I grew up in a Catholic family with a strict father who taught me about the big man in the sky. This big man keeps a record of all my wrongs and I must remember these wrongs so that I can confess them to the priest. So diligently, as I sinned, I would take a mental note of them and rush off to confess them the first chance I got. It was a cycle of confessions and sins. Of falling down and getting up. Refreshing initially, because who doesn’t enjoy a bit of therapy, but exhausting eventually because I started to wonder what the point was. Why? Why this annoying cycle of sinning and confessing?
Can I ever meet up to God’s standard of perfection? They say no man is perfect but they also say nothing imperfect can see God. So, what do I do now? Where do I go from here ? Do I just continue to confess about the men in my life and the funny thoughts that I have condoned ? Knowing fully well that these sins will not go away? or do I give up altogether?
I start to ponder about my friends who believe in evolution. That a big bang brought everything to existence. Such massive faith to believe that only a bang brought forth everything. As opposed to the explanation that a big man in the sky wove all things to existence. Which is more logical? I do not really know but I know that it takes a level of faith to believe anything at all. The idea of evolution became attractive to me. At least if I believed in evolution, I wouldn’t need to be accountable to anyone. Not having to confess to anyone or live within a box of do’s and don’ts. I considered it but I didn’t have the courage to go through with it.
Eventually, I decided to go with the big man in the sky. I do not have enough faith to walk alone. Maybe if I did, I’ll be confident enough to hold my own hands through it all. Through the rising and falling, through the hurts and the joys, maybe I’ll be confident enough to pat my own back through life’s uncertainties.
You see, I’m not a very confident girl. I like to hold my “father’s” hands. This is why I believe in the big man in the sky. He is a hand for me to hold and a shoulder for me to lean on.
Overtime, I have started to believe that this big man in the sky loves me regardless of my very little and very big sins. And the more that I learn to trust him, the more he helps me to let go of my sinful stones. I call them sinful stones. The stones that I hold on to regardless of how much they hurt me. One by one, he is helping me to let go of them while replacing them with priceless pearls. Pearls of joy, peace and contentment. Of confidence and love. Pearls that beautify me and make whole. Pearls that adorn me as the daughter of a king.
Although I’m still holding on to some of my sinful stones. Stones of pride, despair and shame but I know that I will let go of them someday.
Regardless, I do not confess my sins anymore because apparently he already forgave them. Even before I committed them, he forgave them and he loves me regardless, murky sin and all. He knows all about this fallen world and its alluring sins, after all was he not once man like us? Did he not experience them all? He does not expect perfection, only devotion from the ones he created.
I have learned to love him. I have learned to love the one who has held my hand through life’s difficulties. It’s a love story between a creature and her creator, between a father and his daughter, between a king and his princess, between a sinner and her God. A love story with very little faith.