Knowing the Unknowable

Tonight in Bible study, I brought up the fact that sometimes I'm frustrated with "knowing God." I can't ask God what His favorite color is or when His birthday is. I could run off a list of the attributes of God: merciful, just, patient, loving, caring. But God does not have a Facebook profile. God does not call me up on the phone. God does not IM me at 3:34 a.m.

Sometimes I'm also frustrated with the idea that God knows everything about me. Part of the joy of forming new friendships is being able to reveal parts of yourself to someone. In step with feminine ideals, there is something empowering in the knowledge that you are a mystery to a stranger, and there is a thrill in knowing that someone wants to get to know you, someone wants to spend the time to know all your quirks and likes and dislikes.

Where's the thrill in revealing yourself to a God who knows it all?

And though these frustrations come and go like many frustrations I have, I remember driving in my car a few weeks ago. My mom and I had just had a three hour conversation about life, just sitting in the kitchen with Earl Grey in our tea cups. My mom talked about the issues going on with her, and I was able to encourage her. And I talked about issues in my life, and she, as she has done my entire life, listened and spoke truth to me.

I left the house, got into my Chevy, and drove off. As I was driving, I reflected on what had just happened. I had spent three glorious hours with my mother, my mom, my best friend. How was this possible? Only three years ago, I hated this woman, despised her, was jealous of her. This was the same woman who hung up on me mid-phone conversation and had banned me from the house. And as I drove down Mt. Carmel Rd., I began to cry.

And I knew, I knew, I believed that God had answered what I could not pray but felt in my heart. I have prayed for many things and not received them, and yet I have had requests on my heart that have been shrouded with the inability to verbalize what they were, only to see them beautifully and completely fulfilled, only then able to say, "Yes! Yes! That's it! I dreamt this once!"

And it is then that I realize that God is revealing Himself to me by revealing my own heart to myself, that He speaks what I could not say, and He restores what I tore down.