god tonight

I read Eat, Pray, Love last summer. Twice. Once in June, and again in July because I felt the absence of the SPIRIT of the words contained between those covers. My soul ached for it.

I hadn't been to church in several months when I read the book for the first time. I'd been avoiding the place. The God was gone. I wanted to be where the God was. I found Him again in words pieced together by a woman who'd found Him across an ocean. 

Tonight Mom dragged me across town to hear one of her friends read from her newly published book. In a small, drafty church repurposed to be a space for creating and gathering and making and learning, I listened to this woman gush words that reminded me of the sun setting over a meadow. 

I wasn't expecting to find God in that place. In those words. In that woman I barely knew. On this night sandwiched between homework and planning for junior prom. And yet there He was, sitting in the wooden pew next to me, swinging His legs like a child pleased with the prank he just successfully executed. He turns to me and grins. With teeth.

Tonight I found God the way I found Him in Eat, Pray, Love. Quietly. Unexpected.Authentic.Beautiful. 

In the middle of this busy season, this sleepy soul is revived. It is good to be near God.