"I am his masterpiece and to me, that’s all that matters." - Amanda Baldwin
(Note: I'm 52 cities into my 75 city tour, and am taking a break to share a faith statement paper from a girl who was recently confirmed... a girl who reminded me why I'm doing what I'm doing in the first place.)
I started going to this church when I was about 4 or 5. I did the whole Sunday School thing, every Sunday morning. I learned the song that you sing with all the Bible Chapters in order, and made a ton of crafts with a little motto on them which was most likely, ”Jesus Loves Me”. And in 6th grade I learned about the Apostle’s Creed (even though now, I probably completely forget it). But, I wasn’t always at church. In 4th grade, waking up at 9.30 in the morning was getting just a little old for me. In fact, I hated it. I actually avoided it at all costs. Or at least, I tried to. Some days it worked, some days it didn’t. And on the days that it didn’t, I wasn’t a happy person. I mean for gosh sakes, it was the weekend. And it seemed like it couldn’t get any worse until my parents told me at the beginning of 7th grade, “You’re going to start a program at church called confirmation. It’s every Wednesday night until the end of 9th grade.”
“What? You’re kidding right? Why?”
“Because we said so Amanda. And we already signed you up for it, so you’re going.”
“(sigh) fine.”
At that moment, I had hit rock bottom.
On the 1st night of confirmation, boy was I unhappy. “Amanda, you have confirmation at 6.00. We’re leaving here at 5.30!” “Awwww man….” So, I get there and oh boy. What a group I got paired with. I knew 2 people. That was it. And, I had 2 sophomore girls in high school as my guides. Great. Just what I needed. 2 girls who are probably going to be too occupied in themselves to even pay attention to us. And they had cell phones. Even better. And then, I had this one lady who was my guide as well. And I didn’t even recognize her. Awesome. And this was how I felt for the 1st 2 months of confirmation. But when my 12th birthday came along, my feelings changed. I walked into “our room” and everywhere on the wall and hanging from the ceiling were signs and every single one said “Happy 12th Birthday Amanda!” And to make this Wednesday night even better, we had cake and cookies, brought in by that lady who I now knew was Ms. Rita. Right there in that moment, I no longer thought that my group was a bunch of girls who just didn’t care and didn’t want to be there. I knew that somewhere in their hearts, there was a place for their confirmands. This was so meaningful to me that if you were to go into my room right now and looked at the wall where my light switch is, every single one of those signs are hanging there.
My second year of confirmation is when I got the closest with my church. I no longer avoided coming and tried to “sleep late” or go really, really slow in getting ready in the morning. I got up and I went. I didn’t care that I woke up at 9.30. I was ready to go and learn about our father. But why, is what you’re wondering. Well, I guess that you could say it was the lessons taught on Wednesdays, or the sermons at church that I was finally starting to listen to. But, I think that it was a combination of both and the fact that now, I didn’t just walk around saying that, “Yea, I’m a Christian. I believe in Jesus.” No. I walk around now saying that same thing, but with confidence in my voice. And that’s because as I was progressing through this confirmation at church, I was slowly becoming more and more of a believer in all of these things about Jesus and everything that he’s done for us, even though we don’t deserve it. And it was all because of these things I was learning in the sermon and in lessons on Wednesdays.
So how, you’re asking has my faith changed? It’s obviously changed in a way that is not easily described. My faith has changed because I believe, I have grown in Christ in my own special way. I’ve always known he was there, but now I believe it even more. I have realized that even though we may do things wrong and bad things may happen, and I may think that everyone is against me, no matter what happens, he is there. He’ll be with me every step of the way. He loves me.
I am his masterpiece and to me, that’s all that matters.
June 2009, Amanda, St. Johns Lutheran, Columbia, MD
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