Crisis Of Faith Final Draft

When I was younger, I had a crisis of faith when I had to make an important decision that involved my religion. In Elementary school my class was having a class survey on our religious affiliation. I had no idea of my family's faith and I forgot to ask my parents the previous day so I had to guess. We were going around the class asking everyone what their religious beliefs were and my teacher was writing down what we told her because she wanted to see how much students were Buddhists, Christian, Catholic, etc. So when it got to me I said I was a Buddhist hoping that I guessed right. She tallied up the number of students in each religion and we found out which religion had the most supporters in the class. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal if I got it wrong because we were probably not going to think about this ever again. But I was wrong she assigned us a huge essay on our religion explaining what we ate, what we did in our churches, and other stuff. Now I was scared and I really hoped I got it right.

I planned to go home and ask my mom if we were Buddhists and when I asked her she said we were Christians. I was surprised because I thought we were Buddhists. She asked me why I thought that and I explained. I was furious about what had happened that day because I didn't want to tell my teacher I had made a mistake, thinking that I was going to get in trouble. I was stuck, I was either going write an essay about a religion I had no knowledge about or tell my teacher the truth not knowing what the consequences would be. Obviously, I now know that it is not that big of a deal to tell your teacher you made a mistake but I thought it was a huge deal like any ten year old. I later found out that it is disrespectful to lie about your religion but I still did not want to tell my teacher. I ended up writing about Buddhism making up information as I was writing. I turned my essay in and hoped that anyone that was Buddhists wrote about the same things I did.

I don't think anyone else was a Buddhist in my class but my teacher still found out because what I wrote about had nothing to do with Buddhism. So my teacher asked me to stay after class. I was scared out of my mind because I knew I was going to get a long lecture. When school ended, I stayed behind as my teacher had ordered me to. It didn't end up too bad, she just told me that it was bad to lie about your religion and told me what I really believed in and I said I was a Christian. She just told me to write another essay and she would accept it for full credit. I was glad that she let me go easy after all the stunts I pulled but I learned a couple of lessons about the importance of respecting your religious beliefs.

After this experience I decided that I would like to learn more about Christianity but I did not want to go to church. So I asked my mom if she could enroll me into a Sunday school. I would go every Sunday just like church and learn about Jesus, heaven, and other stuff that involve Christianity. This program included games, movies, and plays, all relating to Christianity so we would learn about this religion and still have fun. It was also a good way to meet new friends from all over the Bay Area. But when I got older we started to have homework for it and the amount of activities decreased. After a while I got sick of it and decided to drop out. The school was great and taught me a lot about my religion, which was my goal in the first place so it was worth my time. I’m glad I had this experience with school and my life because it taught me about the type of person I am and also helped me understand Christianity.