My spiritual narrative contains highs as tall as mountains and lows as deep as valleys. When I became a Christian, the scenario was similar to many others who grew up in a Christian family. I saw that the rest of my family were Christians, so I decided to be baptized as well. Unfortunately, my baptism and the "spiritual high" that followed it was a peak in my faith for quite some time. I would say that I was am indifferent Christian for my childhood, meaning I believed in God, but I did nothing pursue a personal relationship with Christ, and I eventually got out of the routine of attending church. Middle school was the catalyst for the downward spiral that occurred in my spiritual life. Upon entering middle school, my insecurity hit an all-time low, like many other girls in my age range. …show more content…
With the comorbidity of mental health issues and a difficult home life, I grew resentful towards God. I blamed Him for the gunk that was happening and my life, and I finally hit a point where I wanted nothing to do with God or Christianity. I only attended church when I was forced to, and even then, I tuned out the pastor. In addition, I stopped praying. This negative period in my life without faith continued until the Spring Break of my Junior year in high school when I attended a missions trip. It was that trip where I realigned myself to God's way and repented. Entering a Christian university has done wonders for my faith. I am in a community that holds me accountable, and my classes push me to deeply think about my faith and God. Since coming to Taylor, I have developed a much more personal relationship with God, and now I actively seek Him out each day to the best of my
My beliefs are important to me. I wake up every morning with a cup of coffee in my hand and turn on the daily news. I see many problems occurring around the world, but most of us are too blind to actually do something to help. We are too blinded by our society's cultural that we can’t separate ourselves from the good and bad.
refugees, and the second generation who were born here in the states. Finally, I feel now that I have the vision to work on myself to know more about my attitude, my future therapeutic values in the field practices. At the same time, I am planning to work more with my personal therapist on the values, beliefs, and emotions and I will be happy to know about myself more.
Christianity on the other seemed like something I would enjoy and understand. Second Baptist church became my second home the concepts explained became my way of thinking. Knowing that nothing could get better if I did not talk to anyone I decided to speak to the pastor privately. Emotions and tears filled my eyes as I told him what I had been doing and hiding from my parents. It was explained to me that he had seen this all before and that this was nothing to worry too much about. Suddenly I felt the urge to cry even more, in the hour that I had spent talking to the pastor I managed to release the fear of rejection and depression into the hands of the pastor, and
I am an undocumented student at UC Davis. When I am asked a simple question such as, "describe your personal experiences", I ask myself: Where do I begin?
Fully half of the teenagers by the age of sixteen have had some strong beliefs that they believe in. The things I have believed in since I was sixteen have really made a huge impact on my life. My beliefs have really made me look on life at a different approach. Also the beliefs I have had since I was sixteen help me to become an outstanding individual. Some of the main things I believe in are God; nothing is giving to you, and memories.
The soul of the world to me is my Religion, it has had an influence on my life for as long as I can remember. I was just a little preschooler when I was introduced to my faith, my parents sent me to a church camp after school for an hour or so every day. I had never had any real connections like many of the pastors claimed but I knew as long as I believed that good would come. For many years it didn't, yet I remained faithful. I always believed that if I remained faithful that nothing could ever hurt me, still with all my faith there were days where I questioned my belief. I wondered how any of this could actually be possible, if there was really a big man up in the sky watching me then why don't I ever see him. But as I grew older I learned
I have always had the knowledge of Christ, but up until this last year, I realized I did not truly believe in him. I questioned the things in my life and why I always ended up with the same misery over and over. I had grown up in an abusive life from my early years. I can honestly say I had brief periods of peace when I was allowed to go with my grandparents, but they were short lived. I was taken to a variety of counselors from a very young age and put on prescription medicines starting at 16. Everyone around me could not figure out what was wrong with me and why nothing would “fix” me. Sin was a normal for me, and I carried on that lifestyle into adulthood. I had no concept of trust and what love really was.
