I know it’s been a bit since my last post, but you know how life is. From this point on is when we really start getting into the weeds of my life and the development of my faith. Yes, this is all focused on me and my experience. I can only tell my story and where it’s led. I know many others will have had similar but different experiences. I hope you find consolation in the fact that you are not alone. If my story resonates with you, I hope you’ll let me know, either in the comments or via email. I would love to hear about your faith journey too.
I left off with my family still in South Carolina. Our time there was the longest that we’ve stayed in one place in my whole life. It was very much home to me, and I still feel a certain nostalgia for it, despite having left more than two decades ago.
My dad was a teacher. He was always a teacher. He only ever wanted to be a teacher. He worked at Toys R Us the seven years we lived in South Carolina, but he always wanted to go back to teaching. He had been a teacher before I was born but had left to pastor the church in Kentucky that I spoke about previously. Having graduated from a Conservative Christian college, he never received a state license to teach. The college couldn’t provide one for him since they weren’t accredited at the time.
And so, in order to teach he need needed to find jobs in private schools that didn’t require licensure. Having given up his dream of finishing a master’s program at Bob Jones University, he began seeking new opportunities to teach. He reached out to school all over the country, which was a bit harder to do in the early days of the internet. He sent his resume around until he was finally contacted by a school in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
My parents dropped me off at my uncle and aunt’s house, which wasn’t far from where we lived in South Carolina, and flew to Minnesota to interview and survey the church and school. Of course, I forgot to mention, it was a fundamentalist Christian school. In order to be a teacher there, he was required to attend the church with his whole family.
It wasn’t much later that my parents declared their intention to uproot their family and move to the frozen north. And so, we rented a moving truck, which we spent all day loading (my dad was terrible at this), and we set off for new adventures in a new place. I remember the exact date, in fact. It was August 5, 2002. I was 13 years old, and it seemed like an adventure. I’d never been that far north before, and I was excited to experience more snow than I’d ever seen before. Boy, was I naïve.
We arrived at our new home in Cottage Grove, Minnesota a few days later, having stopped to visit my grandparents and a few other places on the way. When we arrived, a host of people from our new church and school came to help us unload. I met my new math teacher, the pastor’s son, and others. It was a hot day in Minnesota, I was told, but to me it seemed like nothing.
It was about a month later that I began my first year attending school. Since it was a small Christian school, my dad was a teacher for many different classes. He was my eighth-grade homeroom teacher, my math teacher, my English teacher, my history teacher, and a teacher for some classes for the high school students.
Yeah, there was no way to get away from him.
I was brimming with excitement about finally going to school like all the other kids. It was definitely different from my homeschooling experience. For one, there were other kids around who weren’t my siblings. I got to know most of these kids really well because they also went to the church. The school was in the same building as the church, and so I was at that building at least 6 days every week, sometimes 7 if there was a Saturday youth activity.
It was around this time that I also started realizing that I was different than most other kids. I was somewhat maladjusted because of my years homeschooling. I wasn’t sure how to interact with other people my own age, so I learned to be funny. Or at least, I tried. It was my way to get the feedback I needed. If I could make people laugh then I didn’t have to wonder or worry about what they were feeling about me.
This habit of trying to be funny has stayed with me ever since. It keeps me from having to share my true feelings, and it gives me an out when I’m not sure what people expect from me. I’m sure some people are annoyed by it, but I’ve been at it too long to know any other way of interacting with others.
And I was successful, for the most part. I became something of a class clown, though I was always obedient, and tried hard not to hurt anyone with my jokes, though I’m sure I did, and I still do sometimes. If I’ve ever hurt you, I’m sorry.
And so, I spent three years attending this small Baptist school. It’s where I first discovered the opposite sex. It’s where I tried my hardest to win the approval of those in authority and my peers.
I didn’t have words for it at the time, but it’s also where I began to come to terms with what I began to call my “inner darkness,” a deep melancholy feeling that wouldn’t let me enjoy even positive experiences to their fullest extent, and learned to second-guess and over-analyze every social interaction I had until I was exhausted. I learned that what I was dealing with was a sin problem, and that I wasn’t having enough faith or trust in the power of God to take away these feelings.
But enough about that for now. There are many more things I need to say about my time at this school and church, some positive, but many very dark as well. I’ll pick it up next time, discussing my experience at school and church in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I had some wild adventures, and I made a dear friend, someone who’s stuck by my side until this day.
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