

Bedtime Theology

Alex was tucked into bed. We were finished with prayers—including those for his friends and all the babies, born and unborn, that we’re waiting for. I had turned on the night light and started the CD, and I was closing the door when Alex said, “Mommy?”

 

I paused. “Yes, honey?”

 

Silence. He was looking for a reason to keep me there. I leaned on the doorframe and waited.

 

“Mommy, why does God make bad people?”

 

Whoa.

 

I re-entered the room and sat on the bed beside him, feeling very much like a mother, and not like Kate-faking-it. “Well, honey,” I said, thinking fast and talking slow, “you know how you lost your books tonight because you wouldn’t come upstairs when I told you to?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Was that a good choice or a bad one?”

 

His eyes flickered in the darkness, as if to say, Is this a trick question? “Bad,” he said.

 

“That’s right. God makes everyone and lets them choose whether to do good things or bad things. When people make a lot of bad choices, they make themselves bad. But God doesn’t make bad people. Do you understand?”

 

“Yeah,” he said uncertainly.

 

“That’s why we take things away when you make bad choices. We want you to grow up to be a good person. Does that make sense?”

 

“Yeah,” he said, but I could tell he was fading off to sleep, so I kissed his cheek again, repeated my good night, and stepped softly out into the hall.

 

“Mommy, I wuv you,” he called through the door.

 

“I love you, too, honey. Sleep tight, little man.” As I went across the hall to get ready for bed, I thought, Holy cow! All religious formation takes place at bedtime.

Published in: on February 17, 2009 at 2:57 pm  Leave a Comment  

Samuel

His name was Samuel. A child who heard his master calling him in the middle of the night.

 

He was a good, obedient boy, and he responded with alacrity. But his master kept telling him, “Go back to bed. I didn’t call you.” The third time it happened, Eli finally clued into the truth: Samuel was hearing his true Master. He told his young charge to answer, “Speak, Lord. I’m listening.”

 

As I listened to this story this morning at church, it struck me that it could only happen to a child. I think about the way Alex views the world—everything is new to him. He doesn’t recognize the conventions, the connections. That’s what early childhood is—learning the connections. Sun, moon. Lightning, thunder. Parent, teacher. Authority—love.

 

Samuel was too young to understand what was happening. He heard a voice of love and authority, and connected it with the only such voice he knew to be nearby. Before that night, I’m sure he knew about God, but he never knew God. Like all children, his understanding was grounded in the concrete. Sometimes Alex wakes up in the morning and tells me that our next door neighbor did or said such-and-such during the night. He doesn’t understand the concept of dreams yet, much less the idea that God can speak to us through them.

 

That concept is hard for adults to grasp, too. But I do believe that God speaks in dreams. How else can I explain waking up in the middle of the night with a seed of a melody, or a fragment of text, running laps around my brain?

 

The beautiful thing about a child, though, is that he doesn’t wait to understand what’s happening. He doesn’t hold himself back and groan, “Oh, I’m too tired. Just tell me in the morning.” Well…kids do that to parents all the time. But there’s something compelling about those kinds of dreams. So Samuel accepts with complete trust what is happening. He hops up and responds to the voice in the only way he knows how.

 

But what I wonder is what he heard after he said, “Speak, Lord—I’m listening!”

Published in: on January 18, 2009 at 3:17 pm  Leave a Comment  
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