Friday, February 18, 2011

Testimony Assignment

I am originally from Mexico, but came to the United States after my dad died at a young age. If you know anything about latin american countries, you know that they are 95% Catholic. So I was raised in the "Catholic Church". Catholic means "universal". I went to church every Sunday with my family, we sat in the front row and I did everything I was supposed to do. I stood up, sat down, and kneeled when I was supposed to. But the catholic church is full of rituals and repeated prayers written by people hundreds of years ago. I knew about this guy named Jesus everyone was talking about, and I believed in God. I even understood that Jesus was supposed to be the son of this God and that he had supposedly died on a cross 2,000 years ago for me and all of mankind. I knew all of this because it had been engrained in me at an early age. But it wasn't until my mom sent me to a private christian school that I began to understand this concept of christianity. My teacher's and classmates were different than the kids at public school. They seemed happier and more fulfilled. One day, my teacher was telling a story about Abraham and Isaac in the bible. Abraham was Isaac's father and Isaac was his ONLY son. God asked Abraham to kill his own son just because he said so. I was so shocked, and even more shocked when Abraham agreed to do it and would have to if this angel hadn't stopped him. It was the first time that I thought about a father killing his own son that way. And I began to understand God and how he let his own only son die for the worlds sins. So after that, christianity just made more sense to me. I knew I was what they called a sinner, someone who messes up. I knew that I wanted God to forgive me and I understood that Jesus really was real and died for me and that he loved me. It was the first time that church meant something to me, I viewed religion differently. Not as a set of rituals where you just go through the motions. But as a relationship with that God that gave up his son for me.