My Spiritual Journey Research Paper

Everyday someone goes through challenging moments in their lives. These challenging moments can range from having a bad day at work to losing a family member unexpectedly. Life can be tough but with prayer, faith and love in Christ, our lives can change dramatically. I’ve always been a believer in Christ but there are moments I find myself questioning his existence. Questions that formulate in my mind are: why is this happening to me, what I did wrong, and God do you hear my prayers, why aren’t you answering me. I’ve realize that during our challenging moments, Christ wants us to channel our minds and think of positive solutions to better ourselves instead of him intervening all the time. Christ is a jealous God and I should not place anything or anyone before him. God gives us air to breathe, eyes to see, ears to hear and so forth, so why don’t I give him at least 30 minutes of my time each day. This is the beginning of evaluating my spiritual condition.

Social- With my focus mainly on academics and personal health I need to incorporate time for people in my lives and to really enjoy the relationships that surround me. This goal is visually represented around the title “Relationship’s,” and the text “enjoyment”. This could be visiting my brother in Florida, taking mini vacations with my dad and younger siblings, and to get friends and myself out of the library and to appreciate what is right in front of us. One thing that I personally planed is to do is take my friend Dana to Myrtle Beach as a surprise birthday present, I plan to go to Jordan this summer, and might see my mom right after who lives in Georgia.

A spiritual journey is the search of God in our lives. This journey often helps us to find the true inner meaning in our life. It doesn’t matter whether you go to church or not, nature is leading us to God.

For this paper I decided to sit down with my childhood friend from my St. Thomas More Catholic School days. Katarina and I have known each other since we were 5 years old. I remember attending church with her family on Sunday morning, spending the night at her house, occasionally attending her family's BBQ's on Easter Sunday, and inviting her to all my birthday parties at Chuck E Cheese. Though we lost touch after high school we found each other again thanks to social media. We are both from Hispanic Catholic families so it was always assumed that we would grow up to be Catholic too. To my surprise I found that on Katie's social media page under religious views it did not say Catholic as I expected but rather Wicca. Turns out Katie decided that the Catholic faith wasn't for her and opted instead to convert to Wicca.

The Spirituality Scavenger Hunt gave me a different, unique perspective of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, my new school. When going to IUPUI I was not surrounded by spirituality like I am here. I never took time to tour my beautiful school, let alone understand the meaning behind it. As my group went around and gave their definition of spirituality, it broadened the way I think about God and why things happen the way they do. The most important take-away from this great experience, is not to judge someone on their beliefs and values. Everyone sees and thinks about things differently, and I really learned a breathtaking lesson from my fellow classmates. I learned new ways of practicing spirituality during our scavenger hunt. I learned that I can practice

My Christian faith has been a cornerstone throughout my life, calming and supporting me within the trials of life. My faith has reminded me and taught me, that my achievements are not my own, rather, they are a gift from God. This is something I have often struggled with, pride controlling and limiting the growth within my life. However, through the refinement of my faith, as well as having great mentors and examples, I now understand that these gifts I have are given, are gifts, not a result of anything I have done or could do. Within the classroom, my faith aids me as it reminds me that I am called to work heartily in all areas of life, in addition to being a good steward of the abilities which God has given to me. Throughout the stressful times and the hard times I can also remember that God is going to love me no matter what, and perhaps remembering this, and keeping

A spiritual journal is an honest record of my spiritual journey. This is my place to record my prayers and hopes, struggles and hurts, thoughts and questions about my personal and spiritual life. This is where I document how God is speaking in my life. A journal is a tool that can help me go back and recall the times I wandered, the things I've learned and places where I grew up as a Christian.

Prior to relocating it was so easy making my daily agenda without consulting God and presuming that it was acceptable. While in the transition of relocating though, the necessity of prioritizing and seeking God on a higher level became imminent. Once that transition period was completed I could see how my past behaviors warranted change. Through the hand of God, more in-filling of the Holy Spirit, understanding of his perspective, wisdom, increased knowledge, and peace facilitated the changes.

My faith has been very important to me and my family since my birth. I was baptized at Broad Street United Methodist Church by Rev. Mark Ale on January 17, 1993. The reason my faith has played such a vital role for me is mainly due to my Mom’s United Methodist influence. After my Dad began to live on his own he grew distant and stopped going to Church until he married my Mom, and she told him that a condition of being married to her was that they would go to either her Church or his Church every week. When I stated Kindergarten my parents and I were attending Holy Name Roman Catholic Church each week and decided to raise me as a Catholic, so I was brought into the Catholic Church not missing any sacraments due to my valid United Methodist

Both of my parents were born and raised in religious household, one in an Irish Catholic suburb of St. Louis, and the other a small Roman Catholic town in rural Spain. By the time they were young adults both had rejected the religiously institutions they had grown up in. My brothers and I were raised in a house, which viewed religion indifferently resulting in us never receiving formal religious instruction. I grew up a scientist. I quickly developed a passion for science and mathematics, and found particular interest in areas of those fields supported by empirical evidence and had undergone trial by scientific method. I found comfort in the structure provided by my faith in our scientific exploration into the laws that govern the form and

*Describe in 300-500 words the intersection of your faith journey with your collegiate goals at PBA.

While going through your senior year of high school you quickly begin to hate the questions; "What college are you going to?" and "What major are you planning on pursuing?" I got asked these questions countless times over the course of the past year. The first question, "What college are you going to?" was the easiest of them all. The very moment I stepped onto Butler's campus I knew it was the place I was meant to be. And while I thought the second question, "What major are you planning on declaring?" was also a simple question to answer, I soon found my once easy answer of being a pharmacy major was slipping through my fingertips once I moved in and was an official bulldog. Everything I had planned for myself was quickly disappearing into

The principles of discipleship can be found throughout the Bible. One of the ultimate goals of discipleship is to become more Christ like which makes Jesus's life and grace an excellent basis for discipleship. Jesus invested in twelve men, the first Disciples, and entrusted them to continue the process. Peter, James, and John were a part of Christ's inner circle and he fostered and encouraged an exalted spiritual life and growth in these three. Paul was a Pharisee who was murdering Christians and then his life was transformed and he became an apostle. He gave his life over to God's purpose not only in a broad perspective, bringing the Gospel to the Gentiles, but also personal. Timothy was a disciple of Paul; Paul was personally involved in Timothy's life. The Great Commission commands the Disciples, in Matthew 28:19, to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". The Disciples followed the Great Commission and Christianity spread. Believers are meant to follow the

I’d like to state the most obvious observation that I’ve made about spiritual formation; that is that I will always need to be seeking for ways to nurture my personal spirituality throughout my life. I know that to most people this may sound like a “duh” statement, but for me it has truly become a reality and one that I must admit I have been struggling to embrace. I was brought up in a church that, like most traditional churches, stayed happy living in the “comfort zone” of their Christianity. They took everything that the Bible said at face value without digging in to find out why they believed what they believed. I had never been challenged to look deeper into the text. In the past few years I have felt the need to tunnel out of this

Spirituality plays a very sub sequential role in my personal life. First of all, spirituality helps me govern what is right and what is wrong in my life. Many of the decisions that I make everyday, I believe are a direct result of my spirituality. For as long as I can remember I have been raised to believe that I should live my life the way God would want me to live it. Therefore, whenever I have a decision to make, I have to consider, what is right? And what is wrong? Second of all, it also helps me to feel more secure about what will happen to my spirit once my life here on earth is over. I believe that there is a better place for our spirits once we leave this earth.