Thank you for your reply. I feel secure with WP, it's whether or not the public will feel safe submitting information to me via it. If that makes sense :)
My site should be live by the end of the week in which readers will be submitting stories to me, I just want to ensure my site won't get hacked and the information they provide will be safe and secure. This is why I was curious about a SSL certificate, but now I am curious if I can use it on my site, as I am using the the free version of WP. I bought a domain but have not paid for the upgrade. I am thinking that's now another question.