Discovering Truth

Everybody has to find out what they believe and take responsibility for it at some point. Our parents teach us what they know about the world, religion, and politics, but we can’t just ride on our parent’s beliefs forever. Judy relized at a very young age that she didn’t agree with the view points of he`r parents religion. Judy felt that it was difficult to grow up in a home where she was raised on beliefs she didn’t agree with and she often felt confined by its strict rules.

I was very surprised when I found out Judy was the daughter of a Nazarene priest. We lived by NNU, a private Nazerine college and the Nazarene people that I had met were all fairly conservative. Judy’s appearance almost seemed like it was in open rebellion to the rest of conservative Idaho. She would not be tied down by rules, least of all let herself be constricted by the confines of normality. She had purple spiky hair. Her nails came out almost a half inch past her fingertips, making them the longest natural nails I had ever seen. They were always done in dazzling, attention-grabbing colors, like the Easter egg designs in May and the bikinis on her index fingers in June. She positively glitters with rhinestones on her shirt and pant, not to mention multiple bracelets and other items of jewelry. It is also safe to say that Judy is not opposed to lepard print.

Purple hair, tattoos, and the fact that she was a preacher’s girl seemed to allude to a wild past, or at least that’s what I guessed. It is after all, a universal expectation for the daughters of prominent religious leaders (bishops, stake presidents, priest, etc) to wind up in one of two conditions; she may be the most rebellious party girl in school or an absolute prude. It especially didn’t help t...

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...d confined.

At the soonest chance she got, she left her house. Judy married at 17 and has lived a full life. She was a singer in Vegas, a model in Hollywood, and a bar tender. I’m sure each of those jobs surprised her parents, but she has never forsaken her morals. She was a singer in Vegas, but she never partied. “It’s always a party for me!” she would often say happily. She didn’t believe in sleeping around. Though she was a bar tender for 30 years, she took pride in saying, “I never drank a drop of alchohol in my life, never wanted to.” When I asked her why she would work at a bar if she wanted nothing to do with beer she said, “I like the people. I liked talking to people. It was fun.” Judy had no formal religion, but she did have a strict moral code that could not be negotiated. She was incapable of doing anything that she thought wouldn’t be to herself.