That little kid in Sunday School who...

By Katelyn ~

As an inhabitant of the Bible Belt, where church is a very important part of a person's social life, I had a strange upbringing to say the least. The small town where I grew up was very unforgiving of anyone differing slightly from their ideal view of Evangelical Protestantism. I didn't understand it when I was younger, but I was different.

I was that kid in Sunday school who dropped jaws when she said that she thought the stories didn't make sense, and played Pokemon on her GameBoy in secret during sermons. I had a resurgence of hope in the years before I became a teenager that I could believe in God, and that my doubt would be cured by reading the Bible. So I read bits and pieces, but I started going to church less and less.

With the teenage years came change, and I eventually realized that I didn't believe, stopped going to church altogether. I thought that no one would care. I told one friend my opinions, and the word got out. The weird looks began. Bunches of people tried to invite me to their respective churches upon immediate knowledge that I didn't belong to one, and scoffed when I politely declined. The truth is, I was just happy that I didn't have to pretend anymore.

I've come to realize that we all are that kid in Sunday school, with the confusion about the stories that had been drilled into our heads since our memories began. Most of us shut our mouths, and let our minds be changed be the repetition of those confusing stories, until they become truths to us. Some, however, let the confusion flourish, and we thrive on it.