Being naturally introverted, I tend to approach relationships through knowledge first. I rarely open up to someone immediately. My instinct is to observe, listen, and learn who a person is before allowing the relationship to deepen. Trust develops slowly through understanding.
Many people seem to operate in the opposite order. They begin with connection and conversation, allowing knowledge to develop afterward. My instinct works differently. Before opening the door to a relationship, I want to understand who I am speaking to.
Opening my internal world feels extremely intimate and vulnerable. Thoughts, fears, hopes, and questions come from a place that is not casually shared. That space feels almost sacred, and I do not open it freely for anyone who happens to knock. Trust must exist first.
Because of that, knowledge often becomes the doorway to relationship for me. Learning who someone is helps me understand whether it is safe to invite them into that inner space.
For a long time, those statements felt abstract to me. Abstract concepts are something I can understand easily. Ideas, theology, symbolism, and layered meanings all make sense within that framework.
For a long time, those statements felt abstract to me. Abstract concepts are something I can understand easily. Ideas, theology, symbolism, and layered meanings all make sense within that framework.
Intimacy, however, felt underdeveloped.
Not many people had ever scaled the tower, fought the dragon, and rescued the princess, so to speak. Opening that inner world to someone requires trust, patience, and a willingness to understand the person behind the walls. The tower is not meant to keep everyone out forever. It simply protects what is valuable until the right person arrives and takes the time to know who lives there.
The task itself never seemed especially difficult in my mind. The path was fairly straightforward. Someone simply needed to take the time to get to know me first.
For many years, when people spoke about having an intimate relationship with God, I assumed the path worked the same way. Intimacy must develop through knowledge. If I learned enough about God, understood His nature, and studied Scripture carefully, the relationship would deepen naturally.
That assumption fit neatly with the way I already approached relationships in general.
Understanding comes first. Trust grows afterward.
Because of that, the concept of intimacy with God slowly turned into an intellectual pursuit. Reading, studying, and learning seemed like the logical way to draw closer to Him.
At the time, it never occurred to me that intimacy with God might not begin with knowing more about Him. It might begin with something much simpler: a conversation.
But first, let me give you the preface of the story in a typical introvert move. I grew up in a Catholic household where church attendance was part of the weekly rhythm of life. My grandfather was particularly militant about attending Mass every Sunday. There was never a question about whether we would go. My mother also took all four of us kids faithfully each week. When we were young, she spoke about God and Jesus often, so faith was woven into our home environment from the beginning.
Like many Catholic children, we followed the traditional milestones. Baptism took place when we were babies. First Holy Communion came in second grade. Confirmation arrived in ninth grade. Despite those experiences, a subtle disconnect existed as I grew older.
Elementary school introduced the lesson that religious beliefs were not something to speak about openly with others because it might offend them. Conversations about whether the Pledge of Allegiance should remain in schools because it mentions God appeared in public discussions. Some people even objected to the phrase “In God We Trust” printed on American currency.
Within church itself, the experience followed a very structured format. The congregation kneels, stands, chants, and recites memorized prayers. The repetition of those prayers carried a sense of reverence and tradition. Even the prayers themselves were scripted. My dad says he liked learning about Catholics because it always seemed like going to a monastery.
Spontaneous conversation with God, on the other hand, never appeared to be part of that structure. The liturgy itself often felt mysterious to me as a child and teenager. Scripture readings during Mass rarely made sense at the time, and I do not remember many explanations that connected those readings to everyday life. As a result, the idea of speaking to God as though He were a real person simply never occurred to me.
As an adult, I encountered more nondenominational churches through my former partner’s beliefs. Those experiences revealed a very different environment. One of the things that surprised me most was how much hostility sometimes existed toward Catholics. Introducing myself as Catholic often led quickly into debates about certain Catholic practices and explanations about why the Catholic Church was supposedly wrong and why people just don’t like Catholics in general.
Those conversations felt strange because I never had much ammunition to argue one way or the other. The main reason was simple: I never felt any hostility toward them.
Nonetheless, people would describe theological disagreements, historical conflicts, and doctrinal concerns with a level of passion that caught me off guard. Their knowledge of Catholic doctrine sometimes seemed more detailed than my own understanding of the traditions I had grown up with.
Like most people of faith, I believed the religion I was raised in was the true religion. (History is full of people going to war to prove their religion is the true one.) That belief, however, never translated into us spending time charting out the differences between denominations or preparing arguments against other Christian traditions. That kind of comparison simply was not part of my religious upbringing.
Catholics, in general, can attend other denominational services without concern. Walking into another church building never felt forbidden or threatening. Because of that openness, hearing statements like, “My parents would never step foot in a Catholic church,” always surprised me.
From my perspective, the Christian world seemed large enough for different traditions to exist. Each community expressed faith through its own practices, history, and cultural influences. The idea that entering another church building was fascinating to me. My mom told me of how my dad’s church used grape juice instead of wine, and they passed it around on a tray. It just sounded so fascinating. I wonder what else they do differently?
What they knew, however, often sounded like a critique rather than the lived experience I had known. Nonetheless, it strengthened the message I received as a child: “Don’t talk about your religion because it will offend people.”
My faith had always been shaped more by atmosphere and tradition than by debate. It existed in family habits, cultural stories, and quiet beliefs about God’s presence in everyday life. It was not built around debate or doctrinal arguments. It was built around belief and a sense of the mystical. Angels, saints, miracles, and sacred stories were part of the imagination that surrounded faith growing up. Those things rarely function as debate points in theological arguments.
