Hey guys, my name's Jamie. I'm 15 and I will be a sophomore next
year at my high school in Omaha, Nebraska. My parents were both
raised Catholic, so when I was younger we would go to church and
stuff, but my parents weren't really living out their faith like they
should have been, and ended up getting divorced before I was even two
years old. That really sucked for me because for the longest time I
just had to keep going back and forth between my mom and my dad's
house. And pretty much every time my parents saw each other they
ended up getting in a huge fight. It never got physical, but it still
freaked me out since I was so little. I remember crying myself to
sleep a lot just cuz I wished they would get along. And then on top of
that, my dad had a drinking problem. A lot of the times when I would
go over to visit, I would realize he was drunk and I had to have my
mom come pick me back up. I always got really mad at him because I
never understood why he did what he did. One time, right around
Easter, he got super drunk and threatened to kill my mom. That was
the worst thing that happened when he was drunk. It was one of the
scariest things that's ever happened to me.
But basically all that fighting, and my dad drinking and everything
just got me really angry. But instead of dealing with it in a healthy
way I just kept it all inside. I think that's partly because of the
whole being brought up Catholic thing. Like-I knew a God existed, but
I didn't understand that he truly wanted a relationship with me. So
basically, to me, it was just a buncha rules I had to follow to get
into heaven. I remember if there was ever something I didn't want to
do like clean my room or brush my teeth or something .I would think
about it and be like .."well if I want to make it into heaven I better
brush my teeth!!" or clean my room or whatever cuz I really thought
it was good deeds that were gonna get me into heaven. So because of
that I think I was afraid to let out my anger. I thought God just
wanted me to be a perfect little angel all the time or whatever. All
that anger sorta just built up throughout the years.
The summer after 6th grade is when I really started going downhill. I
started listening to really negative music, and watching crappy MTV
shows that totally messed up my mind. I started getting a really bad
attitude, I only wore black, and I couldn't make it like 2 sentences
without using a cuss word. At that point I was mostly living with my
mom, cuz I got sick of going back and forth all the time. Anyways she
got really ticked off because of my attitude and the bad language I
was using. That's when me and her grew really far apart and I got a
little bit more rebellious. At that point I was just really confused
about my life, and my future and everything. I didn't seem to think
anything was gonna make me happy, so I was really freaked out about my
future and didn't know what was going to happen to me.
I was just really confused like that for quite a while .then towards
the end up 7th grade my half-sister invited me and my dad to church.
I ended up going, only because I knew one of my friends went to the
same church. I ended up going to the youth group with him. It was
just really refreshing the first time I went because I had really
missed the Word of God. Ever since I was younger I had been really
curious about the Bible. Every once in a while I would sneak our big
giant fancy Catholic Bible into my room and read it when my mom wasn't
looking. I was really interested in it, but for some reason I didn't
want my parents to know I was- because reading the Bible to yourself
didn't seem like "the Catholic thing to do" so I always thought I
needed to hide it from them. But anyways it was really awesome
hearing so much about God's Word in just one night. I totally just
fell in love with the youth group and started going every week. One
night, and this was .about 2 years ago, the pastor gave an
altar call for everyone who wanted to just give everything to God and
let Jesus take control. I had seen how passionate a lot of the other
kids were, and I knew I needed what they had. I didn't go up to the
altar, but that night I went home and just prayed the prayer of
salvation alone in my room, and totally surrendered everything to God.
He completely turned my life around. I finally understood, you know,
what I was on this earth to do. My attitude and everything just
completely changed. I believe it came just in time, too. I hadn't
done drugs, or smoked, or drank, or anything like that, but I know
that's where I was headed. It's really scary to think about where I
would be right now if I hadn't surrendered my life to God. I'm just
really grateful God grabbed a hold of my heart when He did.
