Confession

I went to confession yesterday.

It is amazing to me to think that I can sin...and God doesn't hold it against me. It's like, what best friends do. I know that if my best friend made a mistake, I wouldn't hold it against her. I would forgive her and continue on with life. But it always seems to me like God is just "some guy up in the clouds with lightning and an angry face" just waiting for you to mess up just so that he can get mad at you. When I was in the confessional talking to the priest, do you know what he said to me? He said "So you made a mistake. It is very good that you are bringing it here to confession, that means that you know it was a mistake. You fell, and now you want to get back up again. So get up again and try again." It was almost the exact opposite of what I was expecting. I was expecting him to tell me..."Now you know what you did was wrong, you must do better. Now for your penance...." and so on and so forth. It has happened to me many times before. I guess confession never really felt like a personal experience. But it did yesterday.

So many times, I feel very patriotic. "Hurray for the USA!" I shout. I wave my American flag and shoot off fireworks and the like. But now I wonder...Do I ever feel patriotic for heaven? For God? And I want to change. I want to be like God's own firework, shooting off at everyone, and everyone wanting to be like me, because of course, fireworks are loud, you always notice them, but they are pretty, and you find yourself oohing and aahhing over them. Yes, I want to be God's firework. I mean, look in the picture at what He did for me. Just giving Him some love back is the least I can do...I mean, come on.