yeah, yeah...I blog a lot. Get over it.

I'm a very emotional person and I always have been. It does not take much for me to cry while watching a movie or TV show. I've cried many times reading sad books, and I wept out loud while watching Titanic at the age of 13. Heck - even today I cried watching a TV commercial!

Today I was reading in St. Augustine's "Confessions" about his boyhood, schooling years. He was talking about learning to read in Greek and Latin and these few sentences caught my attention:


"For what more miserable than a miserable being who commiserates not himself; weeping the death of Dido for love to Aeneas, but weeping not his own death for want of love to Thee, O God. Thou light of my heart, Thou bread of my inmost soul, Thou Power who givest vigour to my mind, who quickenest my thoughts, I loved Thee not. I committed fornication against Thee, and all around me thus fornicating there echoed, "Well done! well done! for the friendship of this world is fornication against Thee; and "Well done! well done!" echoes on till one is ashamed to be thus a man. And all this I wept not, I who wept for Dido slain..."


St. Augustine is mourning the fact that he wept for a fictional character's death while his own very real spirit was dying for lack of loving Christ. It's obvious from the next few lines that he did fall head over heels in love with Christ by referring to him as the "light of my heart" and "bread of my inmost soul." This made me think: how many times have I wept over a fictional movie or TV or book character's death compared to weeping over the progressive death because of sin in the lives of real souls all around me? Too many times, that's for sure.

I honestly cannot remember a time where I haven't loved Jesus - I've grown up deeply rooted in the Christian faith. At the same time, though, I do remember times where I chose other things ahead of Christ. I've chosen to love the world and celebrate the things of the world instead of the things of God. How many tears have I shed over this fact compared to the tears I've shed over fictional characters?

May God give me the ability to use even my emotions for His glory - to weep with those who need it, and also to weep for those who don't even know they need it.