Spiritual Autobiography
There has never been a time in my life where I have not known about Jesus or God. I grew up in a Christian home with both of my parents sharing their love for Jesus with me. Both of my grandparents along with most of my aunts and uncles were also devout Christians. So, growing up I always had family members who knew the Lord and would direct me towards the Lord whenever I had a problem or setback. I also grew up going to church every Sunday and have attended Christian schools from kindergarten to my senior year of high school. As a result of my background I’m not exactly sure the specific moment in time that I chose to accept Jesus as my Savior as I believe that it is something that I have always believed, however towards my middle school years I began to develop a sort of doubt in my faith and whether or not I was truly a Christian.
I believe that my bout of self-doubt surrounding my faith was a result of me hearing other people’s testimonies and then comparing it
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Personally I find it easier to see how I can use journalism to fuse together my vocation and my love for the Lord and desire to spread Jesus’ love to other people. As through Journalism, I can impact people through my writing and influence people through the topics in which I write about or how I choose to handle the topics I write about. Whereas, with Public Relations I would want to use that to either do something with event planning or marketing. I am not exactly sure how I would be able to incorporate evangelism into this, but through my actions and how I react during stressful moments could showcase to my fellow workers what God is all about. Also, after the play was over I realized that I most likely wouldn’t perform again and began to questions how I could maybe utilize my love for theatre and singing to evangelize, but I’m still trying to figure out whether it is something that I want to pursue
faith through these events. The majorities of the experiences are positive, but people have also
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.
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.”
One of the main concepts that we discussed this semester was the concept of life chances. Life chances refers to the likelihood that a person will do well in life. Many different factors affect a person’s life chances, either in a good way or a bad way. When thinking about how good or bad a person’s life chances are, it’s helpful to start by examining his or her social background. A social background refers to how a person was raised, the type of social environment the person was raised in, the person’s race, class, and gender, and other circumstances similar to these.
I was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida. My mother was born in Taiwan and moved to the United States to continue her education when she was in her mid- twenties. My father is from Fort Walton Beach, Florida. My parents have different cultures, and as a result they have completely different backgrounds. When I was growing up, I had a hard time reconciling these different cultures. It was difficult for me and my sister to know what to do in many social situations because our primary schema (our parents) would act completely different in similar social situations. When I would ask my parents for advice, they would give me contrasting suggestions. As I grew older, I started to realize that both my parents were right, even if they acted like opposites.
We read personal narratives in order to relate to other’s experiences and place ourselves in other’s to relate to their conflicts or learn about conflicts that we have yet to face. Reading about a similar experience helps us increase our sense of connection to others. Reading about an experience we haven’t encountered will better prepare us to face new challenges or help other people face them. In order to do these things, outstanding personal narratives should place the reader in the narrator’s shoes so the reader could understand everything the narrator went through in their experience. The most powerful personal narratives effectively deliver these benefits when they use imagery that connects us to the narrator’s emotional experience, have
Spiritual formation is a process that morphs as we grow and change. There is no one singular correct path this type of journey takes because each journey is as individual as the person who is experiencing it. Most obvious, the journey will be different from those who identify as religious and those who do not and will diversify with in each category. For example, the spiritual journey a Buddhist takes will be different from that of a believer in Judaism or Christianity. In fact, the journey will continue to diversify between Christians, male and female, age groups, even by demographic location. Consequently, the spiritual formation process is as diverse as it is intricate and we may never be able to discover all the journey options. Although individuals may not actively recognize they are experiencing spiritual formation it is a process that affects all. Because it is in human nature to question, learn, grow, and act, everyone to a certain extent is exposed to a unique spiritual formation journey.
Through this experience, I have learned a lot about my beliefs. I realized that I am much
As stated before, evaluation of faith is a process, but I have also had a couple more insights. One of them is that the process of understanding my own faith is going to take place in day to day activities. Through my day different events will happen reminding me of the question I am debating and add to my knowledge. The important part then is to keep track of what I learn. Additionally, I truly develop my thoughts on any issue through conversation so I look forward to the conversations I will have in the coming semesters.
Growing up in a Christian home, I knew what Jesus had done for me by dying on the cross and saving me from my sins. Not putting together that it isn’t just about the knowledge of God, but fully believing what His word says. Up until the beginning of my eighth grade year, that was what I believed. However, I started to see the entirety of it all differently, but couldn’t put it together what it was. That winter four years ago, the church I was attending was planning on going to Hume Lake as they had done in the years before.
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
Growing up in a Christian household, attending a Christian school, and engaging in other activities within Christian communities, as a child I assumed everyone was a Christian. My parents sheltered my sisters and me from their perceived dangers. It was not until my late teenage years did I encounter persons of other faith traditions. Certainly, the sheltered approach made by my parents caused an intense level of naivete but because their actions were carried out with the utmost amount of love it is was with compassion that I do not hold these decisions against my parents. With gladness, I am grateful to have met and experienced God at a young age. Had I not known God for myself, I believe that I would have
Have you ever been in a situation where you found yourself questioning you own believe? The world we live in today is very dynamic and most of us, if not all of us have had to do certain things that were personally were against our will thus we somehow compromised our own faith. We all believe in something. Don’t we? The important thing to not about faith is that it is indirectly our world view. What we believe is maps how we view the world view and how we survive our daily lives.
Since I was little I was always told and reminded of God. For example I was baptized as early as you can baptized a newborn baby, and had a very Catholic family. Therefore I never really questioned or thought about my faith, it just sort of came naturally. However as we moved from Mexico to the U.S. I’ve, as well, as my family have stopped going to church and doing any sort of prayer. Although this was the case, a year ago my uncle and grandfather passed away. This was a very hard time for my family and we looked for comfort. That’s when I truly felt God as a Living Being in my life. My family and I started going to Church every Sunday. Every minute of it helped me not only connect to God, but to connect with my loved ones that had passed away. I truly felt God in my regular life as if he was connecting me with the people I most loved here on Earth and in Heaven.
The faith that I have, and my parents’ example, have both had a large impact on who I am