The greatest invention ever was sliced bread. Apparently. Since then, we’ve seen a massive amount of progressively better inventions that are not quite as great as sliced bread. You’d think eventually the gap between sliced bread and the next greatest invention would be so close that you wouldn’t really be able to tell the difference. But I have an idea for an invention, and I have a feeling that it could be easily confused for sliced bread. My idea is a device that alerts you when people are reading your mind.

I’ve been accused of being insane after writing a story about how I thought I was the hero of an action-thriller film. And maybe thinking your roommate doesn’t exist is a little out there, but it happens to the best of us, right? And perhaps my writings are too progressive for my readers. In the end, it’s really your fault then. But this time, I’m humbling myself to your inhibiting level of sanity and saying that I don’t actually believe people can read my mind, but I do feel that way sometimes.

You see, I’m terrible at lying games because I’m overly self-conscious that people can tell when I’m lying. While playing a game like BS, I’m normally giddy and talkative, joking around with the other players … until it comes time for me to lie. Then I become Hotch from Criminal Minds. Normally, this strategy might work if I had been poker facin’ for the whole game, but instead I switch from Garcia to Hotch in four seconds. And it’s all because of my self-consciousness.

So I want an invention that tells me when people are trying to read my mind and, more importantly, when they’re right. I don’t know who else worries about their every action and facial expression being a live broadcast of their every thought and intention, but I know that I don’t want to be friends with them. We’d never do anything.

A friend of mine told me that standing still is the greatest display of dominance. Someone else would get jealous of the position you’re standing in, but would step toward you because they wouldn’t want to look obedient. But they also wouldn’t step away because then it would look like they were just afraid. If you got two people together who were worried about what the other’s thinking about them, they would both be the latter person and neither of them would ever be comfortable moving ever again.

But all eyes are not on me, and to think so makes self-consciousness look more like self-centeredness. Which I suppose it is. Not everyone’s gonna be watching me step to the left or to the right. If a device is ever invented that tells me when someone’s reading my mind, I’d like it also remind me to not care and just show love to them and let them love me. I’ll let the Holy Spirit help define my character, not what I believe other people think of me.

Watching an interview with a national spelling bee winner on the news, I was fascinated how this kid that was almost half my age could spell words that I’ve never even heard of before (as I end a sentence with two — count ‘em two — prepositions). I always figured that I was a decent speller, but how can the English language expect me to speak it properly when it’s got one-syllable words with twelve silent letters. I half believe that most of the words in the national spelling bee are made up just to screw with kids. But somehow, it still doesn’t mess them up.

I vaguely remember the kid being interviewed saying that he had never heard the word he won with. Great guess, right? But apparently, knowing the origins of the word really helps. So if the word has German roots, it would probably be spelled with at least four silent ‘H’s, or if it’s Japanese, you’ll probably get it wrong when you get to either an ‘R’ or an ‘L’. See, I know all about word origins.

Stuff like that amazes me. When I was younger, I was so happy to brag about finally memorizing the spelling for antidisestablishmentarianism, but spelling bees these days make that word look like banana(nana … ?). I wonder if other languages have spelling bees. I mean, how many other languages are as screwed up as English? Bought rhymes with thought but not drought. Mice is plural for mouse, lice is plural for louse, but houses? I could go on and on, but I’m pretty sure you all have an idea of how high the guys who came up with English must have been.

I’m thinking back to middle school when I was called down with a bunch of other students to the cafeteria to do nothing but stand up and spell words. It really seemed like a surprise to everyone else there, but apparently we could spell well enough to do it in front of each other without being embarrassed. I didn’t care much for the bee (I really didn’t. I’m not trying to sound cool and aloof. I really didn’t. I didn’t), but I decided to stay just to see how far I’d get. After maybe two kids had gone up and spelled their one-syllable words correctly, it was my turn. There came a sigh of relief when I heard my word: major. I breathed and began:

“Major. M-A-G — No! — J!”

It was too late. Once you start spelling a word, you can’t change any of the letters you’ve already said. One of the most nerve-wracking rules ever. If I were any less cool or aloof, I would’ve face-palmed right there. But instead, I just waited until I got out into the hall. I knew I wouldn’t have won the whole spelling bee, but when you go out on a word like major, it’s pretty embarrassing.