My faith walk has been circuitous. I grew from a childhood in the church to a young adulthood away from worshipful opportunities. Despite the distance I placed between myself and God there was always a calling that became harder to resist. I found myself involved in a growing number of outreach activities, frequent church attendance and a greater satisfaction with life in general. I became more comfortable living as myself. If that sounds vague or difficult to understand, it is. It is not a clear-cut, divine
I didn't ask for the pastor to come over. I would have much rather been left alone to watch daytime TV. True, I was beginning to feel I little isolated, but some sissy-voiced holy man I hardly knew wasn't going to make me feel any better. But it was standard policy to notify the church when one of its fold has been hospitalized, for prayer requests and all that mush, and when the pastor heard that I was already home, he felt obligated to visit, as if seeing my swollen, drooling face was somehow doing me a favor.
Socrates’ words, “an unexamined life is not worth living” best sums up my beliefs. I have no doubt that scrupulous examination of myself, as well as other philosophies and religions, will improve myself as a person. Perhaps enough thinking will even lead to enlightenment, but I am so far removed from that goal it would be foolish to consider the idea. The essay Unlearning Religion by Marianne Williamson best describes these beliefs. She writes that in today’s modern world, “our attention has been diverted away from the inner domains, the realms of true religion and spirituality, to the outer world.”
A spiritual journey is when you increase your competency of the different religions in the world to better help you during your job. My spiritual journey is very important to me. Your level of spirituality is defined by how well you believe in a supreme being. If I know more about spirituality I will become more culturally competent. I hope that I will stick to the goals that I make in this paper. I believe that I am still at the very beginning of my journey. This journey will be long, but I think that I can get through it within the next few years. This journey will strengthen my skills in social work. I believe that religion shapes everyone’s life. Religion is very important to me because I think that everyone should have a religion. I believe
The biggest thing that I’ve been dealing with and at this time still struggle with is in finding my self-worth. Some may also call it self-confidence. I feel that I have tended to confuse God’s love for me as primarily traveling through vessels, i.e. other people in the body of Christ. I all too often can look back on my past and see the points where I felt the most apart from God and tie them in with instances where I had torn relationships with past friends in the church. Throughout this struggle though, I have continued to feel the presence of God, through the Holy Spirit, comforting me and guiding me on this spi...
I begin college right after high school and was enthusiastic about the next chapter in my life however the excitement was short lived due to the stress of college and work. I felt a sense of energy and returned to college a second time only to withdraw once more due to the burdens of life. There was a sense of unfinished business I carried along time concerning college. I knew that graduating college was something I needed to do to bring peace for the good of to my inter person. (Romans 10:17New King James Version) So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. I believe that when I continued to speak in abundance to the word of God and hold fast to this scripture that I would return to college and complete what I started.
Which brings me to Fowler’s Theory of Faith Development, specifically Individual-Reflective Faith which occurs in early adulthood. Growing up as a family we went to church every Sunday and sometimes even twice a week, everyone in my family was a catholic and that was expected from all of us, no questions asked. I even got baptized as a baby and did my first communion when I was about nine years old. I did not mind the expectation from my family when I was little because I loved church, especially the singing. Then came a time where both of my parents started to work on Sundays, so did my sister, and so my brother and I helped out at my parents restaurant. Ever since then we really have not made church a priority, I believe this is what effected my encounter with my mother when I was eighteen years old. I was currently taking a class called “religion in the modern world” and learned about all rituals and how different religions support different things than others, and it got to me to reflect on what religion I grew up learning about. Some things I liked and some things I was horrified by. So talking to my mother, I was telling her my opinions and what I believed in and that there is not just one way to believe or think. She was furious, I was stepping out of the norm, but it had been because of my Individual-Reflective Faith than lead me to this stage. I am very thankful I was able to reflect on my faith, I now have a stronger bond on my beliefs and now my mother totally supports me on it, so it was all for the best that I went through this
I never really thought about where my life was going. I always believed life took me where I wanted to go, I never thought that I was the one who took myself were I wanted to go. Once I entered high school I changed the way I thought. This is why I chose to go to college. I believe that college will give me the keys to unlock the doors of life. This way I can choose for myself where I go instead of someone choosing for me.