From Sinners In the Hands of God (young girl)

I do not like to go to church. It scares me. I want to tell Mama that I don't want to go anymore, but I think she will get mad at me. Her and Papa always talk about how everything is for God. God always comes first before anything. Like Reverend said to day in church, "nothing but the mere pleasure of God..." But I don't understand why we have to be so nice to God when he hates us so much. He thinks all of us are bad people. Today in church Reverend kept saying, "anger and wrath of god..." He even said, "It is everlasting wrath." That means that God will always be mad and hate us. He will never forgive us for not being the way he wants us to be. I don't know what I did to make God so mad at me.

Today at church Reverend said something that made me so scared that my body felt cold and tingley. He said, "The God that holds you over the pit of hell..." Why am I supposed to love and do everything for someone who is like this? I don't want to go to hell, but God will make all of us go. He won't let us go to Heaven with him. We have all sinned too much. Sometimes I wonder if I just don't believe in God, will I be safe? Would something like that work? I decided to ask Mama.

When I asked Mama about my way to stay out of hell she got mad at me. She started yelling, and she even slapped me across the face. She said, "If you every say anything like that again you will not be allowed in this family. I don't know where you will go. No one will want you in their house. Even if you don't believe in God, you will go to hell. Especially since you said such a horrific thing like that!" Mama was so mad at me. I didn't know it was a bad thing to ask. She sounded just like Reverend. I guess I have to believe in God even though he hates us all. I just don't understand.

Writing has always been something that I would consider myself good at. It's nothing spectacular, but I get really good grades on all my writing papers. If I am writing about something I want to write about then I usually like it a lot. But when I find out that we have to write a paper that involves research and statistics I tend to want to jump off a cliff. Not literally speaking, I just don't really like that type of writing at all. There are so many statistics out there that I can use, but I just think it is so boring. I have nevery really been consistent with how I handle big writing assignments. Sometimes I will be on top of things and start early and even have a few different drafts before my final copy. Other times I have just waited and waited and crammed it in at last minute and have one draft. It's not the best I can do, but I have always managed to get an A. Other times I just have a rough draft, edit it once, and turn it in. I am pretty confident in my own writing. My teachers have been telling me that I'm a good ever since I was in grade school. But I personally feel like it is just okay, and know I can do way better. I just havn't quite figured out how to do that yet. My strenghts with writing are writing about stuff that I can take from my own mind. When I write about my life, how I feel about something based on my own opinions, or just something that interests me I can write a long and meaningful paper. But if I have to write using facts and statistics that I got from different references I am really boring and don't enjoy it at all. I will usually do the minimum and it won't be anything special. That is definitely a weakness of mine. Also when I am supposed to write about something that I dont really care about it is really hard for me to figure out what to say. I'm sure you have firgured out that I would like to improve on writing about statistics, facts, and just stuff I can't get myself to write about.

I would say that I am most excited for the fifth unit. Realism, naturalism, and racial issues in America stood out to me. I have always enjoyed learning about wars and what goes on with different races. Learning about how people deal with racism is interesting. The unit I am least looking forward to is definitely the poetry unit. I hate talking in front of people. When everyone looks at me my face turns red, my knees shake, and my mouth gets extremely dry. I hate it! I should do good on all of the units. English is my strongest subject and I just get it. I understand writing and reading.  I am a little worried about the poetry unit for the same reasons I mentioned before.