I AM NOT A REBEL!

I must say that I could not have asked for a more perfect time for a snow day. I was not expecting it at all. I was up, for what felt like all night, but was only a mere hour. It was still later than I wanted to go to bed at, since I am sick. Then for some reason today I am just so dead tired. I got plenty of sleep, but I think maybe it's the messed up sinuses. I can hardly keep my eyes open. I just felt really terrible this morning, and I didn't feel prepared for the school day. I used today to get a lot of things I needed to do done. I am going to bed early as well. Even if I feel sick the rest of the week, I only have to get through tomorrow and Friday. I can do it!

I have been very confused about the Catholic Faith, for years now. I kind of have just separated myself from the church and claimed to have no religion. I just considered myself spiritual and Christian, but kind of a bad Christian. Today I talked to a Catholic Youth Minister in her twenties, who I knew from my first trip to S. Dakota. I knew she was much more open-minded than a lot of people of faith that I have talked to, so when I heard she had moved back from Boston I asked her if I could ask her about her faith. She seemed really excited to share her beliefs with me. I think I needed something like that, because now I do not feel so "rebellious" and distant from the church. She told me why she is Catholic and what has made her question her faith. She was very liberal and open minded. She told me, that she liked the Catholic faith because of the mentors she had when she was younger, they encouraged her to question things and be brave enough to admit anger about things. She spoke of all of the positive things about the faith, that I had been forgetting about. She said with other faiths she did not feel she could ask questions. I told her that is how I felt about the Catholic Faith, and she said that made her sad that is how things are right now. She encouraged my questions and my independent spiritual search. She told me she was so glad that I am taking the time to question. It is the best I have felt about my spirituality in a very long time. I have somehow gotten this twisted idea that I am a bad person, because I don't have the same beliefs as the people of faith that I know and I don't really claim an official religion. I am allowed to search around and to follow my heart. In fact, it should be encouraged. It feels good to know I am not a rebel. I am me!