The Show Goes On

"So no matter what been through, no matter what you into
No matter what you see when you look outside your window
Brown grass or green grass, picket fence or barbed wire
Never ever put them down, you just lift your arms higher
Raise 'em 'til your arms tired, let 'em know you here
That you struggling, survivin', that you gon' persevere"
       --Lupe Fiasco "Show Goes On"

Ok, so Tyler took a big leap on here with his personal faith walk, and it inspired me to do the same.  More specifically, the major moments of mine.

The thing that I believe shaped me the most, positively and negatively, happened to me in kindergarten, and is really hard for me to talk about. Up to this point I've only told a very small group of people.

For those of you who don't know, the house I've lived in since I was one is about 3 and a half blocks from school, so I've always walked.  Starting sometime in the winter of my kindergarten year, a kid started bullying me as a walked back to my house after school. He lived another two blocks or so past my house. I went to the catholic school, so I had a 6 minute head start until the public school was released, but he had a bicycle and would always catch up to me. He told me he was a senior, and that he was just short for his age, and I believed him.  Looking back now, he was probably in 4th grade.

Regardless, a kindergartener is the bottom of the food chain, so I didn't have a chance. It started with him calling me names, and pushing me, sometimes hitting me. Eventually, it elevated to a point where he would make me go into a driveway of an elderly neighbor nearby and drop my pants.  Then he would call me names and finally leave me alone so that I could go home. It was so embarrassing. I felt like I had no control over the situation, and he had threatened to hurt me if I told anyone, so I never told a soul until last year.

Eventually it stopped, and I started walking to and from school with a friend that lived nearby.

It's because of this that I have trouble trusting people, until I know them better. It's hard for me to open up, especially about how I feel, because at that point I learned that hiding my emotions got me through..

But like I said earlier, I also was affected positively by this. Being put through that has made me want to have a positive impact on the younger people around me. I still remember that time, and because of it I now do everything I can to leave a good impression on some of the younger kids at my school. It has also taught me to be not only a good listener, but to read between the lines when someone is upset, because maybe if I had someone like that it could have been put to a stop earlier.

The final thing that this taught me was forgiveness. Even though I still haven't fully forgiven that person, I have started to.

Jump ahead to my freshman year in high school. Our school isn't exactly bad, but then (and now) there was some immoral activity going on at parties. Towards the end of freshman year, I was getting invited to these parties, but I chose not to go to them if I knew there was alcohol there. However, as summer got underway, I was at some parties with friends who began suggesting that I start going to those parties. I was very close to going down the wrong path when an older friend suggested I go to TEC.

Both of my sister's had been involved, so I figured, "Why not, I don't have any other plans."  This decision ended up being a major life changer. Even though I had been raised in a fully catholic, church-every-sunday family, and had attended catholic school, my faith had never really developed.

Now to wrap it up.  "Why include the quote in the beginning?", you may ask.

I believe that who we are is based on the trials we go through, and that perseverance is one of the best qualities a person can have. My trials helped mold me into the person God intended me to be. It's easy to look at the bad things, and forget that the good things happened. When I look back at my life, I know I was blessed, despite the few bad things. I'm at a point in my faith where I feel comfortable moving on to the next part of my life, because I know God will watch out for me, and that the trials I face will only help me grow stronger.