I look at those kids who win spelling bees and I think, Wow! They must’ve studied a lot for that. And I could make fun of them all day, saying they’ve wasted their time, that winning a spelling bee isn’t gonna matter later in their lives. But then I look at myself and I realize that there isn’t anything I’ve become really good at. (Just as a disclaimer, I’m not asking anyone to tell me what I’m good at, so please don’t.) And maybe it’s because of my lack of discipline or motivation, but there really isn’t much I know enough about that I can sit down and talk to someone about for a good amount of time. So it sort of worries me, but it gives me a sense of wonder for my future. Where am I gonna go? When I go into full-time ministry, will I be able to do it? Will I be able to commit? I guess I won’t have much of a choice.

Earlier today, one of my suitemates Matt asked me a question that I would’ve been hesitant to answer outside of a Christian college: “Have you ever had a girlfriend?” Let’s face it: if you’re a nineteen-year-old guy and you’ve never had a girlfriend, you’d be a little nervous about answering that question. But not on a Christian campus where ninety-five percent of the student body was either homeschooled or grew up in another country where they don’t have girlfriends but instead hop straight from “Hi, what’s your name?” to “I love you. Will you marry me?” Fortunately, I have an understanding suitemate that only chuckled slightly before bursting out in laughter when I told him, “No.” Okay, that’s not really what happened. He really was cool about it. In fact, he said he was surprised. (No homo.)

But as surprising as it sounds, I’ve scarcely had feelings for a girl at the same time she’s had feelings for me. If the girls in high school that I think may have liked me actually liked me, it was definitely not at the same time I liked them. I remember one girl in particular who led me on for like a year before I actually started liking her. Our last few conversations before I graduated included comments from her like, “I’m so glad we’ve become friends this year.”

So when Matt asked me why I never had a girlfriend, the first reason I thought of was because I was a fat, nerdy kid who was obsessed with Nintendo and web design and had a terrible fashion sense. He was shocked. I was shocked that he was shocked. I showed him old photos of me on Facebook that a friend of mine posted up (and will not stop posting up! Yes, if you’re reading, Rachel, I’m talking to you). I was an ape middle schooler who somehow turned into a stick.

But that’s not really the reason I never had a girlfriend. When asked, I might say it was because I never found the right girl, or I just didn’t care since I knew I was going away to college. But the real reason is that I just lacked confidence. I feel like I’m definitely improving in that area. Since last fall, I’ve asked out four girls. (No, I’m not a player. Two of those were to school events. And three of them were “No”s.) A friend of mine suggested a brilliant confidence booster: If I ever pull up behind a car full of girls at a stop light, I get out of the car and run up to their window, introduce myself, and get back in my car. I don’t know how effective that would be in boosting my confidence, but I have a hunch about how effective it would be in creeping out a car full of girls.

I lack confidence in more areas than just with girls, though. It hinders me in a lot of things, but I guess it’s completely my own fault. Like, I know if I just man up and do what I know I’m supposed to do, everything will be okay and I’ll stop worrying, but I just lack the confidence, and for some unexplainable reason, I just can’t do it. I’m very thankful to God that confidence isn’t static. It changes and grows. It just takes practice, right? I’ll work on it … probably tomorrow.

Very strange things have been happening to me lately. For some reason, people keep disappearing. Okay, they always reappear, but for a short while, I’m left questioning whether or not they still exist. I have had a couple experiences. One not so extreme, and one kind of terrifying.

The first, but later, experience occurred while I was walking down the hall of my dorm with my roommate, Jeremy. He was walking right beside me, and then stopped to talk to someone. But after that, he disappeared. Right before my eyes. Well not really, but I turned away for a second and when I turned back, he wasn’t there. I made a full 360 to try and find him. I even looked in the only room he could’ve gone into while I was turned away. He wasn’t anywhere. So I just walked out the door, and looked back to see if he’d follow eventually. He did. Good! I didn’t miss the Rapture.

I hope I’m not the only one who wonders this, but sometimes I think that we may have Christianity wrong. I know I’m not the only one who thinks I missed the Rapture when I’m alone. (It’s not a chronic thing, but it happens every now and then.) But I mean, what if there’s only a handful of people who actually have Christianity right, and the rest of us who think we got it will be left behind. Like what if the one deciding factor that we’re missing is like believing Adam and Eve didn’t have bellybuttons? It’s like we didn’t read closely enough in the Bible. Okay, I know it’s ridiculous, but I know I’m not the only one who thinks about it. Or am I? I probably am.

