As I rode with my friends Lillian and Jimmy to the movie theater the mood was more or less jovial. Looming somewhere in the background there was an uneasy feeling though. We were on our way to watch The Passion of The Christ at Regal Cinema. After making a quick stop at Wendy’s we were then on our way to the theater to meet up with a few more friends from Crosswalk. The tickets were divvied up and we meandered to our seats by 9:09. We still had another twenty-one minutes before the movie was scheduled to begin. This time was spent half-heartedly watching a series of commercials for NBC and TNT. While these various advertisements for ER, Law & Order, and Judging Amy were being paraded before my eyes I attempted to devise some foolproof plan to keep myself from crying during the next two hours. I abhor crying in front of other people. So I figured if I can manage to just stuff down any overwhelming emotion that surfaces I’ll be just dandy…right? After all I can deal with it later. I’ll just go cry in the women’s restroom or something when the credits start to roll.

Oh yes, this foolproof plan worked so well it got me through the first four minutes of the movie without tearing up. I was gone from the first time Jesus uttered “Abba.” It was so different from the mechanical voice I hear in my head when I think of Jesus speaking. His voice was raw with emotion, like that of a child, not devoid of it. He didn’t address God solemnly as “father” like the grown-up son turned family diplomat or persuasively as “daddy” like the teenage daughter who wants to borrow the car. Jesus cried “Daddy”, “Abba,” with intimacy and longing, as does a child reaching for the comfort of His Father’s arms. I feel as though all of what I experienced during the film can in no way be accurately summed up in words. The best account I can offer is in stifled sobs and sniffles. I would want no one to experience the horrific pain I saw endured on my behalf. I am unworthy of such a sacrifice or love, but so in need of it.

As we left the theater, one of the many thoughts reverberating in my head was of a playful, loving, and passionate Jesus. He was not someone who was aloof and impersonal like I frequently make Him out to be. To think that the only perfect being in all of this world and beyond loves me…me! Someone so filthy, unfaithful, and detestable in her own sight is looked upon with love by her God. I’m not talking about love like you love your cat (insert dog there if you prefer) either. Who loves their pet enough to die for them? To be scourged and mocked and bleed for them? Certainly not me. I’m talking about immeasurable, intense, personal love.
Something I can’t even describe because I’ve run from it so often. Nevertheless, Jesus still chose to die for me…because He loves me. Why, I may never be able to truly grasp. I have done and can do nothing that would merit such an undeserved act. And yet, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Change your major. That thought is enough to seize any college Junior with unprecedented terror. The past three years, the entirety of your college education, come under relentless scrutiny. Who is the interrogator fueling this examination you ask? Me. I have become both the defendant and the prosecutor. So why not stick it out? After all it’s only another year or two. Or is it? Maybe after a couple years I would no longer be sitting in a lecture hall taking notes, but rather sitting behind a desk or lab table armed with all sorts of bizarre technology. Consequently, only my environment will have changed, not the predicament I now find myself in. What is it about the lacquered strokes of a Bic pen on a stark white page that spark a brand of exhilaration in my being? Was I created to write; to play with the malleability of the English language? Or is this merely a childish pipedream that I should have outgrown with the onset of puberty, a foolish fantasy of my idle mind? Only time will tell. And perhaps, in time, I will be taking a road less traveled by.