Powerful Inspirations Eight Lessons That Will Change Your Life

Chapter One Ins p ira t i o n a l l t h i n g s a r e p o s s i b l e with god. Mark 10:27 I don't remember a time in my life when I didn'believe in God. My faith came in stages. As a young child, there were a few years when my family went to church. Ironically, the church we attended didn't have Bibles. There were some books that had excerpts from the Bible, but I always had questions. Who put those selected passages together? Where were the rest of the scriptures? The message was delivered in an angry tone with a very thick accent. I never quite understood anything that was being said, but I remember feeling guilty, scared, and like I could never measure up. The whole experience felt kind of cold. I never felt any love in that particular congregation. I am sure that same feeling can be found in any place of worship for any faith. My earliest recollection of church was that it didn't feel like a happy place--it was just something that I had to do. The God I knew from that church seemed unkind to me. I didn't really like Him. I was scared of God when I was a child. Maybe it was the way in which the message was delivered, but something about that whole experience really frightened me. I was a little confused about the experience. I think my family may have felt the same way because eventually we all stopped going to church. Nobody ever seemed to have the answers for my questions. When it came time for me to go to church, I didn't want to go. I didn't understand why I couldn't talk directly to the Big Guy myself instead of through a middleman. I didn't get it. My mom told me some people believe that religious leaders are on a different level than regular humans. Hmmm. They're closer to God, and we need them to translate for us. Mom and I had a hard time understanding that belief. As I grew older, I still believed in God, but He wasn't a big part of my life. I always felt like there were two Gods--the God I knew in my head who I loved and the God from church who I didn't much care for. I continued to pray on my own, if only in my head. That God was great. I had some prayers answered the way I wanted them answered, and that made me so happy. The God I prayed to was like a friend--like my buddy. He was always there when I needed Him. I wish I could say that I was always there for Him, but I know I wasn't. I found out that God is not this big killjoy. It took me a long time to understand that God wants to keep us from pain, not pleasure. When I became a teenager, I really began to put my faith and God on the back shelf. I was totally self-absorbed, and the idea of making time for God seemed like a waste to me. I remember regularly sitting in my Spanish class, being really mad at God. I should have been studying, but instead I was pouting. I was upset with God for making me so dorky. I was in a very awkward phase. I was tall and skinny so my pants were always too short. I wore pigtails, and when I cut them off my hair poufed up big. My family didn't know about conditioner-- something I would discover later. I couldn't understand why I didn't fit in and why I didn't have any friends. The girl who had the locker next to mine would kick me on my way to class. Kids made fun of me all the time. I didn't like being different, and I wallowed in teenage angst and self-pity. I would have done anything to fit in with the other kids. I was so tired of feeling alone and lonely. I would have hung out with the most troubled kids just to do whatever it took to have a sense of belonging and acceptance. I remember thinking that I would have slept with boys or taken drugs if it meant someone would like me. In retrospect, I am very thankful that God made me geeky so that doing those things was never really an option. Even the kids who were troublemakers didn't want to be my friends! AsIreland, Kathy is the author of 'Powerful Inspirations Eight Lessons That Will Change Your Life' with ISBN 9780385503082 and ISBN 0385503083.