One day a few years ago an overwhelming sadness kicked down the front door of my life. It came right in and made itself at home. A sadness, as it turns out, that I myself had invited to visit.

When I saw it outside I barred the door and shouted at it to go away, but it took no notice. Down came the door, in came the sadness. Even though my mistakes had created it, the overwhelming sadness took no notice of me. I screamed at it to go away but it wouldn’t. It seemed to have no interest in my thoughts at all. My thoughts had brought it, but they no longer counted. I had lost all control. I was completely undone.

Nothing I knew was the same anymore. I had no option that horrible day. I threw pride to the wind and screamed out to God. What else could I do? I was terrified. My life was collapsing like a house of cards on to the floor. My dreams, everything I had lived for, was sliding into a huge hole.

To my complete amazement God spoke back. He took over, started talking just like a good friend does when you phone them with news of a huge personal crisis. They come right around, sit you down and talk you through it. It’s their help that gets you through the storm.

God came around, sat me down and started talking. I couldn’t believe it. On one hand I had this overwhelming sadness threatening to destroy me. On the other I had God, speaking words I could understand. I could hear him clear as a bell. He just kept talking. His words came thick and fast. I had to write them down to keep up. Both, the overwhelming sadness and God speaking, were so far outside my experience of reality that I was in shock. I thought, hoped, that I would wake up and everything would be back to normal. But no. I have woken up every morning since then, and both are still here.

When God first started speaking that day I was stunned. It was the last thing I had expected. He had so much to say. More probably than I’d heard him say in my whole life until then. He talked all day and into the night. If it had been someone else’s story I would have thought they were mad. God doesn’t just chat like a friend. We all know that. But he did. If it was someone else we were talking about, I would have said, as the medical experts will, that this is not reality, but just a known medical phenomena. Akin to temporary madness. He’s ‘hearing God’ because he’s gone into emotional shock. I am a bit like those medical experts. A cynic. Something I’m learning to change. But I’ve still got a long way to go. And even in the midst of this overwhelming sadness I was still cynical enough to think ‘this can’t be God’. I was determined that, no matter how bad things got, I was not going to go mad. Somehow I was going to beat this. But God kept telling me I couldn’t beat it, couldn’t find a way through, but he could. And if I listened he’d tell me about it.

God kept talking. He answered every question. Sometimes, often in my darkest desperate hours, and there are plenty of them, I didn’t even ask him, I just shouted my questions at the empty sky. But he’d answer. Clearly. Instantly. The moment the words left my mouth or mind, he’d answer. And the things he said were so foreign to everything I’d ever thought, that I knew it couldn’t possibly be me. He said such incredibly positive things. I’ve never been very positive, but he was. Painfully so. It was like listening to a good friend when they talk you through a crisis. You want to argue with their positive outlook, the thoughts of hope that they give you, but you know they’re right and you’ve not the energy to argue. It was like that. God had lots to say and I didn’t have the energy to argue.

He didn’t do all the talking, but he did most.
Thank goodness. Up until then it had been the other way around for me. If God and I ever talked, I did most of it. Maybe you’re the same? If you ever talk to God maybe you do most of the talking? But I’ve discovered God’s not going deaf, he’s not senile or removed from the reality of my situation. He can hear just fine and would love to talk if I want to listen. He’s wise enough not to push his thoughts on me unless I’m interested. I’ve also discovered, as you will if you read this book, that he doesn’t need me to sort my life out before he talks to me. He just wants to talk.

The bible stories show us that he’ll talk now and fix you up later. He’ll say to the tax collector, the prostitute, and the cursing fisherman, ‘I’m coming to your place for lunch’. He doesn’t seem to care about whether you’ve been good or bad. I was the tax collector, the prostitute and the cursing fisherman all rolled in to one.

But he still wanted to come to lunch. God has talked me through every day of my overwhelming sadness. And yet I haven’t become an amazing new person. I know I was extremely difficult for those around me, and continue to be. But I’m working on it. And for the first time in my life people say I’m changing for good. Ever so slowly.

God says write a book. What happened next was even crazier. I began to write down my conversations with God. It made it easier for my cynical mind. Easier to analyse and monitor this crazy new experience where God appeared to be talking. I thought if I really am going mad then by writing it down I might have a chance of spotting the madness and getting it fixed before it goes too far. It made it better. Or worse? It depends where you’re looking at this from. The more I wrote it down, the more he spoke. Clearly, intelligibly. But even more important, intelligently. He was saying things far smarter than I had the ability to be. Wise things. Things that others heard and were amazed at. Wisdom has never been a hallmark of my life. But the things I was hearing God say, I would tell to others, and they would be incredulous too. ‘That’s God’ they’d say. Obviously taken aback that I had heard such things.

My friends made me do it. They urged me to keep having these conversations with God. They asked me to send them to their friends too. The things they told me about my conversations were far beyond what I’d hoped. All I wanted to hear was ‘you’re not going mad’. But instead they told me my conversations were a privilege to listen to. They said my conversations with God were opening up a whole new relationship with God for them too. And a growing number of people urged me to put my conversations in a book. They told me this needs to be published, that people need to know that if I can hear God talk like this, surely anyone can.

The book!
So, a book. This book. Why a book? My life was a total mess. But each day as I face my overwhelming sadness, I’ve found strength and purpose to help me through. How? By listening to his voice. That’s the thing that blew me away. The fact that I can actually hear him clearly speaking into my mind. A conversation. Back and forward. It’s brought freedom.
My hope is that you will read this book and try a conversation with him too. And that you too will find freedom as you do.
In the back of the book you’ll find a whole section on how to do this, how to have a conversation with God yourself. The practical steps.

Enjoy.
Mark Holloway

PS: Yes you should ‘try this yourself at home’. Or anywhere else for that matter. In the car, at work, you name it. God wants to talk and if you listen, he will. This book is a whole bunch of the conversations I have had with him. I have done my best to let him tell me which ones to include so that you can understand how to have a conversation with him too.