New Believers Of God

CHAPTER SIX

Every Monday after school, I attended CCD across the street from St. Margaret Mary's, and needless to say I wasn't the biggest fan of it. Going to junior high was already enough, and the last thing I needed was more school on top of it, so for me, this was pure torture. But once again, I had no choice.

The room itself was your average size, mostly occupied by a few tables for us students, plus a desk up front with a chalkboard behind it.

I knew most of the kids in my class but none of them as well as the guys, not that we had much of a chance to socialize anyway. At the very most, we would have a few minutes before starting, then our focus was entirely on the lecture, and by the time it was over, we just wanted to go home.

When five o'clock hit, our teacher, Ms. Cora Crane, entered the room. She was younger than most of the other teachers, though not as young as Hunter or Kenneth. By the looks of it, I would probably say late thirties.

After attendance was taken, we began with the standard introduction.

"Hello." said Ms. Crane "Welcome to sixth grade CCD."

She then pulled a stack of textbooks out from her desk and handed one to each of us.

"Please open these to chapter one."

Together, we flipped through the pages until finding the desired section. When I got there though, I was met with an image I was all but too familiar with. Right there on the paper, looking up at me, was the ever so powerful savior Jesus Christ, holding his hands out and smiling.

It was a beautiful picture, I must admit. But at that moment, I couldn't help but wonder something else.

Is this really what Jesus looked like? For somebody who lived so many centuries ago, before things such as paintings or photographs existed, who would have any proof that this depiction, a light skinned man with wavy brown hair, was truly accurate. For all we knew, it could just be a wild guess, and a completely wrong guess at that.

On the following page however was another thing I recognized. The Apostles' Creed.

"Who would like to read this?" Ms. Crane asked us.

Surprisingly, nobody volunteered, and she eventually picked one of us herself, and by pure luck it just so happened to be me.

"I believe in God," I began "The father almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the holy spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried."

As I got to the next part, I saw a word that I had always been taught not to say, which for an eleven-year-old meant I had to listen, and therefore said the alternative of it.

"He descended into heck."

"Cole," Ms. Crane told me "It's okay to say the real word."

"But it's a swear word." I replied.

"If you're using it as an insult, it is. If you're referring to the place, it isn't, and that's what you're doing, so there's no problem."

To tell the truth, there were a lot of things that confused me about our religion. For the longest time, I didn't even know that Jesus and Lord were the same person, and only found out after seeing a sign that straight up said Jesus is Lord. Not to mention, the life of him is always referred to as the greatest story ever told. Was that all it was? Just a story? There's no way of telling. This could all very well be a total lie, and not until we died would we find that out for sure.

With that being the case, I never knew what to trust.

Did Jesus really exist?

Is there really a heaven?

Do I really believe in God?