I have heard God speak to me.

Now, before you make up your mind about what that means – let me rule some things out:

1. I will not be handing out flowers at the airport.
2. I only have hair like a televangelist when I wake up in the morning
3. I  sincerely hope the world doesn’t end in 2012 because I bought the extended warranty for my washer/dryer.

This story takes place in 1999 when I was a lonely, awkward young man in College Station, TX. I spent most of my time at a part-time job at a Pack’n’Mail in the back of a Christian bookstore. I loved that job, and I also thought I was in love with the girl who worked the counter of the bookstore. If you can picture a combination of Ted from How I Met Your Mother, Charlie from Two and a Half Men, and Leonard from Big Bang Theory …that was probably me (including their combined body weight). But nevertheless I was deeply in Crush with this girl and I would fill up notebooks with songs about her.

One week the buzz was all about Island Party. It’s an annual event at Texas A&M where a Christian frat put on an all-day concert festival with several bands. The Bookstore Girl was going and I decided I was too. I called up my friend Nick and invited him even though we hadn’t hung out in months. He agreed and I began to dream up scenarios where I’d meet Bookstore Girl and woo her to a soundtrack of late 90’s Christian rock.

Saturday finally arrived and in the late afternoon I met Nick and we arrived at the packed open field. He was eager to take in all the different stages/booths but I had a much more important mission at hand.  I knew my crush was somewhere in this mass of people and  I was annoyed that he was at a festival and actually wanted to participate in it. How selfish!

After a few minutes of walking around the overcast sky began sprinkling rain. I could hear people around me saying, “Oh it’s going to rain. Let’s go.” and sadly one of those people was my friend Nick who by this point had caught on to the fact that I was using him. I talked him into splitting up for a few minutes while I said hello to a friend. Five minutes. I was officially on the clock.

I stood at the edge of the crowd gathered around the main stage and scanned the faces. Nothing. I decided to pull a flanking maneuver since the crowd was too dense and walk around to the right side of the stage. As I made my way around the edge of the crowd, the sprinkles turned to drizzle and people began to turn and walk toward the parking lot. This was quite a test for my facial recognition ability – I was looking at everyone around me and walking right toward an 8-foot stack of speakers blaring a song from the band Burlap to Cashmere. That song is burned into my memory because of what happened next…

I was frantic. I was searching the crowd for the one girl in the world who could possibly make me happy and it was raining and the sun was setting and I couldn’t find her. I could feel the bass from the song vibrate through my being as I got close to the speakers and the world seemed to to into slow motion. People seemed to turn to streaks of color and the noise blended into a hum. For that instant I was alone with my thoughts and in my head I pictured a child in a kitchen. He was standing on his tiptoes next to his mother – one hand reaching high above his head – the other pulling on her skirt – he was begging, pleading, frantic for a cookie from the jar on the counter he couldn’t reach. The mother was opening the jar and the kid was going crazy like a dog when it hears the word “treat” or a cat when it hears a can opener. Finally the mother turns the boy and says…

“Why are you reaching for what I’m going to give you?”

I stood there in the rain for a minute processing that thought. I was that child. I was reaching for what God was already going to give me. I used a friend to go to a concert only to see a girl that I was going to get paid to see at work on Monday. I was tugging on God’s skirt while mumbling “GIMME! GIMME!”

I turned and walked away from the stage. I found my friend Nick and we left to grab dinner and catch up on our lives. I found out later the girl was there – near the stage where I was standing. She’s now happily married with three cute kids and one on the way.

I’m very cynical when it comes to these things, but I believe God spoke to me that night. I was consumed with my mission to find a girl that night and that thought (voice?) stopped me cold and turned me around. I’d love to say it changed me forever but, like I said in previous post. there are no tattoos for the heart. I often forget the lesson I learned that night.

So, here I am 13 years later still reaching for the cookie jar. I occasionally get obsessed with the concept of finding my “cookie” and my friends endure my rambling and pontificating about it. I thank them for that (and apologize as well) but honestly – I know she’s out there. I believe she’ll get to me in time. The right time.

Until then, my complaining is as silly as a toddler in a kitchen stomping his feet.