"Hey Blake, could I talk to you?" I asked.
"Sure, what's up?" he replied.
"Well, I have some questions about the sermons and stuff..."
"Oh, great! I'd be happy to talk about them with you."
"Thanks." That made me feel a lot less awkward about this whole situation.
"Do you want to sit down?" Blake asked.
"Sure, yeah," I said. We walked to the chapel and found some seats in the waiting area. There was a ping-pong table and a vending machine out there too, but both were unoccupied. The coast was clear.
"Okay, shoot," said Blake.
That was my cue to ask away. "Well, I don't know how to say this without hurting people's feelings, but...I don't really understand the sermons Pastor Brett is speaking on."
"Don't feel bad. We all have times of doubt and confusion. What is it you're not understanding?"
"All of it," I sighed.
"Oh. Is there a particular reason why?"
"I guess because I've never heard it before? In all my science classes, they talk about evolution. And I believe the teachers. But then I came here, and everyone says evolution is wrong and that God created the earth and everything in it."
"Ah. I see."
"It's just a lot to take in. And the order in which God created the world—if he did—seems totally wrong. How could he make light and dark before there was night and day? Or a moon and stars?"
"Rain, I don't know why God created the earth in the order he did. All I know is that I believe it."
I bit my lip, something I did when I was pondering something confusing. I could grasp that people believed in God and that what the Bible says is true, but how did they know for sure? I asked Blake the same thing, and he answered with: "I guess all I can say is, seeing is not believing. You just have to have faith."
I knew he was trying to help, but still, nothing he said made any sense. I needed someone who had been in my shoes. And clearly, Blake had not, because he wasn't helping at all.
"I can't promise you that you'll always understand everything the Bible says. Honestly, no one does. But I can promise you this: God created you in his image, and he loves you very much."
"Yeah, okay."
I'd heard it all before. "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." Yeah, yeah. It still didn't give me an answer to my question. I guess I'd have to find answers elsewhere.
YOU ARE READING
7 Days {edited}
Ficção AdolescenteRain isn't the church-going type. She's been burned out by her previous congregation, who judged her because of her family's decisions and lifestyles. Her teachers in school speak about evolution, and Rain pretty much agrees with what they're saying...
