“I have committed fornication, adultery, pride, arrogance, insult, blasphemy, uncontrollable laughter, drunkenness, gluttony, overeating, hate, envy, greed, love of money, covetousness, self-love, love of glory, theft, injustice, profiteering, jealousy, slander, lawlessness. I have sullied, corrupted and enslaved every sense and member of my body, becoming completely a workshop of the devil.”

– The Watchful Mind, by a Monk on Mount Athos

This is exactly who I am. Exactly the child that God never left. Never forgot. Never abandoned. He knows precisely who I am, and yet has still loved me.