(Scripture paraphrased from KJV and NIV)

I was only five years old when I first heard about Christianity. My parents would “make me” hop aboard a bus on Sunday mornings to attend a Pentecostal Sunday School two miles away. At first, I was pretty excited—but over time, I slowly lost interest. Still, I kept going because my parents insisted.

Until I was about ten, the focus of our classes was mainly stories from the Old Testament and moral lessons from the Bible—disciplinary “lessons,” you might say. Then we were introduced to a term I hadn’t paid much attention to before: “Salvation”—the message that Jesus Christ came to earth and died for sinners on the cross at Calvary. I noted it as just another “Bible fact” and moved on with life. But I did spend hours memorizing memory verses—mostly for Dairy Queen coupons!

One Easter, during a special service, a performer used puppets to share the gospel. She asked anyone who wanted to confess their sins to God to come forward. I marched up along with about 80 others. Behind us came about 40 modestly dressed people who placed their hands on our heads. The one who prayed over me told me to repeat after her—and that I’d now have “a place in heaven.”

When I was thirteen, I heard a sermon so powerful it left me in tears. The preacher said that if someone claims to be saved but still habitually sins, they cannot truly call themselves a Christian. I was left emotionally shaken and confused. I asked my Sunday School teacher why I still felt so distant from God. He asked if I had ever “gone to the front.” I told him I had. He reassured me I was fine. But I still wanted assurance—so he repeated the ritual with his hand on my head.

That afternoon I rushed home and opened my “mint condition” Bible, determined to read it from the beginning. About 45 minutes later, I was already slogging through the book of Numbers—and that’s when I decided to set it all aside “until I got older.”

NEXT: Part II: Chasing Shadows