Pros And Cons Of 8th Grade Church Retreat

I will never be able to forget my eighth grade church retreat. Every detail of that day will forever be ingrained in my memory. My church class was at Camp Westminister for our first retreat away from our usual location. We had just finished our lunches when I built up the courage to ask my youth leader to take a walk and talk with me. Little did I know that one small decision would change my entire outlook on how I viewed myself and true friends. Throughout middle school I was bullied for not fitting the stereotype of being the so-called “skinny” girl. After years of hearing that I was ugly and fat instead others bulling me I was the one who began to lower my own self esteem. As time went on, I kept all my feelings bottled up never being able to fully open up to someone else, isolated from the world. Halfway through eighth I noticed that little pranks that shouldn’t have bothered me were the actions that bothered me the most. I realized that I was so insecure that the littlest of things lead me to over react and over think situations. At that moment I knew that I needed to talk to someone but I didn’t know who to turn to because I was afraid of their judgement.

To me the pros were that I would be able to get my feelings off my shoulders and be able to relax a little more. The cons were that I didn’t know how he would respond or what he would do. After contemplating my thoughts for about 30 minutes I decided it was time to go find my youth leader. When I found him I asked if he would walk outside and talk with me. He gladly agreed but asked for me to wait a minute while he finished his lunch. I nodded in agreement and went outside to wait. In that one minute, standing outside alone I thought about going back and telling him never mind I don’t need to talk anymore but something came over me and I ended up waiting for him outside on the rock