Hello God, Do You Remember Me?

Sometimes, I wonder what God remembers about our first moment of understanding him. Not that typical religious moment, or the moment when people first know one of his names, but that one moment of clarity when we who choose to believe in him first do, before the dogma and the tradition ruin what little of God we come to understand.

I think back to my first encounter with God. My first understanding of an encounter with God. I had to have been like 4 or 5 years old and my mama was reading to me from the big blue Bible Stories book, that book you see advertised in dentists' and doctors' offices all over the US. She was reading to me about God asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son, but I thought it said "oldest one" and so I wondered when God was going to ask my mama to sacrifice me to him. I think I lived in fear and trepidation for like two days, always looking skyward, wondering if he asked if she would and if she did, would he provide a ram for me? In the end, I just kind of said, "You better not ask my mama to sacrifice me!" and God and I had a tentatively good relationship. It wasn't bogged down with doing right, although I believe some of that former fear took up residence with God.

It's hard to explain, but I will try, for my own sake, to do so. There are many voices in my head. those of you who know me know this to be true. I don't know how many of you have had me ask you about something you said only to have it be a made up dialogue I've concocted. Well, in there amongst all the voices is God, sitting back, speaking every now and then, nudging every now and then and, for a long time, I enjoyed him there. But after a while, as life grew more hectic and I grew less free, I forgot he was there and moved through life with only that still, small voice speaking only occasionally.

As I grew, though, the thought and idea of God never left me. People say that we all have a "God shaped hole" in our hearts and our search for truth is a search for him. Maybe that's true. But the enjoyment of God in my head lead me to read more about God (god, gods, Allah, Zeus, Thor, Krishna, etc.) and that's when the idea of religion crept in.