Anyway, that experience with Jeremy wasn’t nearly as unnerving as what happened about a week earlier. I feel like I could almost relate with the woman who got trapped inside a plane for fifteen minutes. Except I didn’t have anyone to sue. I was playing racquetball in the hall of the gym with my friend Sean since the racquetball room was already occupied. We were just hitting it back and forth and making challenges for ourselves like trying to hit the ball into the weight room after bouncing it off the wall a couple times. Volleys never lasted long because of my lack of skill, but Sean decided to hit the ball much harder than we had been hitting it. I would’ve hit it back, you know, if I hadn’t been completely terrified. The ball went sailing all the way down the long hall, so I ran after it to get it.

When I turned around, Sean wasn’t there. At first, I figured he was playing a trick on me, so I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want him to think that he was fooling me. I walked to the end of the hall, but he wasn’t around the corner. I looked in the weight rooms, but he wasn’t there. Even our keys and phones were gone. I began pacing up and down the hall looking for him, and it took a while for me to finally say out loud, “Sean?” No response.

Okay, here’s the crazy thing. I felt like Russel Crowe’s character in A Beautiful Mind, except I’m not a freakin’ genius. I just thought I was going insane. At first, I began brainwashing myself that I had imagined this whole racquetball game in the hall, but then I almost had fully convinced myself that Sean had never existed in the first place. I mean, if I couldn’t find him in the very few places he could’ve gone while my back was turned, how could he have been there? I began searching my mind for occasions when Sean was speaking to other people besides me (which there have been plenty), but I couldn’t think of any at the time because the fear of the moment overwhelmed me.

Anyway, I finally found him outside playing football. I didn’t think to check the exit door for a while. He said he thought I had seen him go outside.

Now this is the part when I connect the drawn-out, semi-entertaining story with a personal struggle, and there’s really not any smooth transition I can make, so instead I’m making this awkward transition. It’s like a bad sermon illustration, but cheesier.

It might be selfish, but I figured out that one of my biggest fears in life is people leaving my life without me having an impact on them. To make it even more selfish (but honest), I think I’m more afraid that if I do have an impact on them, they won’t remember it. As I’m getting closer to some friends and growing further apart from others, I sort of get scared that when it comes to the point when I we might not see each other again, they won’t miss me anyway. I don’t know. That’s just another embarrassing look inside my mind. Maybe I should go back to writing about awkward Christian nuances.

A while ago, I made a post about my first day of the new school semester. And I apologize for it being a while ago, but school’s really taking over my life. I mean, with the time I invest with my friends, all the women who want me (HA!), and the road trips I go on, school’s pretty much taking over my life. There’s just no time for blogging. But since I know you’re absolutely dying to live my life vicariously through my pseudo-arrogant writing, I’ve decided to share about my past weekend.

I spent this past weekend in the town of Franklin, North Carolina, and with all the inside jokes (“A pumpkin roll!”), arcade game playing (we could never beat that dragon, bobsaget!), and terrible Chris Farley (R.I.P.)  films (Beverly Hills Ninja anyone?), I’d say it was a pretty fulfilling weekend. I’m mostly proud of myself for not spending any money at all, since I’m running low. And finding a job is really difficult when you hardly try at all.

I think one highlight (or lowlight; you decide) was the game of Bible Apples to Apples*. If you go to a Christian college, and you ever want to reinforce a stereotype, Bible Apples to Apples is definitely the way to go. This is the kind of game that I would’ve made fun of Liberty students for playing if it were ever mentioned in The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose (pick it up, it’s good) and thought I’d never play. But it’s actually kind of fun. Not only do you get God points just for playing it, but you can use the fact that everyone playing is a Christian to your advantage. It kind of gives you a fresh, rebellious feeling when you can tell someone, “You’re going to Hell if you don’t pick my card.” Also, it’s hilarious when you’re trying to decide between “Jesus” and the “Holy Spirit” when the green card says “Good.” Too bad you don’t have “Macaroni & Cheese” to fall back on for that one. There really aren’t many things that are better than macaroni and cheese.

