Tuesday, August 31, 2010

How about you? When you were a child was church fun?

Excerpt from chapter 4 in A Beggars Purse...
My grandpa never spanked me, but sometimes my grandma would spank me with the little plastic belt she wore with all her dresses.  One time I even got a spanking on Easter Sunday after church.  I was wearing brand new, shiny, white patent leather shoes.  Well, the shoes rubbed a big water blister on the heel of my right foot, so I took off both of my shoes during the church service.
     When the church service was over, my grandma didn't even wait for the Easter egg hunt to start.  She grabbed my hand in hers, took me around to the back of the church, and spanked me with her little plastic belt.  It really didn't hurt that much and I told her that I didn't even like church.  I also told her that church wasn't any fun anyways.  She bent down so close to my face, I could smell her body powder.
     She took my chin in her hand and said, "Tonia Kay, you listen to me, and you listen good, church is not meant to be fun."


I attended this Methodist church with my Grandmother Katherine and Aunt Evelyn who was also my Sunday school teacher year after year.  The church was built in 1880 in Santa Barbara, California.  In 1892 it was cut into three sections and moved along the coastline on horse-drawn flatbed wagons twelve miles to its current location at 800 Maple Street, Carpinteria, California.  It has been the Carpinteria Valley Baptist Church since April 1, 1969.

How about you?  When you were a child was church fun?

2 comments:

  1. Toni, I loved church as a child,
    And though I trudged through the wilderness places for 27 yrs, I new God was always near, Patiently waiting for me to run out of me Giggle!
    That beautifull surrender story!
    I think it was the best Gift my mother ever gave me as a child! God...
    And church!
    Cheryl Andersen

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  2. I have loved and feared God since I was 11 or 12, but church wasn't fun. I went out of obligation to my perception of God (I thought He would smite me if I didn't go). I actually went alone because my parents didn't go. So you have a 12 yr old (and up, until I was in my 20's) walking to church and walking home, because she thought God would smite her if she didn't go!

    Still, I'm not sad about that, because I learned a lot in all that Sunday School and Vacation Bible School, and I usually had a friend who met me there and we giggled through the service and made the preacher glare at us.

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