when my sisters and i were young, my parents would buy us saint movies from the church bookstore. coptic people, you know what i'm talking about. they were so cheesy, but... awesome. some of my favorites were st. george (making the sign of the cross with this head while asking which side of the poison chalice he should drink from) or st. moses the black, carrying his heavy bag of sand, the weight of his sin. st. marina had a legit scary devil scene. we called him, "shrimp fingers." all of these movies always had something in common. the saints were always so unwaveringly brave and valiant. they were always so willing to die for jesus. at the drop of a hat practically. i used to think to myself, what if i was in their shoes? no doubt, i'd die for jesus. but would i be so brave about it? what if they tortured me? sometimes i would feel ashamed of myself that i had these doubts. in my defense, i was a kid. and the saint movies are a bit misleading. we love our saints so much that we tend to place them above human weakness. and maybe they really were above fear and doubt, i wasn’t there, but my instinct says they weren’t. and you know what, i think god understands. i used to think about the saints, then about myself, and it would put me down. i wasn’t like them. i denied christ all the time. sometimes i was embarrassed by him. and i sinned like it was going out of style, every day. i was such a turd compared to them. i literally felt like a walking turd. and you know what was secretly happening? i was secretly beginning to think about god as a guilt inducing entity. i always thought he was disappointed in me. he didn’t like me, he liked the saints.
fast-forward several years. what has changed? i still sin. still deny him. in reality, if he was disappointed in me then, he probably wants nothing to do with me now. but you know what else has changed? i stopped being stupid. foolish boy, christ loves you so much! he probably thought you were cute, feeling guilty and insufficient all the time. i bet he wanted to take you in his arms and tell you he understands. he doesn’t want to condemn you and he doesn’t want your weakness to drive you away from him. he listens to your thoughts and prayers like you’re the only person in the world he listens to. he's not going to look at you like you’re nothing and move on to more "saintly" people. in fact, he loves it when you turn to him when you’re feeling helpless. he wants to take care of you. do you know what's happening behind the scenes every day? do you know what's happening when you’re scared? his spirit surrounds you. he'd send down an entire legion of angels to surround, protect you and pray for you if you needed it. he's your father and you’re his son. so don't ever doubt his love. you will never know real love like his. and you cannot truly love unless the love of god is in you. don't get it mixed up. you do not exist to do good things so that you might please god. you do good because of the thread of god that exists inside you. lewis says, "he [the christian] does not think god will love us because we are good, but that god will make us good because he loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it." so shine on little turd, shine on :-)
