Okay, so I cheated yesterday—I told someone else's u-turn story. Thank you, friends, for the gentle reminders. (Amazing what people will tell you via email. It used to be we would confess and confront around a campfire where no one could see our faces. Now we've got the internet.)

My first u-turn happened when I was twelve years old. I had always gone to church twice a Sunday, attended Sunday school classes, showed up at church during the week now and then, and attended a Christian school, so it wasn't that I really needed to learn anything else about God. Still, there I was in catechism class, arguing with my teacher. (Yes, I even argued back then.)

"You can't talk to God anytime you want, you know," Mr. Davies told us.

I couldn't believe that no one was arguing him. They were nodding their heads like brainless lemmings. I stood up. "Yes, you can!" I told him. "I talk to God all the time about anything I want, whenever I want. He's my best friend! Do you think you can't talk anytime you want to your best friend?!"

Everyone stared at me for a moment and then Mr. Davies cleared his throat.

"Umm...thank you, Heather. You are quite right. You can talk to God anytime you want. Thank you for illustrating my point."

I had heard him wrong. I had stood up and defended my faith for no good reason. Except this: for the first time I realized that this whole religion thing really was MY faith. It was not just the faith of my parents or my friends or my teachers. It was mine. And Jesus really was my best friend.

In that little temper tantrum I made a u-turn from caretaking to owning this precious thing called faith. And I've never turned back.

Thoughts posted by Heather Gemmen.

PS I guess I haven't ever made the u-turn from being a kid to being an adult, though. Check out these u-turn books that Allison and I wrote for kids. Fun!