My parents both still have their problems (my mom just can't seem to
be happy, and my dad hasn't fully gotten over his drinking problem),
but now that I know God, I can just give all that stuff to Him. I
know that his will isn't for them to stay like this. His will is for
them to come to know Christ and be changed like I was. It's still
hard for me to keep that faith and believe that they will be changed,
but just makes everything 100 times easier just knowing that God's
with me every step of the way, no matter what happens.
year at my high school in Omaha, Nebraska. My parents were both
raised Catholic, so when I was younger we would go to church and
stuff, but my parents weren't really living out their faith like they
should have been, and ended up getting divorced before I was even two
years old. That really sucked for me because for the longest time I
just had to keep going back and forth between my mom and my dad's
house. And pretty much every time my parents saw each other they
ended up getting in a huge fight. It never got physical, but it still
freaked me out since I was so little. I remember crying myself to
sleep a lot just cuz I wished they would get along. And then on top of
that, my dad had a drinking problem. A lot of the times when I would
go over to visit, I would realize he was drunk and I had to have my
mom come pick me back up. I always got really mad at him because I
never understood why he did what he did. One time, right around
Easter, he got super drunk and threatened to kill my mom. That was
the worst thing that happened when he was drunk. It was one of the
scariest things that's ever happened to me.
But basically all that fighting, and my dad drinking and everything
just got me really angry. But instead of dealing with it in a healthy
way I just kept it all inside. I think that's partly because of the
whole being brought up Catholic thing. Like-I knew a God existed, but
I didn't understand that he truly wanted a relationship with me. So
basically, to me, it was just a buncha rules I had to follow to get
into heaven. I remember if there was ever something I didn't want to
do like clean my room or brush my teeth or something .I would think
about it and be like .."well if I want to make it into heaven I better
brush my teeth!!" or clean my room or whatever cuz I really thought
it was good deeds that were gonna get me into heaven. So because of
that I think I was afraid to let out my anger. I thought God just
wanted me to be a perfect little angel all the time or whatever. All
that anger sorta just built up throughout the years.
The summer after 6th grade is when I really started going downhill. I
started listening to really negative music, and watching crappy MTV
shows that totally messed up my mind. I started getting a really bad
attitude, I only wore black, and I couldn't make it like 2 sentences
without using a cuss word. At that point I was mostly living with my
mom, cuz I got sick of going back and forth all the time. Anyways she
got really ticked off because of my attitude and the bad language I
was using. That's when me and her grew really far apart and I got a
little bit more rebellious. At that point I was just really confused
about my life, and my future and everything. I didn't seem to think
anything was gonna make me happy, so I was really freaked out about my
future and didn't know what was going to happen to me.
I was just really confused like that for quite a while .then towards
the end up 7th grade my half-sister invited me and my dad to church.
I ended up going, only because I knew one of my friends went to the
same church. I ended up going to the youth group with him. It was
just really refreshing the first time I went because I had really
missed the Word of God. Ever since I was younger I had been really
curious about the Bible. Every once in a while I would sneak our big
giant fancy Catholic Bible into my room and read it when my mom wasn't
looking. I was really interested in it, but for some reason I didn't
want my parents to know I was- because reading the Bible to yourself
didn't seem like "the Catholic thing to do" so I always thought I
needed to hide it from them. But anyways it was really awesome
hearing so much about God's Word in just one night. I totally just
fell in love with the youth group and started going every week. One
night, and this was .about 2 years ago, the pastor gave an
altar call for everyone who wanted to just give everything to God and
let Jesus take control. I had seen how passionate a lot of the other
kids were, and I knew I needed what they had. I didn't go up to the
altar, but that night I went home and just prayed the prayer of
salvation alone in my room, and totally surrendered everything to God.
He completely turned my life around. I finally understood, you know,
what I was on this earth to do. My attitude and everything just
completely changed. I believe it came just in time, too. I hadn't
done drugs, or smoked, or drank, or anything like that, but I know
that's where I was headed. It's really scary to think about where I
would be right now if I hadn't surrendered my life to God. I'm just
really grateful God grabbed a hold of my heart when He did.
My parents both still have their problems (my mom just can't seem to
be happy, and my dad hasn't fully gotten over his drinking problem),
but now that I know God, I can just give all that stuff to Him. I
know that his will isn't for them to stay like this. His will is for
them to come to know Christ and be changed like I was. It's still
hard for me to keep that faith and believe that they will be changed,
but just makes everything 100 times easier just knowing that God's
with me every step of the way, no matter what happens.
