Happy Easter MoFos

Hey would you look at that? It’s Easter. This is a good day. It gives fuck ups like me a chance. But, man what a different perspective I have these days after discontinuing my membership to Christianity.

It’s funny for me to think back on Easters past. It’s pretty gross really. Most years I OD’d on a dangerous mix of jelly beans and judgment.

I remember this girl coming to Sunday School one Easter. I’d never seen her. She said she was going to start coming to church every week. The Sunday School teacher just rolled his eyes as if to say, “Yeah right…you’re one of those once a year Christians…you’re not a real Christian like the rest of us.”

Fuck that guy.

Maybe judgmental dbags like him are the reason more fuck ups like me and that girl don’t go to church more often. Roll your eyes at me. No, really…please do…because the last thing I want to be is a “real Christian”. I don’t want to hang around guys like that too much and catch what they have.

Guys like him taught me that I needed to care so fucking much about what people thought of me. I think part of that was the standard Christian judgment that I so harshly applied, even to myself. It was second nature to judge. We were Christians and had a God who told us to go fix the non-Christians.

What if the “non-Christians” aren’t broken?

What if the fixing that needed to be done was to the narrow way that I thought? I attended church and went to Bible study and put a few bucks in the offering plate, but so what? I felt like shit all the time. I could never do enough. I felt guilty for not tricking my friends into coming to church. I felt like fucking hell if I ever fucked up, which meant I constantly felt like hell.

Something was just off. I followed the righteous path like I was taught, but it was a dead end. My deep shit never got addressed as long as I just went through the motions of Christianity. It’s like Christianity was a bad dream…the kind where you’re trying to run, but never get anywhere.

Part of that, I think is that you get stuck spinning your wheels on the stuff that just doesn’t matter…the surface stuff…following the rules, learning when to roll your eyes at non-Christians, attending church religiously. So, about 5 years ago I got off the Christian treadmill or Christian excer-cycle, because I didn’t want to continue to be stationary. I wanted to be real. I wanted to look at my real shit and figure out why I was so fucked up.

And not in a way that applied this Scripture to my depression and that Christian book to address my shitty self-worth. I wanted to actually get better, instead of continuing to spin my wheels. And really what I needed all along was grace. That’s the simple solution that gave me a chance. That’s the solution that my therapist continues to provide me with week in and week out.

The Christianity I grew up with made me way too hard on others, pointing out their flaws, discussing why what they’re doing is wrong. But, I was also way too hard on myself. So, give yourself a break man. Today isn’t about going to church in your most ridiculously fake clothes. It’s not about religion. It’s about grace man. It’s always been about grace, but the term “Christian” has been cheapened by people who don’t know what the fuck grace is. And that’s the beauty of grace to me. In order to really get it, you really have to be a fuck up.

So, call me a sinner. Call me a fuck up. I don’t fucking care, because these days I can live with myself and as a Christian, I could never say that. I’m a mess, but the point isn’t pretending like you have it all together. The point is knowing that without grace, nothing matters.

That dude thought he was teaching the shit out of Sunday School and I’m sure felt great about himself. But, he was missing the point. A sinner came to church. And he made her not want to come back. I know that feeling.

Once I got kicked out of the house and made friends with a stripper, church friends would come around as long as it was to fix me and make me Christian again. But, if you looked deep enough under my hood, you would have seen that religion only made my condition worse. My heart was broken man…my insides were fucked up. Fixing my outsides wasn’t going to change anything. I already knew how to roll my eyes at people.

But, the Jesus is about real grace, not the cheap kind. That shit was expensive to him. He was a dead man. But, then he rolled away the stone. “TA DA! Hey guys, look who came back to life?” I love that, because it’s my story too…a dead man coming back to life.

I get a second chance. I get grace and holy shit do I need it. I’m lucky. I don’t have to talk like a Christian or walk like a Christian anymore. Thank God. I can just be me and tell my fucked up story and listen to other people’s fucked up stories. All that said, Jesus is my guy. He died to give the fucked up a shot, even if the fucked up are too busy taking jello shots to notice. That’s pretty cool. I appreciate that guy. Thank God for Easter. And thank God for grace. Happy Easter mother fuckers!