Haylstorm

Why I grew up confused

I grew up in a very typical "Christian household". I say "Christian" because, like most families, we went to church and for 3 hours of the week we were a good, Christian family.

For the majority of my childhood it was very average. Two parents, one younger brother, and my grandparents, who lived down the street and were always over. The only abnormality was the fact that my mother has a disability called Spina Bifida. Most people have never heard of it due to the fact that only about 1,500 children every year are born with it. My mothers disability didn't stop her from doing anything a normal mother could do, it just made things a little harder physically, and caused me to learn to be a little more independent at a young age since she couldn't really carry me around or stand for long durations without her wheelchair or crutches.

As for my dad, he was a truck driver the majority of my life and was rarely home. I was a stereotypical "daddy's girl", to the point where I would cry when he left for work and stop when he got home. When he was home everything seemed right and picture perfect. We stayed going to church off and on, we knew how to perfect our "church faces", and we constantly tried to be a "Christ-like" family, but fighting and anger always seemed to take over. However, most times things were okay, and there were never really any dangerous fights, spankings that weren't deserved, or scorning that was uncommon.

Growing up I got into an awful habit of lying. Anything from saying I went to the bathroom when I really didn't, to saying I cleaned my room when I really just shoved everything in the closet. I had no idea these little white lies would follow me and become a nasty habit as I grew up.

When I was 8 I got "saved", but I had a huge misconception that the salvation prayer was one that you should say daily. Every night before bed I recited the "ABC's" of being saved and thought that meant I was going to heaven. However, since I didn't have many sins to repent from at age 8 so there wasn't exactly a huge change of heart or a monumental turn from any bad habits. Every night I would just say "dear Lord I admit that I'm a sinner, I believe you died and rose again, and I confess that Jesus is Lord. Amen" and really the only thing that changed was that I thought this meant was that I was finally "in" with the cool kids in church because I was finally "saved".