The Grown Up

My fifth grade year I stopped growing up and decided to be grown up. I had always been opinionated and but with my new found distrust in everyone who crossed my path I decided to add fiercely independent to my character traits. I stopped accepting love and was pretty sure God and the people in my life were all too messed up to give me any even if I wanted it. If I wasn't yelling and slamming doors then I was screaming and crying. I hated every adult in my life. In my eyes they had all failed me in one way or another. It was during this time period I decided no one would have this much control over me ever again. If I could control my emotions and everything I cared about I would never have to feel the pain I had experienced ever again.

God didn't forget about me during this time and neither did my parents who loved me so much. When I was at the end of my sixth grade year my mom finally became fed up with my lack of church attendance. It was a Sunday night and there was a big pay per view wrestling program on that I had planned to watch... little did I know my mom had other plans. She told that night I would be going back to church, no discussion. Like I said I was (and still am) opinionated, stubborn, and independent, in my mind there was no chance she was going to make me go back. If she wanted me there she was going to have to dragged me. Well with a lot of yelling, screaming, kicking, crying...and literal dragging she had me in the car. She had successfully made it down the block before she threatened to pull over and get out at a random church and ask for them to pray for me. Well God and I did not have a good relationship so the last thing I wanted was a church full random people talking to God about me. I told her that if she pulled over I would get out of the car and run away never to be seen again. Given my fragile mental state at the time my mother knew this was not an empty threat and decided to keep driving. She asked me if I wanted to try to go to a new church but that was the last thing I wanted to do. I didn't to be the family who came from the church with the sex pastor everyone read about in the newspaper. Nor did I want to have to explain to a new church what was going on in the event my mother went crazy again. So back to Harvest we went. My mom pulled into the parking lot and thought the battle was over...well it wasn't. I locked myself in the car and refused to get out. Of all the people my mom could have chosen to handle the situation she went straight to our new interim pastor to fix the situation. It started nice with him asking me to get out to which I responded "my mother told me not to talk to strangers and you look awfully strange" he moved on to threats. He told me if I didn't get out of the car he would call the cops and I would go to juvey. I might have been angry but I still had a healthy fear of police so I begrudgingly got out of the car and was taken straight to his office. My shenanigans delayed the evening service by like 15 minutes and I spent the majority of the evening being counseled by the children's minister to no avail. Many months passed until my mom suggested I should go back to church again.

My 7th grade year I began to attend church regularly. It was during this time that Harvest hired a new associate youth pastor. His name was Danny Davis and his spunky wife Stephanie(who was the age I am now when I first met her...weird). When I met them I was immediately drawn to Stephanie. I was weird and immature kinda like an untamed wild dog. I was hyper, smelly, insecure, and would spook at the slightest movement. I had no idea how profound of an impact this family would have on my life at the time I just new I like her. When I first met Stephanie I was going through a phase where I tried to attach to any adult women. Stephanie was the only women who took the time and had the patience to invest in me at a time I was so unfixabley broken. During my 7th grade year I would call Stephanie like 2 to 3 times a week and talk to her on the phone for an hour or more. Each phone called was about the most boring topics like socks, markers, what shirt I just bought or about getting math tutoring over the phone because I didn't listen in class. Stephanie was showing me through her actions who Christ was just like my childhood pastor illustrated who christ was not. It was through my relationship with Stephanie that I regained a desire to pursue my relationship with Christ again.