Personal Narrative: Christi

When we arrived at the house, I stood there for about five seconds before knocking on the door. They didn’t answer at first, so I knocked again, harder, and then saw the handle start to move. My stomach filled with butterflies as I watched the door slowly open. The face that greeted was one of a two year old, and as I looked up I saw her father standing over her.

Since I was born, I have lived in a religious household, gone through catholic education, and have been bred by the morals, attitude, and rules of a Roman Catholic lifestyle. This was not my choice, but how I was raised. These ways have shaped who I have become, and who I will grow to be. Although my catholic experience has been bad at times, it has formed who I am as a person and has been a guideline for the life I would like to live.

Today was a boring and very uncomfortable day for me. Everyone know my last day here at Grace Christian Center is tomorrow so everyone is telling me that they’re sorry that I’m leaving. I’m not sure if its true or not , but its nice to hear. When I walked through the doors of GCC I went straight back to my seat and started cleaning out my desk. I don’t have much in there but I want to make sure that I leave it in better shape than when I got it. Just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean that I have to leave my work area cluttered. After cleaning up my area I decided that I was going to go downstairs to eat lunch with the rest of the staff member, which was odd because that’s something that I normally run away from. Me and the staff ate

As Catholic Connections comes to a close, Ruth and I complete our service project during her visit during spring break. She had completed her side of the project earlier in the year, while back in New Jersey, and donated her and her friend’s and family’s clothes to a clothing drive at her church. I was planning to do my project alone as well, but at the beginning of the 2016 year, I was told that she and her family would be coming to visit during Spring Break. When she arrived in Utah, we had to wait until later in the week, when she had more time. When she did, we walked to a Big Brothers Big Sisters of Utah Clothing donation box. With two bags of clothes in hand, we donated the clothing and spoke about how Ruth had volunteered there, when

As I thought about seeing Grace for the first time in a while, my stomach starts to hurt. I’m staring out the window to see a sign saying, “HOME OF THE LOUISIANA CARDINALS” and I know we’re there. I hear my mom say “Finally, we’re here,” as she ripped off her seatbelt. She starts to yell at my brother as he’s opening the door before we come to a complete stop. As I turn to look out the window again, I’m the first person to see Grace. She was leaning up against the fence with a couple of her teammates. Without saying another word I rip off my seatbelt and fly open the door. I shut the door quietly so she wouldn’t notice we were there and waited impatiently for everyone else to get out of the car.

In my junior year of high school, I started dating a girl with whom I would get into a serious relationship with. We grew close and shared our deepest secrets, and I genuinely loved this girl. However, this relationship shattered when I found our she had cheated on me by sleeping with my best friend. I was in a dark place after the event. I retracted myself from society and locked myself in my room only to come out for food. I became cold and saw the world as a cruel joke placed upon its inhabitants. I believed everyone had a side of evil, and that I could trust no one. However, I spent a week of that summer in a program called Marianist LIFE. The program preached to its participants to build Christian communities. There I met kindhearted people

Our story begins as I am picked up from GMB. Keep in mind that in order to be hired by them you need to be in physical shape and no disabilities of any kind. So you're basically their toy. For example an assassination of someone very important.You are used to do their dirty work and in return you get nothing. Alright so as soon as I step out of my house i'm rushed by men in black suits. I am already well aware that it was GMB coming at me so as I am a highly trained for situation like this I fought back hoping I would make it out alive but as i'm thinking this I get hit in the back of the head and i'm out.

