I’ve never been terribly into Stephen King as an author. No knock against him — he has an amazing body of work and has had an inarguable impact on the culture over the past 45+ years. I just never got drawn into his works, perhaps because, to the extent I got into horror fiction, it was Dean Koontz who captured my interest — and he has a fairly prolific bibliography, as well. (“Watchers” is still one of the best reads ever. Highly recommend it.)

I don’t follow King’s social media, though was vaguely aware that he had a presence because I’d occasionally see something he said retweeted into my timeline — usually something that was irksome and confirmed to me that he and I reside on different, political planets. Frankly, I don’t care all that much about that — it certainly wouldn’t keep me from reading his work or enjoying movies when/if time permitted, and I were so inclined. (If a piece of work is good and piques my interest, its author’s politics rarely scare me off. I can generally separate the two, and I don’t subscribe to the notion of viewing every person and every action through the lens of politics.)

Yesterday morning, as I was still wiping the sleep out of my eyes, this tweet from him rolled past:

Jesus was not on your side.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) March 19, 2021

Hmm. That seemed harsh (as I’m sure it was intended.) I took a couple of minutes to breeze through some of the replies. They weren’t encouraging, either consisting of verbal high-fives or apoplexy. (Such is Twitter, right?)

My instinctive reaction was indignance. But then it dawned on me how sad a statement King’s actually was — and how widely he missed the point (and his mark.)  So this was my reply:

He was and is. He’s on yours, too. Hope someday you realize just how much. https://t.co/EY1q3mu8ie

— Susie Moore (@SmoosieQ) March 20, 2021

I know — beyond all doubt — that Jesus is on my side. And it’s not because of my conservatism or how I vote, nor is it in spite of it. It isn’t because of anything I say or do — or can ever say or do. It’s because of Him. It’s because He is my Lord and Savior. It’s because He came for me, to save me — but not just me. Each and every one of us — including Stephen King.

And, as so often happens, today’s message from church dovetailed right into this. I’ve cued it up to the pertinent portion but encourage you to watch the whole service. It’s just…as soon as I heard this…I was immediately reminded of my early Saturday morning Twitter brush with Stephen King.

“Every human life bears the image of God. You will never look into the face of someone for whom Christ didn’t come to seek and to save to the point of death.”

So, yes, Stephen. Jesus is on my side. And He’s on yours. And I do hope you come to know this. Because there is no love greater and no peace beyond that which you’ll experience, once you truly do.