{"id":104,"date":"2011-03-29T12:54:45","date_gmt":"2011-03-29T16:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/choosingcomedy.wordpress.com\/?p=104"},"modified":"2011-03-29T12:54:45","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T16:54:45","slug":"talk-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/?p=104","title":{"rendered":"Talk to Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have three children, and as anyone who has more than one child knows, they are as different as night and day and ….outer space!<\/p>\n

My firstborn talks.\u00a0 A lot.\u00a0\u00a0 With enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

My middle born is quiet.\u00a0 Watchful.\u00a0 Observant.<\/p>\n

My last born is a spark plug, but finding words can be a challenge, this one would rather dance it out than speak.<\/p>\n

And I love to talk to them all.\u00a0 In their own way.\u00a0\u00a0 I enjoy sitting in silence waiting for my middle child to share.\u00a0 I am energized by the work it takes sometimes to verbally reach understanding with my last born.\u00a0 And I cherish the rushing river of words from my firstborn.<\/p>\n

I do not look for a spokesperson.\u00a0 If one of them has something to say, to share, to ask, I want them to come directly to me and tell me, themselves.\u00a0 To have a spokesperson is to put distance between me and them.<\/p>\n

Some<\/em>times a third-party is necessary.\u00a0 I have watched a few episodes of\u00a0 this season’s Celebrity Apprentice.\u00a0 Marlee Matlin is participating in this go around.\u00a0 Marlee is deaf, and so she has an interpreter with her.\u00a0 It speeds up communication and helps with accuracy.\u00a0 But it also distances her from her fellow participants.\u00a0 Some of them, I have\"\"<\/a> noticed, don’t look at Marlee when they are talking to her, they look at her interpreter.\u00a0 I wonder how she feels about that.\u00a0 Because the words are only part of the connection.\u00a0 The focus, the eye contact, body language, all play a part. I wonder if she ever wants to shout – look at me, talk to me<\/em>!<\/p>\n

I think that can happen when we pray. We look at the wrong person.\u00a0 Maybe we look at our pastor, or a friend.\u00a0 We want them to pray instead of us.\u00a0 Maybe we think they do it better.\u00a0 As though it was a performance.<\/p>\n

Prayer.\u00a0 We’ve lost something with that word.\u00a0 We’ve turned it into something we “do”.\u00a0 Something that “works” or “doesn’t work”.<\/p>\n

Prayer is simply talking.\u00a0 Talking to God. Yourself.\u00a0 In your own way.\u00a0 And it’s okay.<\/p>\n

God is not deaf.\u00a0 He does not require a translator.\u00a0 He will not misunderstand you, because he understands you better than you understand yourself or anything else really.<\/p>\n

I believe he wants to talk to you.\u00a0 Wants you to talk to him.\u00a0 I think the evidence for that is pretty clear.<\/p>\n

Talk to him.\u00a0 And when you talk to him, look at him.\u00a0 Don’t talk at<\/em> him.\u00a0 You know the difference.\u00a0 Think about the last time you were talked at.<\/em> Don’t rely on others to do all the talking.\u00a0 You have things in your heart; things to say, to ask, to confess.\u00a0 He wants to hear those things from you.<\/p>\n

So go for it.\u00a0 Stutter it out, shout it out, sing it out, use the King’s English or use slang.\u00a0 Act it out.\u00a0 Take your time.\u00a0 Sit in silence.\u00a0 Or verbally throw up all over him. This is what he wants.<\/p>\n

Why am I so certain?\u00a0 Because God loved us enough to send his son so everyone who trusts his son has eternal life.\u00a0 And this<\/em> is eternal life:\u00a0 To know God and Jesus, whom God sent.\u00a0 He sent his son so you could know him.\u00a0 The best way to begin to get to know him is by talking to him.<\/p>\n

So go for it, you don’t need anyone else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have three children, and as anyone who has more than one child knows, they are as different as night and day and ….outer space! My firstborn talks.\u00a0 A lot.\u00a0\u00a0 With enthusiasm. My middle born is quiet.\u00a0 Watchful.\u00a0 Observant. My last born is a spark plug, but finding words can be a challenge, this one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2O0qX-1G","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}