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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Day and Night (07/10/14)
There was once a beautiful young girl by the name of Amanda who was raised by a loving Christian family and homeschooled by her mother. Her parents were themselves children of Christian parents, and from what they’d learned in their faith when young, they likewise did with Amanda. They dutifully took her to church each week where she attended Sunday school and when older, services with the adults.

The church offered the typical variety of programs for their young people including VBS, church camp, and trips to special event conferences. With all this instruction available through their denomination, and because Amanda’s mother worked so hard with her during the week, her parent’s spent little time or energy schooling her in the tenets of faith, leaving that instruction to the church family.

As Amanda grew it became evident that she had a highly inquisitive mind with an extraordinary intellect. Her mother fostered that as best she could, but realized there were areas in the education curriculum she was unequipped to teach.

The most crucial of her mother’s inadequacies was writing. It was in this subject that Amanda had exhibited great interest and proficiency. To make up for this lack her parents placed her in a secular program to augment her development.

Three times each week Amanda attended writing class and learned the various forms of writing, demonstrating early on a great talent with fiction. This pleased her instructor. To better encourage her the instructor began asking Amanda many questions pertaining to the deeper things in life in order to extract the emotional element from her that would intensify what she wrote.

The instructor probed into her faith and learned the Christian history of her family. Soon he asked her questions she couldn’t answer, and she pondered them day and night. She approached her mother with these queries, and when she couldn’t respond satisfactorily Amanda went to her father.

Neither of her parents regularly read the Bible. They had never been encouraged to do so; the balance of what they knew came from the pastor’s message each week. Now in her teens Amanda realized that she had a gap in her knowledge. She was a voracious reader and to rectify the breach in what she knew she read the entire Bible through several times. As she did the writing instructor’s questions plagued her.

She began to see inconsistencies, which no one in her church could counter. Her instructor helped her to discover more. When her doubts had grown to sufficient strength she confronted her parents.

“I no longer believe the Bible is God’s Word. In fact, I no longer believe in God.”

This declaration shocked her parents. Her father covered his face with his hands and shook his head in dismay. Her mother burst out in tears. They tried to argue with her, but Amanda had the intellectual basis to make her case.

Amanda’s atheism became full blown. She realized her parents had let her down. They had, after all, forced her to spend hours each week in a useless exercise of faith – one they couldn’t even explain. It left her bitter, and in the stories she wrote she began to glorify all that didn’t pertain to God.

She despised Christians who tried to evangelize her and often caused them to question their own beliefs through her own anti-Christian reasoning. For those believers who remained firm, it didn’t matter if they approached her with the love of God through His Son or of His judgments upon unbelievers dying in their sins: she scoffed. None of it was true; it was all fiction.

There came a time in the history of mankind’s rebellion and disobedience when God declared His patience at an end. Upon an unsuspecting world His Son returned with a trumpet call to bring home those who believed in Him before He unleashed His wrath.

Great confusion reigned in that day. By then Amanda had forgotten all she’d read. Wrath poured from the heavens. Many died through the plagues and disasters. In a small corner of her mind Amanda realized that God was behind all this. But in her pride and self-sufficiency she knew better. She didn’t believe in Him; with the rest of the world she refused to repent. She simply shook her fist at the heavens.
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This article has been read 819 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Lollie Hofer 
07/18/14
Interesting take on this week's topic. Unfortunately, this is happening to a lot of our young people. Thanks for sharing.
Virgil Youngblood 
07/18/14
I like the way you increased the tension throughout this story. The first sentence begins like a fairy tale. I think it would work better if you began Amanda was ... The story certainly relates to life today in many families. Well done.
Brenda Rice
07/20/14
You did well progressing the tension in the story. This hits close to many homes in America.

Thanks for sharing.
C D Swanson 
07/22/14
An extremely well written entry that reflects issues that plague society today.

Intense read!

God bless~
Sheldon Bass 
07/23/14
A good story dealing with pertinent and important issues today. I think you did a good job with this one.

Perhaps it could improve with a hook at the beginning. I felt the story was bit slow in gaining traction. Maybe some of the conflict up front would help.

Overall good entry. Keep up the great work!
Shann Hall-LochmannVanBennekom 
07/24/14
This is a potent, yet extremely sad story. You did a fine job developing Amanda as she grew.

I'd have related even more if you had included some dialog in it. Using dialog is a wonderful way to paint a picture for the reader. For exampke: The writing instructor challenged Amanda. "Do you really believe God destroyed the entire world with a flood?"
Amanda shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know, it does seem kind of mean. What kind of a God would want to wipe out the whole world?" Amanda chewed on her lip as she pondered question after question. She sought out her parents. "How do you know Jesus is a Savior and not just a good man?"
Horrified, her mom's eyes nearly bulged out of her head. "You just have to believe."
Amanda rolled her eyes and snorted at her mother's naivety.
Of course this isn't perfect and may not be the direction you want to go, but my adding just a few lines of dialog, the reader is able to understand what and why Amanda is doubting.

I admire the courage to be true to the ending. Often people like to wrap everything into a neat bow, but you kept it real. In my opinion, that is like slapping the reader against the head and stating we don't all live happily ever after. Time to wake up and act! This is a message we all need for it's far too easy to become complacent and not care. You did an awesome job in showing how important it is to tell others about Jesus.