There were a couple difficulties with playing Bible Apples to Apples, though. One troublesome truth about the game is that it doesn’t include the “Helen Keller” trump card. It was a bit of a challenge for us all to agree on one trump card to replace “Helen Keller.” I think it was a draw between “Harriet Tubman” and “John Calvin.” The information at the bottom of the “Harriet Tubman” card said she was the “Moses” of her generation. I can see that, but it mostly seems like they ran out of Bible names so they decided to throw in “Harriet Tubman” and claim that she was Moses’ nineteenth century counterpart just for the heck of it. It sounds to me like the employees of Mattel were all sitting around at the meeting trying to decide on one more card to throw in and one guy was like, “Hey, I think some famous guy once said that Harriet Tubman was the ‘Moses’ of her generation. That’s Bible-y.” But something tells me that “A blast” might have been one of the last red cards they put in it. As for the “John Calvin” card, I don’t think anyone playing the game was a Calvinist, but if anyone was, they weren’t about to out themselves. Unless God preordained it.

The other difficulty was entirely a personal issue (other than the fact that I was holding in my gas just about the entire night). When it was my turn to flip the green card and decide the winner of the round, I had a hard time choosing sometimes. On occasion, it becomes a struggle for me to be as original as possible, and somehow, I decided that choosing the most opposite or most random card to be the winner was unoriginal since everyone else was doing. I unintentionally decided for myself that the part of the game that made it funny was the revealing of the random or extremely opposite red cards, and not the choosing of a funny winner. Therefore, I lost interest in choosing the funny cards and concluded it was best to just pick a random card and make people wonder why I picked it. This is really embarrassing for me to be bringing up because I doubt anyone playing was giving as much thought to my actions as I was. I don’t think anyone was thinking, Wow. Ben’s being an absolute pioneer of innovative humor in his winning card choices.

When it comes to originality, I have a cynicism that goes far beyond card games. I try my best to be creative and original, but in feigned modesty I tell people that it’s really not that original at all. If there’s one thing I’m learning about myself this semester, it’s that I’m far too cynical and judgmental. Lately, I’ve been trying to cut down on the amount of sarcastic comments and negative judgments I make, but it sure is a struggle. One that I’m going to need accountability on.

Thanks for reading!

*If you don’t know how to play Apples to Apples, here’s the basic rules: the green cards have adjectives on them, the red cards have nouns (usually famous places, events, and people; in the Bible Edition’s case, biblical stuff). Everyone’s dealt seven red cards that they hide from the other players. Then, someone draws a green card and reads the adjective. Then each player plays a red card face-down that has a word that they believe is described by the green card the best (or the least, depending on how funny you make wanna make it.) The person who drew the green card then decides which red card is the best (best described by the green card, or just the funniest; it depends on who’s judging), and the person who played that card gets a point. Players take turns drawing green cards and being the judge.

I’m not gangsta in the slightest. I guess I don’t really know what that word means, but in this context, I mean that I’m nowhere near the kind of person who would join a gang. So I was a bit surprised when I was asked to join one in high school. Looking at me, it’s pretty easy to tell that I’m not a very tough person. I write a blog. That should be evidence enough. But despite that, I hung out with a certain group my freshmen year of high school. They weren’t mean guys and I guess I didn’t really hang out with them. I just sat with them at lunch and played card games with them. I got to know them pretty well, but I never saw them outside of school.

We played BS a lot, except they always said the full phrase. I didn’t though because I never swore. When I play BS, I never call someone out unless I’m sure they’re lying. Just goes to show how bold I am, doesn’t it? Fortunately, I only ever had to call someone out once. I said the actual word, though. I didn’t want to risk being made fun of for just saying “BS.” I was a conformer, and I still am to an extent. I eventually taught them how to play Euchre though. (It’s a very Ohioan card game.)

The guys were all members of the Crips. I didn’t know if it was the real Crips or they just thought they were in the Crips, but it sounded pretty legit since they called their leader Snuggles (or Tickles or something). I never met Snuggles because he didn’t go to the same school. I never even learned his real name (unless it really was Snuggles, poor kid). I figured that Snuggles was to the “Crips” as Fluffy is to Harry Potter. As if Snuggles were a monstrous three-headed dude with bad breath and back hair. The only way I’d ever survive an encounter with Snuggles would be if I took a bewitched harp with me, right? I thought it was pretty funny that I got his evil henchmen to play Euchre with me. They cheated sometimes, but they didn’t know it, so I let it slide. I also didn’t want them to beat me like a dusty rug.

