Religious Changes

When I was younger, church and religion was always pretty consistent in my life. My family went to church every Sunday and, although I had started them a little late, I had my faith formation classes once a week. Sometime around like fourth or fifth grade this consistency kind of dropped off. Church every week just did not happen and although I continued going to the classes, any effort towards them was pretty half-assed. I was just going through the motions.

Fast forward some and changes in my family started having us back at church (granted this time I was going to a Lutheran one and not the previous Catholic one) on a fairly consistent basis. We would go almost every week, especially during the school year, but it didn’t really seem to mean anything to me. I really did not enjoy going to this church as it just seemed boring and pointless to me. Unfortunately, I was forced to go, however that is just a grand narrative of a child. Doing things you would rather not and just listening to your parents.

Onward to high school and sometime during my junior year I started hanging out with a different group of friends whose families were extremely religious. These people got me “back on the right track” as my Catholic priest would have said. At this point I was much freer to do what I wanted without as many restrictions being set by my parents. I ditched my family’s church for the most part and started going to Catholic masses again. Sometimes by myself or with my sister, sometimes with some friends, or even sometimes with my friends’ families. I’ve had these types of changes going back and forth throughout my life depending on different circumstances and over a number of different areas. I’m now in college and church has again become lost to me. Hopefully someday I’ll find it again.