JENNIFER J. CAMP

3 min read ⭑

I am on the airplane. I have my AirPods in my ears and a navy notebook pulled open. I am in a window seat, which helps ease the challenge of being in tight quarters and pulling a pen across a page. Justin is next to me, my father-in-law in front of us. Flying above the clouds, tucked into a snug space, I turn my attention to God’s presence, wondering where he is, what his heart is feeling, what he is thinking as he speaks to me.

There were seasons when turning my attention to God had a rhythm that was regular but anything but predictable. When the kids were at school, and the house was quiet for a few hours, I would lay on the floor, my hands pressed to the wood, my knees on the carpet. I’d place my journal near me because I found that transcribing our conversations — words too kind and intensely loving to be my own — helped me hear them. It became an exercise in discernment. I was learning the sound of his voice in my heart; I was learning to trust that the words weren’t just thoughts of my own.  

Even a decade later, I carry my journal with me — expecting his voice and hungry to hear.

Now, on the plane, I write down question after question and listen to his response. I am curious, a child eager to know him more. He often answers my questions with questions, and his questions prompt my deepest healing. His questions intrigue me and upset me, calm me and unsettle me; they make complacency impossible, waking me to beauty, pain and mystery in the midst of this suffering world. 

My favorite way to start a conversation with God is simply this, “Hi,” and then I try to pause. I am eager to be present, alert and awake. He quiets my heart so I feel less inclined to fill the space with noise and opinion — although when my heart is aching, I let the words tumble out in cartwheels of emotion and mess (which is fine too). I want to be open to his direction. I want to turn where he wants me to turn. 

Some favorite questions of mine: “How is my heart, Lord? How are you? What do you think about this situation, Jesus? What do you feel and see?”

It has taken me years to yearn for Jesus’ company more than his wisdom — to appreciate that a conversation with him does not always involve talking. There can be long pauses, and these can be the most sweet. In the quiet, in the space where words are more than words, I feel him holding me. I don’t need his words on my page — his words, his sentences — for me to feel noticed and loved.

Even while I appreciate the value of writing down his words to me in prayer, the last few years have been a season of finding God in places beyond my pen and page. “Hearing” God is more than words. In moments of quiet, when we could so easily decide that God is nowhere near because we don’t hear him speaking, we can listen to his love singing the loudest then.

Composition in March

How do you hold me —
with birdsong and blue
sky, clouds and green
moss between

brick on the
path? The cars
on the expressway rush
like the sound of ocean waves.

I can make myself
pretend I am there but
here
I am. I am

here and a
note of the song,
this more than
landscape,

not background
noise but a
composition
refined with study

and concentration,
an idea of the heart so that
here I am beckoned
forth and remain.

—Jennifer J. Camp

Jennifer Camp is a poet and listener who delights in investigating the deeper places of the heart. She founded Gather Ministries with her husband, Justin, and manages Loop Collective, a community for women who reject complacency and pursue connection with God. She writes on Substack at Jensen Road.

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