Nah, I wasn’t afraid of them hurting me. I was more afraid of their peer pressure for me to join. They had this lifelong commitment thing to the Crips. Once a Crip always a Crip. I don’t know if they’re still gangsters after the five years since I’ve met them, but I’m leaning towards a no. But anyway, some of my freshmen friends had joined them, and they’d try to get me to join, too. I have no idea why. If I ever got into a fight with a Blood, I’d never be able to do anything to anyone. But what scared me about joining would have been the initiation. Joining meant I would have had to endure being punched in the gut for a whole minute by multiple gang members. If I punched back, I’d have to take one to the face.

Sounds like a good deal to me. I get the crap beat out of me by my friends just to get more crap beat out of me by people who don’t like me. It would’ve been a really stupid initiation, because if it didn’t kill me, I’d be in the gang. Of course it wouldn’t kill me, but I’d probably be bawling my eyes out the whole time. So it was really pretty pointless. My friend who was a part of it gave me a short sample in our Mechanical Drawing class. He gave me a swift punch to the stomach and asked, did that hurt? I said, not really. But then I imagined it coming from all angles for a minute.

As much as I enjoy four or fives guys wailing on me for a minute, there was no way I was joining the Crips (or the “Crips”). They took themselves far too seriously, and I’d make fun of them in my head while I owned them in Euchre. I would never have made fun of them out loud, though. They were all white, and some of them even grew up in the suburbs, so I thought it was really funny how seriously they took themselves. I would’ve never joined them, but if I had joined, they would’ve found out the truth eventually: that I was a spy for the Bloods.

That last part wasn’t true, but conformity is something that plagues me. I mean, I have morals and things that I’ll just never do, like smoke weed, or vandalize someone’s property, or allow myself to be beaten to a pulp. But when I’m put under enough pressure or I’m not receiving the attention I want, I tend to become what I think other people want me to become. I don’t do it on purpose a lot of the time, and I really suck at it, too. I guess it’s a good thing I’m going to a Christian college then, right? But even then, I have a difficult time staying true to myself. It probably all stems from my selfishness, but I guess I’m still trying to figure out who “myself” is. Am I supposed to be the kind of person who lets people wail on him and take advantage of him just to get some temporary feeling of acceptance, or does God have something much greater than that for me where he’s gonna use the person I am for his glory? It’s gotta be the second one.

I heard that during your college years is when you need the most sleep. I don’t know if that’s necessarily true because I think I could go without a lot of the extra sleep I get, but who knows? I took naps just about every day at school. Instead of spending my afternoons in the library, I’d spend them in my room sleeping. Then, I’d worry that night about all the work I should’ve done during the afternoon. Then, I wouldn’t even do any of the work until I desperately needed to.

I always hated waking up after a nap. My eyes were always dry and my contacts would be enjoying an obnoxious carnival ride on my eyes for the rest of the day. My mouth had a disgusting taste that wouldn’t get washed away with drinking fountain water. And the temperature of the room probably changed a ton and I’d wake up feeling sweaty and gross sometimes. Yeah, naps are like drugs. They sound good at first, but then you suffer the icky consequences later. Soon enough you’re addicted, and you need a nap even though you know things will never be the same anymore. And your friends and family have an intervention for your unhealthy addiction, and after the Nappers Anonymous meetings don’t help you, you have to go to nap rehab where they tape your eyes open, overdose you on caffeine, and play loud music in your ears. And it’s not even good music! It’s like the cast of Glee or something! Covering Slipknot! Over and over and over and— … I think I may need a nap.

My wake ups were usually pretty abrupt, too. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up just because someone opened my door. But one afternoon, I woke up on my own, and it was just plain freaky. I heard that if you woke up during REM sleep, you’d be almost completely paralyzed. It would be hard to breathe and you couldn’t move. I think that’s what happened to me. I woke up on my side, and I couldn’t open my eyes very wide. I could just barely see the outline of the window. I couldn’t move at all, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t even breathe through my mouth. Only my nose. But the big problem was that I had no idea how to become unparalyzed. So I just laid there quietly freaking out and waiting for it to pass.

So is that where I am right now? Where I’ve been for a while now? Paralyzed? The solution to my temporary paralysis was simple, but I was so preoccupied by the problem that I didn’t even think to try the simple solution. All I did to get out of it was roll over onto my back. Yeah, I guess I wasn’t completely hopeless, but my worrying made me think I was. The solution to a spiritual rut is so simple like rolling over, but I haven’t even tried because I’ve just been sitting here worrying about it. I’m a worrywart. I worry about things but don’t do anything about them, and then I suffer the consequences after I let the situation grow. What am I doing? I’m being lifeless, paralyzed, and apathetic hoping it will pass on it’s own. I’m letting the situation get the best of me because I’m worried and ashamed. What should I do? I should get in the Word, pray, put God and his will before my own. All I need to do is roll over and wake up.

