Personal Narrative: Growing Up As A Little Christian Girl

At the age of 16 I had my son Ezikel, he is now six years old and is a wild, exciting, creative young boy he is my biggest blessing. When I found out I was going to have a child at such a young age I had one thing on my mind and that was “I refuse to be a statistic” I went on to find a high school for teen moms; Florence Crittenton High School, I was determined to graduate high school and move on to college. I completed High School in 2011 and got a scholarship I went to CCD but I felt it wasn’t quick enough for me , I felt as if I had to rush and get a career to support me and my son. I then went to working dead end jobs I felt like a failure, this is not what I planned on for my post high school life, I felt ashamed and I had let my son down.

As a mother of two, I really started thinking, and asking myself that what I am going to do about my future, and better future for my kids. With constantly thinking about this, I met a friend, who told me about going back to school. She said there is new school in town, decided to go and check it out. I always wanted to go back to school ever since I remember.

An experience in my life that influences my goals to go back to school is when I went to jail for the first time. Going to jail is an experience that changed my life forever, because it made me think of all the wrong things I was doing with my life. When I got out of jail, I attended church for the first time and asked Jesus Christ to come into my life. After asking Jesus to come into my life, I felt a change within myself and realized I can be a good person and that I am forgiven for the bad things I did in the past. Going back to school and taking my future seriously is what I am focused on right now. I want my children to know that I am doing this for them so they can have a secure future as well. I have 3 young children who look up to me and I do not want to let them down.

Since I was a child, I loved making friends. Whenever I saw someone new, I would run up to them and immediately become best friends with them. As I grew up, I recall some occasions when I felt left out. I remember being so sad that they wouldn't include me. From that day on, I made a commitment to make everyone feel involved because that feeling of being left out was one of the worst feelings a young boy/girl could ever have.

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

Growing up as a teenage girl in the world with the state it's in, it's often hard to not want to please everyone. That's something I struggle with, especially as a Christian. I want everyone to like me. I feel a pressure to please everyone, show my love for Christ, and a burden to never slip up..always be perfect. Once entering high school, the need for everyone to want to be my friend and like me grew. I would do anything to please these "friends." Often more times than not, these things that pleased them ceased to please God. Looking at those people I had in my life, I got to thinking what were they doing for me. Yes- that may sound like a selfish question, but really what were these people I was trying so hard to please doing for me? The answer was

poverty and I assumed that it only really existed in other far away countries. Everyone

Decision-making has never been my forte, exactly. I once drove around town with a friend for forty minutes as we exchanged variants of, “I don’t know. Where do you want to eat?” My proclivity for avoiding to outright choose one thing over another has been deeply inset since I was very young, and I believe it probably stems from an intense fear of rejection. Needless to say, the choice to commit to something I cannot see was one that was daunting and, for a long time, seemed puerile.

Growing up going to a Catholic school and being a part of the Catholic faith my entire life has undoubtedly shaped me to the person that I am today. I have always done service without hesitation because it is just part of who I am and what I have been taught to do throughout the years. Throughout the years I have been apart of many different service organizations and projects. Some examples oh the community service I have been apart of would include Luke 18, Vacation Bible School, PSR teacher assistant, and School events that require student aid. The total amount of service hours I have on record with St. Dominic is one hundred and five hours as of Junior year.

I had the opportunity to interview Andrea Kier who is the Children’s Pastor at Manor Church. She has been working there for five years. Previously she worked as a Children’s Pastor at a Korean-American church in Chicago. She is very passionate about children’s ministry and about equipping parents to be the prime spiritual influencer in a child’s life.

It was the Spring of my 8th grade year, and while most kids in my grade would consider Algebra as something they learned, I got to learn a life lesson about self-control. I was attending a private Christian school that year, and had been there since 4th grade. I had a few close friends, but also made a few enemies. I had a real issue with one student named Ethan and he would consistently get under my skin every chance he had by saying negative comments or making jokes about me. Instead of seeking help from teachers, I would just try to forget about it and move on. But every negative comment and joke they made really did get to me. During middle school I often dealt with anger and insecurity. Eventually all of these comments built up in me

“The other important skill is empowering people by way of letting the biblical narratives ask their own questions of our social context…the discussion was wonderful, and people started to get this idea of dwelling in scripture before plunging into a meeting, in order to hear God.”. (A. Roxburgh/F. Romanuk,176)

I was raised in a Christian home. Both my parents were saved. My dad got a two-year degree from Appalachian Bible College but it took him four years to finish it. My mom went to college for a year at Bob Jones University. There were marital problems between my mom and dad while she was alive.

After writing the personal awareness paper I learned about who I actually am. I also learned more about Gods purpose for me and the path in which is in front of me.

When it comes to my religious beliefs, I am Catholic and after taking this class Religious Imagination class with Professor Martin. I can say that I have gained new insight to the different religions that we have learned throughout the course of the class. This class really opened and broadened my perspective on different religions because never experience or even learned about these different religions before taking this class. The specific religions that I have gained insight on were Hinduism, Buddhism and Primal religion. Before taking this class I heard of these religions but I did not actually know what they were. Each Religion that we learned helped me is the amazing ways people believe in God. I found the Primal religion extremely interesting