Grace is a waitress at Star Cafe in Los Angeles California. She loves to work there because of the friendly customers and the occasional free food. She has been an employee of the month for 11 months in a row! She had just finished college at UCLA and is moving back to Seattle in a few days to be closer to her family. Grace dreadfully counted down the days until the move, but she knew moving to Seattle was the best choice for her family. It was two days until the move and Grace had one last day of work left. She woke up at exactly 5:45 am for her daily morning run. She put on her favorite workout attire and pulled her red hair into a ponytail. She didn’t have to work until 11 am so she decided she should run until 9. After she had showered and put her work clothes on, she went outside to wait for her best friend Madison to pick her up. Once she got to work, she made sure she said Hi to everyone and wish them a good day. She loved to put a smile on everyone’s face because seeing someone else happy always makes her happy.. Grace had about 3 hours of work left when she saw a young couple walk in. They sat at one of her tables and until it looked like they were comfortable, Grace walked over to take their drink orders. She had almost reached the table when the girl screamed at him,

I’ve always felt it was my obligation to try and help others. For this reason, if I could be any superhero, I’d be Professor Xavier from the X-men of the Marvel universe. I would like to be as intelligent as him and try to help others by telepathy and what they really feel. I would do this to get an understanding of what people really mean when they say something is bothering them. I would help them to feel better about themselves and be a counselor and guide them to succeed.

Just to give some background, I grew up not in a religious family at all. We went to the kids camps at church to mainly make friends, but when I left for the day that's where it stopped. I also as terrible as it is to admit, have not been to church in a very long time, which I would love to change. My family is Christian, I suppose if you had to put it in a category you would say non-denominational. My husband grew up from a Catholic turned Christian family. I have never experienced going to Catholic mass or any other variation of Christian church in my life. He is from Oklahoma, where chowboy churches are apparently a thing. Being from Indiana, I have personally never heard of this before in my life. So being a believer and wanting to try something new, I took it upon myself to find one we could both enjoy around our house. At first, I thought he was making this up completely, however after running into a few of these churches while driving, I was now interested. We found one called 3C Cowboy Fellowship, that prides itself on getting rid of judgement and just wanting to do what was intended and praise God. Being someone that has not gone to any type of church in awhile, I was skeptical, even though that was their saying that they did not judge. I swallowed my pride and attempted to

“Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.” James 3:10. My mouth was not full of curses. I would not belittle anyone, or even exalt myself. Yet the very same tongue had no praise roll off of it. I had known Jesus, but we had not gotten very close. All it took was one moment. A moment that led me to conviction, self-questioning, and a powerful prayer.

After resigning from Women’s Ministry I found that I am emotionally exhausted. I shouldn’t have stepped into that position and I was not the right person for that position and I have been told that from others in the church . I thought I did a good job but not good enough, I am wounded by others.

"Christen Parker, please come to the office," the secretary says over the loud speaker. Soon, every head, including the math teacher's, turned around and faced me. I'm guessing they assumed I was in trouble since that is usually why I am called over the loud speaker.

Interviewing several pastors can be eye opening in that you will begin to see different character qualities, disciplines and where they are in their spiritual journey. My intention was to interview several pastors, however, I was unable to obtain the responses needed to complete a study such as that. I did get to meet with one pastor, and I believe that it was truly difficult for him to answer most of the questions even after giving him some time to think about each question. My interview was with a very intelligent and spiritual man named Les Harvey. He is currently serving at the Church of the Highlands Greystone campus under many great leaders.

Envision a young, obsequious girl; she’s just 10 years old. She has dazzling blue eyes and wispy white blonde hair, and she is carefree. She is a big sister to her little brother, and she is unsuspecting. I am this girl. I am the girl who for ten years thought of herself as the only big sister. I was wrong. I can recollect sitting in my dad’s old gray work truck while he was under the hood. I was always prying into things that were none of my concern; that warm spring day was no different. As I was nosing around I found a photograph of a girl, older than me, but not by much, she was riding a horse. I was perplexed. The girl in the photograph looked so much like me. She had the same hair and eye color, but I wasn’t as old as her, nor could I recall ever getting on a horse. I could feel the burden of tears behind my eyes as I slowly exited the truck to ask my dad who the girl was in the photograph. On that day my whole world changed. My dad explained to me (after reprimanding me for plundering through his things) that before he met my mother, he dated a girl named Susan when he lived in Michigan. Susan became pregnant, but he was unaware of this until after he and his family moved to South Carolina. Finding out I had an older sister was a profound experience because I felt like I finally had someone to talk to, I had my eyes open to a secret side of my family, and my sister became someone who I admire deeply.