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Since I was at least age 6 my mother and her church friends have always told me about how my birth was "foretold." They say that while I was still in my mother's womb a "prophet" told my mother that I was to be, quote, "a prophet to the nations" and something along the lines of the next Billy Graham/Peter Wagner.

Things like this WILL screw you up!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith,_Sr.

Smith showed little interest in religion and was content to allow his wife control over the religious upbringing of their children. This indifference bothered Lucy very much. After much prayer, she said she had received a divine witness that her husband would some day accept "the pure and undefiled Gospel of the Son of God." (Smith, 56)

Smith professed that he had visionary dreams with highly symbolic content, obviously related to his ambivalence about religious faith and sometimes presaging events to come. These dreams continued after the family's move to Palmyra, New York, until he had had seven in all; Lucy remembered five well enough to quote in detail. (Smith)

[edit] Book of Mormon

In the late 1820s, Smith's son, Joseph Jr., began to tell the family about Golden Plates, which he said contained a record of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas. In September 1827, Joseph Jr. said he obtained the plates, which Joseph Sr. testified he felt and lifted while wrapped in cloth. In the following years, Joseph Jr. claimed to translate the plates into English through the use of the Urim and Thummim, a sacred device given to him by an angel of God. When the work was near completion, at the end of June 1829, Joseph Sr., and seven other men signed a joint statement, testifying that they had both lifted the plates and seen the engravings on the plates. Known as the "Testimony of the Eight Witnesses", this statement was published with the first edition of the Book of Mormon and has been a part of nearly all subsequent editions.

It’s what’s wrong with a lot of religions that focus on the individual and their great worth or potential. I’ve seen and known a lot of Pentecostals that put emphasis on the individual’s abilities, almost encouraging them that they’re superhuman. Speaking in tongues, gifts of prophecy, etc. I’ve seen how it can feed the ego, and have parents put undue pressure on children to perform. Telling your kid he’s destined to be a prophet despite the fact that there have been no successful prophets since the days of the Apostles? What does that do to a kid at the age of 6?

Christianity, as I know it to be, teaches sacrifice, humility, meekness, forgiveness, thankfulness and grace. Above all, it teaches that our strength comes from Christ, not from ourselves; and all that we have is given to us by the Father to be used in good stewardship - and never taken advantage of.