I could post the entire Facebook note that I wrote, but it’s extremely long and disorganized. So here’s the Reader’s Digest version of my testimony from last fall (in the form of Alliance Life):
http://alliancelife.org/article.php?id=464

I can’t remember what I did before I started learning guitar. When I say that, it makes it sound like I’ve been playing guitar for forever, but I’ve only been playing for a little over a year and a half. I’m still not even very good at it. But I also can’t really remember what I did before Youtube came around. I mean, seriously. Did I just not watch videos? What did I do? So weird to think about.

Anyway, I can remember why I started teaching myself guitar in the first place: to impress people (specifically, the ladies). Then, I decided that impressing the ladies wasn’t worth the pain my fingers were hardly enduring, so I gave up. Then my adolescent hormones kicked in again, and my agonizing quest to become a troubadour officially began. But not for myself. For the ladies.

When you live in a small town in northeast Ohio, chances are that there’s only about one other guy in a radius of about thirty miles who can play guitar. And considering the depressing, yet bipolar weather of Ohio, that guy is probably a long-haired pothead who never leaves his basement except to go buy vinyl AC/DC albums. The vinyl makes him cool. The weed, not so much. So without a doubt, girls will go for the acoustic guitarist. Unless he’s me, and he’s learning.

Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that I’m no lady killer. Lady killers from Ohio don’t end up going to a small Christian college in north Georgia. I don’t even think lady killer is an appropriate Christian term to use, but as I learned guitar my senior year on high school, I did a lot with it. I played for friends, I led worship in my youth group and during VBS over the summer, I played bass in an awesome band called The Amazing Knee, and I performed “How to Save a Life” by The Fray for a choir show (and now I’m forever haunted by that song). Not surprisingly, I didn’t kill any ladies with any of those performances.

Going to a Christian college ended up being a very humbling experience for me, though. I could no longer impress anyone with my “mad guitar skills” because exactly ninety-two percent of college-aged Christian males outside of Ohio play acoustic guitar, and exactly 100 percent of them are a lot better at it than me. And that’s when I began to examine my thinking and how I play guitar. I mean, I did it for myself. I tried to make myself look good, but it’s really just an instrument. Just about anyone can pick it up, and in a matter of a few weeks be able to play many songs almost flawlessly. So that’s when I decided to take up the harpsichord (but not really).

I could ramble on about this, but honestly, it just makes me feel vain (which should probably make me feel hypocritical, or something … I’m a professional overthinker). So I’ll cut to the chase. I started learning guitar for selfish reasons, and God led me to using it for better reasons, like helping to lead worship in freshmen chapel or writing a song for my friends that I can play around a campfire to share my heart. I think God does that sometimes. He takes our mistakes and selfish actions, and he uses them to give us opportunities to glorify him. It just shows us the redeeming work of God even more, doesn’t it?

Biblical examples: Paul and Barnabas. They had a falling-out, didn’t they? But because they parted ways, they were able to reach even more people than if they stuck together. How about Adam and Eve? If they hadn’t screwed up, God would have never displayed his love for us by sending his Son to die for us. I’m not encouraging you to sin, but just remember that God sees us as righteous now that we’ve been justified by him. God’s not surprised when we sin. He’s not up in Heaven saying, “I just can’t believe he did that. That’s so not like him. I guess there’s really no hope for him anymore.” He sees our mistakes coming, and he knows how to handle them. We are his instruments for glorifying him, so he’s going to use us in every way he can, and that’s beautiful.

My most favorite book is probably The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis. (Read it. It’s really good.) In it, he writes this:

They say of some temporal suffering, “No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they will say, “Let me have but this and I’ll take the consequences”: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say “We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven, : and the Lost, “We were always in Hell.” And both will speak truly.

When God redeems us, he does it 100 percent, and even our past sins become glorious because they’ve led us to where we are today: as people who glorify God. So even though you screw up today, you don’t know how God’s going to use that tomorrow. So don’t feel ashamed and try to hide from God when you mess up. Surrender the sin to him, and see what he’ll do with it.