Member-only story
Pastor, I Know What I Want To Be When I Grow Up
And it’s a wonderful feeling
During my teen years and in my early 20s, I used to go to my (at the time) stepmom’s Baptist Church. Before going to that church, my self-esteem was at an all-time low. I was still recovering from my nightmare middle school experience.
Being belittled, undermined, and picked on to kingdom come by other kids in a small town in North Carolina made me want to hide from the world and stay hidden.
The school library was one of the few places where I felt safe at school. My bullies rarely went there, unless they had to. I could get lost in different worlds through books that I was reading at the time.
9th grade was going okay for me — until an embarrassing experience in JROTC class destroyed the little progress I was making.
We were given an assignment where we had to act like we were attorneys and speak in front of the whole class.
I wasn’t a fan of this assignment because the last thing I wanted to do then was speak in front of other students/teachers.
The partner I was assigned to for this assignment, didn’t want to work with me on it (like most kids I was partnered up with then).
