This is a little chat I recently had with Jesus.
"I love you," he said.
And I asked "Why? Why would you love me when I don't even love myself?"
He rebuked me gently for that. For not loving myself. And he said it again - "I love you."
"But why? Look at what I've done. Look at what I haven't done! Look at what I am!"
"What is done or not done is forgiven," he told me. "And what you are is being worked on. In time, it will be sorted. The important thing, the first thing, is that I love you. All else follows on from that."
"I love you too, Lord," I answered. "At least, I'm trying to."
"You do love me," he said, giving me the the assurance that I had really needed from the first.
This conversation says a lot about me, and a lot about my faith. But does it say anything about Jesus? About God? To put it differently, was it just my imagination or was Jesus really speaking to me through my imagination?
You will probably answer that (if you care to) according to your own beliefs. If you are an atheist, then of course the answer is no. It was only my imagination. If you believe in God, or are open to the concept, then you may consider the possibility. Or perhaps your answer is a definite 'yes', perhaps your own experience supports the idea.
But in that conversation I heard something that I needed to hear. Something that I knew, but needed to have clarified and emphasized. Something I needed to be told. It made a positive difference to the way I thought about myself. In 'religious' language, I was blessed.
So, however it came about, by whatever mechanism it was transmitted - yes, I think that Jesus spoke to me.