Confirmation Essay

by Kerrie Pipkin

I once was a lost unbeliever. I thought, "Why believe in something that you have no idea what it is?" I felt unloved. I bottled my hatred up inside of me and there was no one for me to talk to and no way of getting rid of it.

One day, when I was in the 7th grade, my step brother, Matthew Berry (he once lived in Lone Wolf), came to live with my family. He was a die-hard Christian. He stopped drinking and doing other things he should not have been doing, so that he wouldn't miss church. He would try and talk to me about church, but I would tune him out and end the conversation with an, "OK, Matt. I'll pray." I didn't lie. I did pray, but the only thing I would pray for was to have a caring family that would involve the whole family instead of just some of it. Well, I gave God a time-limit of a week to get Gordon, my step-dad out of my house, and if he wasn't out in a week, then God didn't love me. Well, he wasn't out–so I figured God didn't love me. If He did, I wouldn't be in a ‘family' that didn't love me.

I stopped praying for about a year. About 6 months later, Gordon and his kids moved to Lawton and my mom, sisters, and I moved to Lone Wolf. I was still going through my "God doesn't love me; He wants me unhappy" faze. At the beginning of the year, one of Kim's (my sister) friends asked her if she wanted to go to Jesus Club. Kim talked to Katy (another sister), and said, "Please go, Katy. They give you food." So Kim and Katy went to Jesus Club. They would come home telling me what they had learned. I acted enthused, but it made me angry, because, ‘Why did God make them happy and not me?"

At Christmas last year, Lena Crowe wanted me to sing ‘Silent Night' with her at Christmas in the Park. As much as I didn't want to, I did it because she was my friend. That night after I sang and I was home laying in bed, a lot of questions popped into my head. So I went back to Jesus Club–and kept going back. Finally, I trusted Mona and talked to her. As I continued to go to Jesus Club, I became a C.I.T.–that is, Counselor in Training. Walking and working with the little kids at Jesus Club and seeing them learn that Jesus loves them and that He died on the cross for them made me think about myself. What if those little kids had felt unloved because people didn't acknowledge or help them?

If we as a Christian church family can get the point across to the youth and public outside the church to realize that Jesus died for them and loves them to death–literally– even when they feel unloved, we can be a part of saving an unbeliever just like this church has done for me.

Now I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth, who gave His only Son to die for us sinners. And I stand here today to confirm that I am no longer unhappy. I have Jesus in me and He is living in my heart. I want to tell people about Him and get people to know about Him. No one on earth should (or has to) feel the way I felt without Jesus. He is the way for you, He is the way for me, and He is the only way for this world!