Facing Fear

Chapter 2

Akira warmed the same pew for the past seven years. She knew every face. She knew every name. She knew where everyone sat. She knew who would be singing, who would be dating, who would be greeting everyone with a smile, and who felt they were better than everyone else. The church was the same color, the same people, the same songs, the same sermons, but she was different. It wasn't the empty seat next to her that used to be filled that made her feel this way. It was a deep inner nagging that she could not seem to shake. She didn't dare say anything to anyone about it, because she knew what they would say, or at least she imagined it.

There was this burning inside her soul for a deeper connection with G-d that she was not getting sitting in that same pew, writing the same notes, looking at the same verses in different contexts, and never getting her questions answered. She scribbled some notes in her notebook, wrote down the verses that were covered from both the Old Testament and the New Testament. She wrote her feelings about contradictions and starred the lines that just didn't seem right or logical. She wrote down questions. Why would Jesus talk to his mother like that and it not be considered a sin? Why do we follow some things from the Old Testament but other things are considered to be irrelevant? Why isn't anything making sense anymore? Why am I still sitting here?