Personal Narrative: Growing Up In A Christian Culture

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.

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.

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

rowing up as a little Christian girl. As a little girl I was ambitious, I was a leader and very outspoken. Growing up shelter is a good and a bad thing. This good Christian girl starting to encounter life experience. Being a teen mother at a such young aged. Not finishing my education. Just not being financially stable to care for a family. Having the fear of the unknown keep's you in those situations.

The two categories that have made me who I am as a person were my religion and my family influence. Growing up in a Christian based household has shaped me as a person since the ten commandments have helped guide my life. My family has really shaped who I am, my parents have always taught me right from wrong and have helped become the good person I am today. That’s why both of these categories are rated as 30% because they both have equally influenced me to be who I am today and have helped get to where I am today.

Growing up, my parents never talked about God, or church, or Christianity. I did not know who God was, nor did I know anything about Christianity. I did know, that all of my friends believed in this so called ‘God” and would go to church every Sunday, and identified themselves as Christian. I did not know what any of this meant, but at first I acted like I did, so that I wouldn’t be seen as different.

After creating humans God wanted to partner with them to work creating a perfect world. But yet, humanity as a whole rejected this partnership and turned away from God. God then set apart a smaller nation, Israel to form a partnership or a covenant with him. God makes promises to them, in return the Israelites have to live up to God's standards and accept the terms of the covenant. Besides being holy God asks the Israelites to be ambassadors representing God not only through holiness abut by also sharing the true God with the other nations who did not now. There are four main covenants God has made with the Israelites, and each can be found in the first four books or the Torah. He made one with Noah, Abraham, Israel as a whole

I was raised in a church that is considered to be relatively popular  and radical, and when I started to think for myself, I decided it wasn't for me. At first, I was terrified to challenge everything I was told to be truth.  Although rejecting the beliefs was painful for me, I don't regret doing so because the process has helped to shape who I am and what I believed in.

If someone were to describe me based on the outside information that they are able to see they would probably say that I am a Caucasian female. They would also describe my religious beliefs as being a Christian. Also they would describe my sexual orientation as being heterosexual. I would hope that people would describe me in a positive way, however if people learn those things about me they might start judging me either positively or negatively.

I was raised in a Christian family. When I was two and a half years old, my grandma would read the Christian Bible to me. I had always like the Christian Bible. However, at thirteen, my spirit’s name called out to me. I learn that I was Laohg, but I did not understand what that really meant at the time. Before my fifteenth birthday, I was visited by Saint Michael the Archangel and was told to read and translate the Christian Bible, thus I started to really read and translate the Christian Bible, and I learned many things. However, when I turned seventeen, I was drawn to Pagan religions. I looked at many different religions and points of view at the time. After having visions of the beginning and of the end of the world, I started to accept

The thing that I have probably enjoyed the most as a deacon is the role of teaching, both in a formal Sunday setting and everyday informality. Theology and thinking about God has always been at the heart of my spirituality. I can always find myself available with a complicated answer to a simple question. My questions as a Christian came at an early age. I wanted to truly understand where I came from and why I was created. Searching for a spiritual place in my life has always intrigued me and I always had a gnawing feeling in my gut that my purpose was greater than myself.

After years of being under religious manipulation and control, I a rerouted myself into a path of new adventures and learned to have an authentic relationship with God. My life changed, I found a new identity. I obtained the courage to break through the binding religious chains and experienced a new life. My experience stirred a new vision to voice messages that shine light to those blind spots- things or people that become a blockage for living our life with purpose. In my case, the constant condemnations, the judgement, the control of my emotions and thoughts I allowed others to have over my life, robbed me from living to my full potential. I no longer had a unique identity, I had become a religious puppet at a very young age. Fortunately,

After my parent’s divorce we moved to Newton. It was so much more different than what I had experienced up to that point in my life. Previously I had only been exposed to a viewpoint about the workings of the world and it’s inhabitants. From the start of my life I had been told that all people knew in their hearts that there was a god. Those who claimed they didn’t know there was a god were simply denying the lord’s power in order to continue sinning. However, as I spent time in this new place I immediately learned that not everyone had the same strict ideas about the world. Through many years I went on with the same ideas I had always held. All this changed when one friend of mine was willing to challenge my ideas.

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

I have been very fortunate to grow up in a faith based and Christian home for my entire life. From the day I was born my mother and my Christian education have instilled in me that Jesus loves me and that love is why he died for my sins. I was saved when I six or seven years old. As a child, I really liked superheroes. So when I first heard Acts 2:21 and heard a VBS teacher explain Jesus was like a superhero I knew I wanted to be rescued by Christ. I continued learning about my faith and reading my Bible.