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Topic: Adolescence/Teen Years (07/16/09)
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TITLE: To Each Their Own Journey | Previous Challenge Entry
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07/20/09 -
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July 19, 2009
The year was 1977. I was seventeen years old. My mother and I decided to attend the church service at the Trinity United Methodist Church in our town. We had never been religious, nor did we practice any Christian rituals in our family. We had decided to attend this church service because we felt that it was time to seek God. Even then we knew the world was in trouble. Everything going on in the world was unsure: the relationship between the U.S and Russia, the future of the Middle East, and the beginning of serious economic debt for our country.
In my mind the service was typical of what goes on in any church service: listen to a lesson, stand up and sing a hymn, sit down, say a prayer, listen to another lesson, stand up and sing another hymn, sit down, put money in the plate as it gets passed down the aisle, then the grand finale of the sermon.
As we were leaving the church, my mother had tears streaming down her face. She was sobbing and trying to catch her breath. I knew the service had done something to her, but I didn’t know what. I felt it best to not probe further for I could make it worse by intruding in to something that was truly none of my business. I felt obligated to comfort my mother and did my best on our walk home. She was calmed down by the time we got home.
That day was forgotten and we continued to go to church with my father joining us. We got ourselves confirmed as members of the Methodist Church. I got involved with the Senior High Fellowship Group and received a warm graduation dinner at the pastor’s home along with the other kids graduating that year.
Now, thirty-two years later, I look back on that day my mother cried, all the services I had attended, and my involvement with the Senior High Group. What I didn’t know then, I know now. My mother was on a journey as I am now. One’s journey is done alone. Nobody can interfere. The journey is between the individual and God. I have cried in my journey and been afraid of what could happen, but the Lord was there to comfort me and assure me that everything would be okay. I didn’t understand the practices and rituals of the service as I do now. I didn’t know what it meant to be a disciple of Christ. I didn’t know what it meant to be faithful.
Thirty-two years later and we still exist as a human race despite our fears and concerns of the world then. It is by the Grace of God that we have all been fed, clothed, and housed all this time. And it will be by the Grace of God that we will enter into the kingdom of heaven. It is then that I know I will have fulfilled the expectations of me and be invited to a warm feast in the Lord’s home along with other Christians.
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