i have a mouse in my house. he’s been there for a while. my old roommate actually shot him with an airsoft gun one time. i should probably get a trap and get rid of him but he really doesn’t bother me that much. there are times when i get annoyed and want to get rid of him and others where i don’t mind at all.

i actually hadn’t seen the mouse in quite a while. i don’t think i’d seen him since back in october where he’d somehow gotten in the trash can and another roommate tried to get rid of him and he got away.

friday night around 3am (or is that friday morning?) is when i saw him again.

i couldn’t sleep on friday night. i was up the entire night. i went in the kitchen multiple times throughout the night to get something to drink. at one particular time i walked in there, went to open the refrigerator, and saw the mouse on the stove. he kind of startled me because i wasn’t expecting him to be there. then, right after he saw me, he immediately took off and went and hid away from me.

and maybe it was because i was dead tired, but it was right there in the kitchen with that mouse that i learned something about myself and god.

the mouse was doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. he thought because it was three in the morning that i wouldn’t be there to see him and that he could get away with it. right when he saw me, he did whatever he could to get away and hide in hopes that he wouldn’t get in trouble (or killed really).

i do that a lot with my sins. i think that because no one’s around to see it, or because no one is getting hurt by it, that i can get away with it. i try to hide my struggles and problems from everyone else and think that somehow since no one else can see me, neither can god. then something will happen and i’ll realize yet again that god knows exactly what i’m doing and i go run and hide.

i feel like i’m not “good enough” to pray.

i feel like god won’t want to talk to me after he catches me.

i feel like god will be ashamed of me.

those are all natural feelings. if we were to do something that was against what a friend or family member had asked us or instructed us to do, all of those feelings would be legitimate feelings and would have a basis behind them. however, god’s not like them.

even when we screw up, god’s there just waiting for us to come back. he doesn’t get ashamed of us. he wants us to come back to him. it’s so hard to get my mind around the fact that nothing i can do will ever make him stop loving me but that’s the truth. god will always love me and he’ll never leave me. there’s nothing i can ever do to be “good enough” to go to him but luckily i don’t have to be “good enough.”

i don’t have to run and hide whenever i screw up.

i don’t have to feel like i’m not good enough or that god’s ashamed of me.

all i have to do is say i’m sorry and ask for forgiveness.

and that’s much easier than trying to hide from god.

say your prayers and take your vitamins.

have a nice day.

-jonathan