This “walking-with-God path” I have loved to share with others. “Go, listen to God up on the trail,” I have said to dear friends and students, fully expecting them to have the same conversations I have had. But not everyone has been able to “hear” God in this way on this path. Hard as it has been for me to understand this “deafness,” up there on the trail, I have come to accept it. I remember one of my dearest students had been searching for answers, for a sense of God’s presence and I had confidently sent her out to walk and listen. She was gone for an hour or more and when she returned, we met in the farmhouse. Sitting beside me on the futon in the front room, she had burst in to tears. “Nancy, I didn’t hear God at all,” she sobbed. “He wasn’t there for me. All I saw were trees, and grass, and while I was praying I stumbled into a hole, and my Bible and I went sprawling and I am such a klutz and God is not there, at least for me He is not there.” The words came out in a stream of frustration . I was dumbstruck! I had no answer. She was trying so hard and had failed. Recently, this gal and I had a conversation about that experience so many years ago. “I have decided that I just don’t hear God the same way you do, Nancy,” she explained. She is now a wife and mother, a wise and godly woman. And I can accept this now. God speaks to us in our own language, after all, he wrote all of the languages and placed them in our hearts. This pasture has been one of my strongest languages.
As I stroll along the “prayer trail,” I have no masks before my God. He knows me, and He loves me just as I am. I don’t have to pretend that I am worthy of His attention. I don’t have to apologize for my not-so-perfect face, my stringy hair, and my rather stumpy legs. For goodness sakes, He is the one who fashioned all of my parts. And He is satisfied. He and I can both agree that I have lots to learn and gobs of maturing to do, but He has promised He will not give up on me. For the initial part of my walk, I simply bathe in that love and acceptance.