Assignment Four – Jessica Ewing

I was raised in a Christian household. In fact, my mother may be the most religious person that I've ever known. I'd been going to church since I was born, and I'd loved it, at least up until middle school.

Not only was middle school that strange point of my life where I was discovering just how awkward and socially inept I am, it was also a point in time where I found I wasn't fitting in with the other middle-schoolers there. I was challenging what my ministers were telling me, which didn't make me popular among my peers. I wasn't an obedient follower, blindly agreeing with whatever the preacher told me to believe. I was too curious for my own good; I wanted to know why I was supposed to believe what this guy was telling me, and I wasn't receiving the answers I wanted from anyone.

There was no specific moment where I realized those answers didn't exist. It was at some point during the early months of sophomore year, though, when I truly decided that I wasn't going to ignorantly follow the preaching of a man based off of a book of relative fiction. I knew the Bible, and I knew its contradictions, and I was frustrated and tired of dealing with the blatant disregard of the accusations of hypocrisy thrown its way. I refused to get up for church, and told my parents I didn't believe in or agree with this idea of Christianity anymore.

Of course, my parents weren't ecstatic about this new revolution of mine. My mother went on a screaming tirade, ranting on how as long as I was in her house, I was going to follow by her beliefs. The reaction my personal decision had on her was enough to permanently damage our relationship; now the topic of religion no longer shows up at our dinner table conversations.

I stand by my decision, though. In the Bible, there's an analogy: we are sheep, and Jesus is our shepherd. But literature says sheep follow along blindly, and if that's the case, I am no sheep.