Finding My Way Home - A Christian Testimony

For the first twelve years of my life, everything had gone smoothly, even with my extremist personality! I had made some friends, gone to school, and even played some ball, all activities which were fairly typical for a young kid during that time. Then, towards the end of the Seventh Grade, something happened which changed my life forever! It was an event which I had not wanted, one for which I had not sought, and definitely one which threatened all the good things about my very low key existence. Without my permission and not by my desire, this happening just happened, and it looked as if the whole experience might mess up everything. As a result, my extremist fires soon began to boil, and I started to fight back!

To many, the thing which occurred would not have been such a big deal. However, in time, I would quickly learn to feel very differently. One day at school, my Seventh Grade homeroom class was herded to the school's cafeteria. When we arrived, it became apparent that the whole Seventh Grade had been summoned there for some special reason, and after a few moments, I learned that the special reason was to take an Aptitude test! It was a standard Aptitude Test, and all Seventh Graders were required to take it so that the results could be used to determine our individual curriculums for the Eighth through Twelfth Grades.

Taking such a test did not seem at the time to be so life threatening, yet in my case, it would come very close! I took the test, and when done, I thought that the whole matter was ended. I never expected to see or hear from those people again, and I clearly did not expect my life to be so dramatically affected by the results of one single test. However, I was very mistaken on both counts! Several weeks later, my parents were asked to report to the Vice Principle's office. No one in my family knew the reason for the unusual request, but I remember thinking that I must be in some kind of trouble! My dad had to work, so only my mom went.

That evening at dinner, we learned what she had found out during the conference. She proudly proclaimed that I had scored exceptionally high on that mysterious test and that I was one of the few who had been specifically cited. "Imagine that!," I thought to myself, "I had taken this crazy test and had actually done pretty well." I was surprised and shocked. Even my parents expressed a measure of disbelief, but for good reason! I had never demonstrated any real aptitude before, much less distinguished myself in an academic way from the rest of my class. As we sat around the dinner table that evening, most of us, including I, probably thought that the results were a fluke!

Unfortunately, my newly found "intelligence" was not treated so lightly by the school's Administration officials. At the parent's conference, they had already sought and obtained my mom's permission to have me placed in a new experimental program for advanced study. Years later, in looking back, I now realize that my success on that test really had not been that big of a deal, but in my home, on that evening in the early 1960s, we were all quite excited! My success meant that I would be given the opportunity to study foreign languages and take other accelerated courses in English, Math and Science. Everyone in our family was pleased, and I was, too, at first! But my satisfaction quickly turned to total dissatisfaction.

Whether I liked it or not, that test would change my whole life. To begin with, it seemed to become a real stumbling block to my parents and their relationship. Over the next eight years, I would often find myself as the focal point of their arguments. My mom was very proud of her "brilliant" son, probably too proud, and her attentions towards me caused friction with my dad. In many ways, they tried to protect me from outside stress and anxiety, but it was obvious to me that they were feeling some of their own.

Because of the very real turmoil within my family, I grew up subconsciously thinking that I was somehow responsible. As a teenager, I often felt rejected by friends and family members, even to the point that I eventually learned to hate everything about that stupid intelligence which I was supposed to have. Over even more time, I came to view my so-called brain as one of life's greatest curses. Consequently, the day when I took that test, while it may not have been such a big deal to many, was only the beginning of what turned out to be my very long, eight-year and beyond personal nightmare! The experiences of those difficult years affected me emotionally and psychologically in ways that would take me more than thirty years to fully understand.

Once into the program, however, I did not mind taking more difficult courses. I actually enjoyed that part. I liked the idea of studying Algebra and French in the Eighth Grade, especially since for several years I had already had a youthful curiosity about higher Mathematics and foreign languages. I had been working basic Trigonometry problems since the Sixth Grade, so to me, the harder work was fun. I did not object to that, but I did object when I felt pressured to work harder and to become what I would have called the student extraordinaire. While I enjoyed the more difficult curriculum, I was not interested in becoming more studious! My disinterest in academics, in fact, actually paralleled my disinterest in religion.

Being in that program meant more work and harder work. It also meant being separated from many of my Seventh Grade friends. There were other Eighth Graders who began that program with me, and I may have been the only one who felt so much anxiety and stress. This I cannot say, but what I can say is that that special experiment segregated our group from the rest of the class and tended to make me feel different. I did not want to be smart, and I certainly did not want others to think of me as being smart! From my way of thinking at that time, being in the Eighth Grade and thought of as an intellectual was definitely not in keeping with my goal of maintaining social acceptability. It also was not doing much to create more harmony within my family. Therefore, I fought the whole thing with great zeal, almost from the very first day!

During those difficult years, I had wanted to be in the center of attention, not president of the Chess club or the Theology club. Therefore, I did things for the express purpose of being noticed, and that often led to mischief. By going astray in small ways, I found that practicing a style of "safe wildness" made me look cool. I even tried to model my behavior around the idea of being a little daring without getting myself into too much trouble. However, attempting to live my life in that manner eventually became an endless cycle because there were not any convenient exits. I soon found myself in the rut of always having to do one better than before, and that proved to be very risky. Thus, at a still very young age, I had already begun traveling a dead end path which could, and in my case would, only lead to more serious trouble.

In junior high school, making friends by being a little devious had been simple because a little wildness at that age had gone a long way. When I got to high school, however, simple childish pranks were no longer sufficient. My "safe wildness" had to be stepped up a few notches if I were going to still maintain my same standing. Basic classroom tricks and being class clown had worked fine in the Eighth and Ninth Grades, but in high school, those forms of mischief would not be good enough! In the higher grades, I either had to find new, more inventive ways to be cool, or I would have to modify my social objective. Unfortunately, the harder I tried to escape the studious rap, the more I became trapped by it. By being in that special program, most people tended to write off my mischievous escapades as something smart people do, rather than seeing them as the works of one who was cool. Therefore, even when I was bad, I still could not get away from the dreaded curse of that Seventh Grade Aptitude Test. It really had become my inescapable nightmare!

Because I was almost always under some form of pressure, I, at times, felt like a prisoner. Either my teachers and parents were pushing me to work harder so that I could do better, or my friends wanted me to do wild, foolish things with them. Those contrasting choices between work and fun kept me in a state of continual conflict! For themselves, my friends chose to do the fun things over schoolwork, and I, too, wanted to go along! But I knew that I had to be somewhat cautious so that I would at least make reasonable grades. While I did not care to excel or appear studious, I still wanted to pass all my classes so as to avoid having to repeat anything. Because I was caught under the spell of so many opposing forces, my life was like living in a pressure cooker. I constantly felt torn between schoolwork and trying to have fun with my friends. As a result, the school's special study program made my life seem as though it were not my own but instead like it had somehow been snatched away!