The church cafe was full of chatter and after-service buzz. Tables and chairs slid across floors, pulled together to meet the needs of large families and separated for smaller parties. The white noise created an energetic mix. Coffee steamed, friends chatted, children wildly laughed. I found a solo table near the back of the cafe, opened my laptop, and began to work. Not much later I was approached by a pretty girl with shoulder length brown hair, milky skin, and soft brown eyes.

Her left fingers were pursed together to her thumb tightly and her hand was raised at salutation near her side. It was as if the clenched hand had a mind of it’s own. Her soft brown eyes looked different than each other; one drooped longer than the others. She placed the clenched hand on the cafe table to steady her wobbly torso and leaned to ask a question. But I didn’t understand her. I blinked a few times and cocked my head slightly to lean into her… perhaps I didn’t hear her.

She slowly spoke again in long sounding noises I could barely make out. Slowly. Softly. Painful.

She held a plate in her right hand, fully grasping the large dish with ease. A purse hung on her right shoulder. The right side of her body looked alive while the left side looked like it was frozen in a battle long ago.

In a long sentence ending with a inhale, she asked to share a table with me. I pulled out a chair and smiled while putting my notebooks and purse on the floor.

A man sat down with us shortly after I introduced myself. He carried a plate, two drinks, and wore a wedding ring matching the ring on the clenched left hand of the girl who painfully spoke words I barely understood.

He greeted me, sweetly smiled, then grabbed the gnarled hand of his wife as he blessed the food. I peered over the screen of my laptop as they ate their food and spoke to each other. She painfully produced long sentences I didn’t understand and he nodded his head and replied gently to her words. He understood everything she was saying. And I? I coyly watched everything in amazement.

I wanted so badly to know what she was saying. But he understood her. He knew what she was saying. He pieced together her every word because he knew her deeply and understood her so well.

As they finished their lunch I thought about how much he loved her and knew her intimately. He was a perfect depiction of our God and His infinitesimal love for us. Our inability to communicate effieciently is overthrown by the patient love and grace displayed by the One who love us.

God understands us. But when He replies, do we respond? Do we understand the words? Recognition comes from familiarity and familiarity comes from time spent together. Recognize His voice… He knows what we’re saying.

The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheeep reconize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. —John 10:3

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