When my father was still a reverend of a Methodist church in Tenafly, NJ about 5 years ago, I was still a PK, pastor's kid (coincidentally my real initials, too), growing up in a family that made a living off of preaching God's words. I really never gave much thought to Christianity as a whole, except that I had to pray before every meal and that I was supposed to read the Bible. I was taught stories about the Bible every week in Sunday school until I was a master of Bible stories. Soon, after years of repeatedly listening to the same stories about Noah's Ark and Jonah's being swallowed by a whale, Sunday school soon became a social ground for me as I goofed off with my friends (unless my mother was substituting as the Sunday school teacher) and had a great time. Unlike many kids who start their Christian lives after a terrible mishap or sudden discovery, my life was already involved in the world of Christianity.

I don't think I really understood the whole business of Christianity until years after my father decided to walk away from being the leader of a church. During the transitional period of reverend to normal working parent, our family experienced great difficulty in shortage of money. I still remember the Christmas about 3 years back when my parents had trouble buying me and my sister presents. They even had to borrow money from my grandmother, who had been working as a nanny for two years. Our family moved to my current home in Edison,NJ because it was closer to the 1 Hour Photo store we opened up in Hillside. All that time, I really never thought about God or Jesus. Our family had stopped going to church for almost two years and I really didn't care about going back. My parents only assured me that things would get better but I had to be patient.

During the later stages of my family's difficult years, I began to go to church again. I had been absent from church for quite a while and my views about it were quite different than it had been a few years earlier. I had begun to think of the Bible as more figurative than literal (mostly through science), and I had questioned my belief, or the type of belief, I had in Jesus Christ. Attending church with my liberal views accomplished very little to my faith or understanding of the Bible because the sermons were very contradictory compared to my personal beliefs. My view of Jesus Christ went from God's son who had taught, was killed, and resurrected to a revolutionary man who established high principles for others to follow and was killed for his insurrection. I still regarded Christ as a great man, and the fact that he died for us is very moving, but I really wasn't (and I'm still not) ready to say that my whole purpose on this planet is to call myself a sinner and thank Jesus for saving me. However, church was very instrumental in very secular things, such as how to dress and how to act, not very good things to be learning in "God's house."

After years of attending church on and off (after I started football, I missed church during seasons to sleep late on Sundays), I began to listen in carefully to the sermons and went home to discuss them with my parents. Like me, my parents were very liberal in their views compared to my church and sometimes wanted me to stay home rather than go and listen to the sermons. The kids at church had conservative beliefs as they were taught, but they were usually all talk and just as average as me when it came to everyday life. I think the day I really had the parts of my Christianity pieced together was after I had come back from a church retreat in April. I had a long discussion with my parents about Jesus Christ and the stories of the Bible. I learned that Jesus Christ was a man who wanted everyone in the world to love each other and treat each other like father and son or self to self. I also learned that the way I believed in Christianity wasn't bad (as others had told me) at all because beliefs changed with time and the churches were the only ones at fault for trying to slow the pace of newer, more rational thinking. I was glad to know that Christianity wasn't necessarily all the things taught by the book at church, but rather an individual's attempt to take the teachings of Jesus Christ and use it to make his or her life and the world better. I had spent most of the retreat praying and thanking God for the well-being of my family and also the lucky situation I was in to be living life at its fullest. All the while, many friends had thought of me as a doubter of God and even a pagan, but knowing myself, I'm Christian, no matter what anyone tells me.

Today, my father has a store in East Village of Manhattan, NY, and my family has never been better financially and emotionally. I congratulate my parents for their hard work during the tough years and also to my grandmother for keeping the house in order while my parents worked. I am also very thankful to God for keeping my family well together and healthy during our tumultuous ride, but it was all worth it because happiness doesn't exist without knowing hardship. Hopefully, Jesus is happy from above that his own hardship has led to my understanding of love and thankfulness.

"I was glad to know that Christianity... [was] an individual's attempt to take the teachings of Jesus Christ and use it to make his or her life and the world better"

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