Throughout my college career, I also began noticing that Catholic culture itself contains many variations. My family comes from an Irish Catholic background. Irish culture carries a strong sense of imagination, playfulness, and humor. Stories of leprechauns and pots of gold at the end of rainbows live alongside the spiritual world in Irish folklore. St. Patrick leading the snakes out of Ireland feels almost legendary. The mystical is always the norm.
For example, when I chose my saint’s name for confirmation, I selected Saint Theresa because she was known for levitating during prayer. My brother chose Saint Sebastian, likely because his name simply sounds mystical.
Other Catholic communities developed differently. Central American Catholic traditions were heavily shaped by Spanish colonization. Spanish soldiers often marched carrying statues of Mary, which influenced the devotion that later developed throughout those cultures. Understanding that history makes the prominence of Mary in those communities far less surprising.
Looking back, the miraculous always felt close to my life. Statues that cried blood, daily bread turning into skin, Jesus’ face in a potato chip. Thoughts about God appeared often. A sense existed that He was involved in the events of life.
Despite that awareness, conversation with Him never really developed. Part of the reason was simple. I assumed God already knew everything I would say before I ever spoke it. Scripture teaches that nothing about us is hidden from Him. He knows our thoughts, our fears, and even the number of hairs on our heads. If God already possessed complete knowledge of my inner world, speaking it out loud felt unnecessary.
When prayers seemed to be answered, people sometimes described it as the “luck of the Irish.” The phrase implied that God might be on our side. The idea is somewhat ironic when considering how difficult Irish history has been. Nevertheless, the Irish spirit has long carried a refusal to give up even when circumstances appear bleak.
Over time, I also noticed that my younger siblings experienced a less strict Catholic upbringing than I had. My mother relaxed some of the expectations with them. I do not believe either of them were confirmed.
Years later, while naturally reflecting (I say this as an introvert, of course) on what an intimate relationship with God might actually meant, I encountered a concept that had never fully occurred to me before. Talking to Him like a person.
The first time I noticed it, the whole thing seemed incredibly posh. These pastors were praying off script, delivering freestyle prayers with the confidence of someone dropping it like it was hot. The language flowed naturally, almost like conversation, as though speaking to God in real time was the most normal thing in the world. From my perspective, I didn’t consider that to be prayer, but hey, what did I know anyways?
At the time, I never expected God to respond right away. I figured I might catch a sign or symbol in a day or two.
His responses did not arrive in dramatic ways. No voice thundered from the sky. Instead, answers often appeared through circumstances, through other people speaking, songs that came over the radio, or through patterns that aligned strangely well with what I had talked to Him about. It wasn’t just one, it was a flood of symbols, coincidences, and moments of clarity.
I could tell Him something and then get a response sometimes the very same day! Over time, those moments started forming something that felt like a dialogue. Prayer slowly shifted from sending thoughts into the distance to participating in an ongoing conversation woven into daily life.
Learning to talk to God changed the way ordinary life felt. The same routines still existed. The same responsibilities filled the day. Something within those rhythms felt different. The steady drumbeat of everyday life began carrying more depth, more meaning, and more companionship.
Speaking honestly with God eventually began changing more than my prayer habits. The experience slowly reshaped the way I perceived His presence in everyday life.
For many years I assumed communication with God worked mostly in one direction. A person speaks. God already knows the answer. Life continues. That was the framework I carried for a long time.
Later, when I intentionally invited the Holy Spirit into my life in a more personal way, something unexpected began to happen. My awareness of His presence began increasing in ways I had not anticipated. Some people describe these forms of perception using terms like clairs—clairvoyance, clairaudience, claircognizance, and other ways of sensing or perceiving spiritual insight.
In my own life, certain impressions simply became easier to notice. Sometimes the experience feels like a wave of chills passing across my body, though the sensation feels less like cold and more like sparkles, shimmers, and tickles. The tickling sensation can be strong enough to make me laugh unexpectedly, as though joy itself has brushed past for a moment. Experiences like that often appear in the middle of ordinary moments while I am simply talking with Him.
At other times the communication feels surprisingly practical. One of the more unusual patterns that developed involves my stomach. Occasionally when I ask a simple yes-or-no question during conversation with God, my stomach will flex in response. I heard one lady state that when you speak with God, He will give your stomach a work-out.
For example, meteorologists had forecasted a polar vortex, stating that it could take out powerlines from the weight of the ice. I found myself standing in a Walmart trying to decide what supplies might actually be necessary. Instead of guessing, I paused and spoke to Him the same way I might speak to someone walking beside me.
“Do I need snow melt?”
My stomach flexed immediately.
“Yes,” I said quietly, placing a bag into the cart.
Another question followed.
“Do I need to buy supplies in case the power goes out?”
This time there was no response at all.
I stood there for a moment, then nodded to myself.
“Alright,” I murmured. “Skipping that aisle.”
Experiences like that may sound unusual to someone who has never encountered anything similar. For me, they slowly became part of the way conversation with God and everyday life began weaving together.
The most important part was not the form the response took. What mattered was the growing realization that God is not silent in the way I once imagined. Learning to speak honestly with Him opened the door to noticing how often He had already been communicating in return.