I have no skin today. I'm raw and exposed, my nerves reach out like trees to the sun. My ears are gaping holes through which sounds rush loud and unfiltered to scratch at my brain and ricochet through my head.

I don't know why. I did the usual, shower, dress, comb hair, check bag for essentials. Still I left with the feeling that I had forgotten something. I felt naked.

So here I am, naked in a room full of people. No-one has commented on the fact that my ligaments are showing, arteries and fat deposits. No-one feels me cringe as I'm bombarded by their booming voices. I'm under assault and I don't know it, and no-one is attacking me.

I have no skin today, but when did I lose it? In the shower, in the car? Was it robbed from me as I walked the dark street? Did I take it off and hang it with my coat on the hook beside the door? Now it's lost and I don't know where to find it, or how to replace it, or how it came off in the first place.

But maybe I don't need my skin. Maybe this is my answer to prayer, my chance to sense what I was too thick-skinned to sense. Maybe I don't want my skin. Maybe the challenge is to keep the skin off.

Maybe this is the goal, or part of the process in this journey of learning to hear God's voice. After all, what is skin but a protective barrier between raw nerves and sensory overload? What are ears but earthly filters for vibrations in the air?

Maybe the idea is to grow new skin, like a snake, to replace the old calloused human shield with a fresh, vibrant porous boundary, old deadened sensors with sharp precise receptors of that which cannot be heard or felt.

Maybe this is about feeling atmosphere and struggle and joy and hearing heart-cries and hands reaching out and God smiling.

I have no skin today and God knows why. He gives and He takes away, or so they say. What will He do today?