As a small child, I had wonderful series of teachers who did much to help form my beliefs.  I have grown up in church and could draw from many experiences.  Today, however, I have chosen to focus on one positive experience and one negative experience and show how they influenced my life.

During my third and fourth grade years, I had a teacher who placed an emphasis on memorizing Scripture verses.  It is because of him that I learned the 100th Psalm, the Armor of God, the Fruit of the Spirit, and many other individual verses.  He also showed me by example what a godly husband and father should be.  I watched him in his relations with upstanding community and church members as well as with those who were not as well accepted because of their social or financial status.  Never once did I see him speak down to anyone.  He treated them all with respect.  One morning before class, a scruffy man came in and apologized for not showing up for the prayer breakfast the morning before.  My teacher willingly forgave him, even though it was not the first time it had happened.  Later, my teacher used that incident as an example of the Scripture where Jesus was talking about forgiving 70×7 times.

            Unfortunately, I had some experiences that were also significant, but not in a positive way.  The junior high Sunday School class that I was in was very difficult for me.  The teacher had absolutely no control over the students.  The girls were flirting with the popular guys.  The popular guys were making fun of the students who didn’t fit in.  Place these factors on top of other issues I was already dealing with, and it was emotionally exhausting to go to Sunday School.  One specific day, I left at the end of class and went to my mother.  I told her that I had a headache, which I did, and started crying.  I was not crying because of the headache, but rather because of the shallowness of my peers and the cruel teasing that was taking place.  As a result of this incident and others, I began to withdraw from my peers.  I decided that I would not be like them.