The Pledge of Allegiance

You know, I can't remember my mom ever taking us kids to our first day of school to explain to our teachers the things us kids couldn't do as J.W's. Instead our mother just told us the things we couldn't do with no explanation as to why, and left it to us kids to explain to our teachers the things that we could not do or participate in because it was against the J.W. religion. So on my first day of third grade I had the meanest teacher ever, and I was to scared to tell my teacher anything, so when it came time to say the Pledge of Allegiance I just stood there like a scared little deer, and I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I was not allowed to say it. I starting to panic because I knew that I should be outside while it was being said, but instead I was standing in the class room with all the other kids (I didn't even know the words) I just stood there with my heart beating out of my chest. When all of a sudden the mean teacher comes up to me grabs my hand and puts it over my heart. I was scared to death, and the only thing I could think to do was to slowly start lowering my hand from my heart til it was over my stomach. It seemed like the pledge went on forever. I can't remember how I got out saying the pledge from that day on. I do know that this was just one more thing I couldn't tell my parents, because I feared that I would get hit for saying the Pledge(in my case just standing there). I also thought that with my history I would never see paradise, because I didn't have faith in god to help me tell the teacher that I was not supposed to say the Pledge. This would also be another thing I would be praying for forgiveness for, for many years.