I feel terrible! What should I do?

Question

I have friends who are the children of the pastors of my church. Every summer they go and play at the church while their parents work, so they invite me over to hang out.

There is also a day camp for kids who are like, 10-14 years old.

Well, yesterday, I was hanging out with my friends [the pastor's kids] and 2 other people and we were bored but the guy running the day camp wouldn't let us hang out with his kids. The guy running the day camp is my friend's cousin and he is a biigg prankster. So we decided to prank him. it was a harmless prank, we took a bunch of pine needles and piled them up all over his car. And that was that.

But then we were still bored, so I said "Let's go terrorize the children", just joking around of course. And my friend said "yeah we could bang on the windows like some kids did a year ago to scare everyone", she apparently was joking too, but the people we were with thought that was a great idea, so we all picked a window and on the count of three we just started hitting them [not hard at all].

Well, the window that my friend josh had was cracked to begin with and when his slapped it, it shattered. all the kids inside got scared and thought we were robbers.

Out of reflex, we all just ran!

The guy who ran the day care got very angry, found us, and called his mom [who also works at the church] and my friends parents [the pastors]. They were all angry, but they said it was mostly not because the window was broken, but because we scared all the kids and they didn't want to get sued.

They said we have to pay to replace the window [which we are ok with, and we will do that] and now they say if we come back to the church in the summers, we have to go to the day camp [which i can't afford] or stay in one of their offices all day. [which is boring].

I just feel really terrible and like all the adults are upset with me and think i'm a bad kid, which i'm not, it was just a bad choice that we all made and a stupid mistake.

Now I feel awkward whenever i see my friends parents and i'm afraid to ask them if they want to hang out and stuff. and i'm afraid all the kids in the day camp [some of them are my friends] are like, looking down on me now. It's like walking the hall of shame.

I know everything is ok now, i just still feel terrible! What should I do!?

Answer 1

Get over it! In the course of life, we all do commit a few regrettable acts. The memories of those acts stay with us because they are instructive, but in a short time no one will even remember what you. It's good that your conscience is bothering you. Some people need religion to be good people. But, those of us blessed with strong consciences have the good grace of god with or without religion.  

Answer 2

Well try writing yours thoughts into an essay. all of you. Write an apology letter with an explanation, not excuse and continue to do anything they ask of you. Perhaps face the kids that you scared and tell them personally that you are, maybe a card with cady attached or something. Just figure out a way to explain and apologize for what happened. Do not ask for changing having to go sit in the office or going to camp in the summer, simply do it because you are sorry. And even voluneer sometime to help around the church and regain the Parents faith. Kids forget about things but if you dont at least try to be sweet and helpful with the older people they may peg you as a 'bad child'

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