characters

My not so nice stepsister told me when I was around 8 yrs old that the devil lived on the top bunk of my bunkbeds (I kept my stuffed animals and spare blankets up there. One day, some blankets must have been pulled over near the edge, and so they came down with a plop by themselves! I ran out screaming, more terrified than I'd ever been in my life. No amount of my parents' reassurance could convince me to go back in there for weeks!

Hilary

i used to believe that the virgin mary in the bible's real name was mary virgin, and obviously was part of the extended virgin family who lived out in the desert - i also just presumed that once you got married you automatically got a baby, and i thought that the big deal about jesus being born was that mary virgin said that she didn't want one, and then got one anyway - imagine my confusion when madonna's like a virgin came out !

saioa

When I was a ittle kid I asked my dad about God and what he was meant to be, where was he ect. His answer was that god was everywhere... therefore with child logic I assumed this to mean that wherever I looked I would see him, and I ended up spending a lot of time searching behind the couch and in cupboards in order to find god... I never suceeded (I guess I kind of lost my faith after that)

ruth

When I was little I was constantly afraid of being possessed by the devil, so every day on my way home from school I went into our neighborhood church for a few seconds to reassure myself that the devil is not inside me; because I figured that if I really was possessed then entering the church would make me burn.

Vicky

My extremely religious grandmother used to say when one of us did something bad, "The Devil's on your shoulder!" I would try to turn my head to see him too but I was never fast enough. I went around believing there was a mini-Satan on one of my shoulders counterbalanced by a mini-Jesus on the other, waging a personal struggle for my soul. I was afraid the devil might be winning since he was the one Grandma saw. Scary. The only consolation was that he seemed to spend even more time on my cousin Robbie's shoulder.

Cheri

When I was young I knew Santa and the Easter Bunny and all those cool guys were always watching me, and that they always knew if i was naughty or nice or whatever. God was another story. For some reason when I was around 3 or 4 I got this idea in my head that God couldn't see me if I hid under the coveres. My mom would tuck me in and I would not be tired, so after she left I would hide under the covers all sneaky, and not sleep! I would just keep my eyes open as long as I wanted.

Man I was bad..

Krystina

Sometimes God looked like Rafi, the children's singer, and sometimes like Ella Fitzgerald.

Annie

I used to believe the saying "thanks be to God" went "thanks, Peter God" - as if Peter was his first name :-)

Foz

I was petrified of the whole "Jesus is watching you" thing. Really didn't like the idea of him watching me do a wee or poo. So I, for many years, put the toilet seat on my back when I went to the toilet!!!?

Strange Girl

I was 3 or 4 at the time of the Manson killings, and since the followers of the psycho insisted that he was Jesus, or the son of God, I thought Jesus was some killer psycho. It didn't help that there was some backlash against "Jesus Freaks", either.

Jakeblade

I went to a Catholic school as a child. They told us that people who didn't hear the world of Jesus would go to hell. When I was in the washroom, as a first or second-grader, I would read the grafitti on the walls. Some people would write:

I was here but now I'm gone
I left my name to turn you on
Those who know me, know me well
Those who don't can go to hell.

I was convinced that JESUS must have come and personally visited the girls' room at my school to leave that message. Who else can say that anyone who doesn't know them could go to hell??

Spark

when i was little i believed that the job as the pope was passed on to his first born son... like in the royal family... until i found out that popes didn't have kids

peni

I used to believe that when you could see the well-defined rays of sunlight peeking down to the ground through a hole in a cloud that God was speaking directly to the person in the line of that sun ray. And that maybe that person didn't even realize it was happening, because you could only ever see it shining someplace far off, you can't see when it's shining on you that way. I think I still believe this a little bit.

Natalee

I'm from Louisiana (Yeah, I know, that says alot). There is a small town nearby called Rayne. Well, until I was about ten, I believed that was where God and Jesus lived, because of the line from Church that says "He lives in "rain" with you, forever and ever".

MJF

I used to believe that God sat on top of clouds. You couldn't see him if you were directly beneath a cloud, but if you ran to the end of a field you could view the cloud from an angle and maybe get a glimpse of him.

sparky

I used to believe that God was a switchboard operator complete with little headset since that was the only way I thought he could answer all the prayers. I pictured him sitting up there saying "all circuits busy, please hold" to everyone who was praying. I must have had a special line because I was never put on hold!

Jen

I used to believe Mary and Joseph were terrible parents... After all, they left the baby Jesus in the desert for forty days and forty nights with Satan.

Sherry

When I was a wee little girl, I believed that heaven was in the clouds (probably from TV). I also believed that God looked like the Lucky Charms man (again TV -there must have been some commercial where he was standing on a cloud or something).

Anyway, as I reached grade school age, I would always get perplexed by the Scripture about having a "faith like a child". I thought, 'What's so great about a faith like a child's? Just a couple of years ago I thought God looked like the Lucky Charms man, and you people are looking to US for solid faith??!!'

(It wasn't until last year that I figured it out... it's not about "head knowledge"; it's about a heart that trusts God's goodness)

one confused girl

I used to believe that Jesus was born again every Christmas, lived out all the Bible said he did within a couple of months, and was killed again every Easter

Bobthefunkyfish

I used believe that God took your eyes out and looked at your entire life and he would give you 15 strikes if you do 15 bad things in your life you go to hell.

Anon