Plastic Jesus - Part I

When I was a little girl, I went to the Presbyterian church (which I now call "the church of old people", affectionately, of course) with my grandparents. They would get dressed up and grandma would take her special white purse with the shells on the front. Then we would walk about three blocks to the church. I guess it was a typical church service. They sang songs and grandpas voice always was off key and loud. Then the minister would call us kids up to the front, say something funny and nice about Jesus and send us off to Sunday school. I had the best teacher in Sunday school. She had a special box full of prizes behind a curtain and if you did certain things, you could pick a prize out of the box. One day she pulled out the box and showed us the variety of prizes and immediately a small plastic framed picture of Jesus caught my eye. I wanted that picture. All I had to do was memorize all the books in the new testament (just the titles, not all the books) and I could get my prize. We went home that day and when we walked in the door, I immediately ran to get my great grandmothers bible off the shelf. It was big and heavy and really old. I started trying to memorize the titles. My grandma helped me some. I couldn't understand why there were some books with the same names but with a I and a II next to them. Some of the titles were funny sounding and some were people's names so they were easy to remember. I had them memorized in about two weeks. I was about 5 at the time. I really wanted that picture of Jesus. He looked so serene and he looked like he was praying. He was looking up toward heaven and the frame was shiny. After church started that Sunday, I was so excited. Grandma had brought her purse with the shells on it and I was getting ancy sitting through the singing. I kept tracing the shells underneath their plastic cover trying to poke through it to get at them. Finally the minister called the children down, he said the nice words about Jesus and we were released to Sunday School. The teacher asked if anyone had anything to do to pick a prize and I raised my hand. I started reciting the books and stumbled through some of the names and forgot one of the James books. She still let me pick a prize. The picture was still there, noone had taken it. I claimed it. I clutched it and stared at it on the walk all the way home. When we got home I set it up on the table and as I tried to pull that little tab on the back, it cracked in half. I was heartbroken. My shiny plastic frame with Jesus broke. And this is my first memory of church and Jesus.