Personal Narrative: How Religion Changed My Life

battle with cancer, I tried killing myself cause I thought that God was punishing me for

One Sunday morning I got up and started getting ready for church. I went into my bathroom and started to take a shower into I realized that my water was curtail because I didn’t pay the water bill. So I went out to the whale and got some water to at least brush my teeth and wash my face. After I got done brushing my teeth and washing my face I went into the kitchen and ate a smattering plate of eggs. Then I went into my room picked out my outfit and headed on to church. When I got into the church the pastor asked everyone if the could support the church and I couldn’t inalienable anything. When church ended I, went to get something to eat at old south, while i was eating I saw two of sister that came in the restaurant and I only showed discriminate

31.50% of the world is Christian. 22.32% of the world is Islamic. 0.20% of the world is Judaic. 13.95% of the world is Hindu. 5.25% of the world is Buddhist. 15.35% of the world is secular, nonreligious, agnostic, or atheist. 10.58% of the world is made up of other religions. I am among the 15.35% of the world that is secular, nonreligious, agnostic, or atheist. However, I identify as a religion called LaVeyan Satanism, which sprung up into our world on Walpurgisnacht in 1966 and was birthed by Anton Szandor LaVey.

I came to Christ at the young age of four. My parents were Christians and were actively involved in the church. Most of my only memories from when I was between the ages of three and ten were going to church, VBS, and house church. I loved going to those events and having fun and learning about Jesus. The things I learned at church and from others had a major impact on my entire childhood and built me into the person I am now. I was as die hard of a Christian as a child could be. I knew Jesus, I loved Him, and all I can remember was wanting to learn more about Him.

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’ve never felt truly attracted to any one religion before. Through all my hours of studying and researching I realized I needed to look more within myself to find what I spiritually and religiously need. I’ve come to the conclusion that I just don’t have one that fits me, or at least I haven’t found it yet. Growing up my parents made sure I was raised non-religious so I would be able to choose something that was for myself and not just because it was what I was raised into. Since majority of my family I lived around were Baptist I did end up learning the basics of the Bible and church even though I never attended. Even while reading the stories and scriptures I never found them to be special the way other kids around me did. To me they were just great stories and quotes to read and live by if you choose to or learn from even. As

It was 1996. I had written a guest column for The Dispatch for a number of years when, out of the blue, the Lord gave me the opportunity to write a monthly religion column for the paper. I easily say that it was the Lord who opened this door for me because I had never heard of a religion column written by anyone other than a pastor. Yet the Dispatch took a chance on me, just another stay-at-home mommy at the time, and today, I’ve written this monthly religion column for over 20 years.

Matters of Faith offers music, a message and sometimes a guest speaker. It is a place for many people to come together and hear not only about their own religion but to hear about other religions as well. These are the reasons that intrigued me to see what Matters of Faith was really all about.

I grew up in a Christian household and for a long time, my parents would bring my siblings and I to church every Sunday. I also went to CCD for many years when I was a child. It wasn’t until I entered my teenage years that I started questioning the religion I had grown up learning about and I began to consider myself agnostic.This year I’m taking a World Religions class that’s offered at my high school and, so far, we have studied Hinduism and Buddhism. I knew very little about religion, aside from Christianity, before taking this class. However, even after being in this class for only 2 months, I feel as if my eyes have become more open to the world around me. I find Buddhism especially interesting because it’s not just a religion, it is

Growing up in a religious community, I witnessed individuals who could not tolerate faith and notions dissimilar to their own. These individuals would instigate arguments that were often designed to render their victims uncomfortable. My first true eye opening experience to these hate driven conversations was when I was returning home from church. I was pulled aside from my family by a neighbor to question my religious affiliation. She attempted to make me feel ashamed of my religion and told me I should stop going to church. She then continued the insults by telling me my parents were raising me wrong and should join the “right religion.” Never before have I experienced such ferocious dislike, during this conversation, it was difficult to

Losing my religion began when I questioned it for the first time. I did not have a devout upbringing and my family never practiced anything other than lighting the menorah or the Christmas tree. Faith wasn't apart of me; I relied on myself to get through my internal struggles and teenage angst; which, in hindsight, was probably not such a brilliant method of self-help. Even though I loved fiction and magical stories, science explained the workings of the world. Logic and reason didn’t fail me until my grandfather died. His death wasn’t a shock, he had two types of cancer and was struggling with his illnesses for years. But as painful as it was that he was no longer with us on Earth, what was most haunting was the fact that I had no explanation as to where he had gone. Science

Prayer can be a sincere and compelling way of fostering and enhancing a faith community. Just as Jesus did with his disciples, “ he taught them how to pray,” we must do the same. (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2008, p. 59) Prayer life is a component of our Catholic faith that should be a foremost priority. It’s a unique way to communicate with God personally or with a group. Praying is that free gift from God, which can bond and inspire others with few words. After reading this assignment, the first thing I thought of was an experience with prayer, but since prayer is such a considerable part of being a Catholic, I had a difficult time settling on a single prayerful experience, so I prayed upon it and there it was. For me, the simple idea of praying for others and including the faith community, can be seen in my experience at a local diocesan

“FLY IT LIKE A MUSTANG!” he shouted, so I shoved the stick all the way over and a view of the earth completely filled my right window as we came around. Oh man!

“You know I’m typically a happy-go-lucky kind of woman. I don’t give a shit what other people think of me and there’s a reason for that. I don’t talk about my past very often. When I do, I make a point to tell the good parts. We’ve been friends for several years and I’ve let little things slip here and there. Doing so never bothered me because you’re tight-lipped. You’re an intelligent woman so I’m sure you’ve pieced together some of the little things,” Megan said, wondering what thoughts might be floating through Faith’s mind now that she was opening up and revealing her dark side after years of keeping their interaction full of fun and games.

My journey with God started in February of 1993, when I went to a ladies’ conference in Columbus, Texas. It was while the speaker was explaining that she knew there were some of us out in the audience, who felt guilty about something they had done in their past, and they did not feel that God could forgive them for it. But then she quoted from God’s word; “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, not principalities, no things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39 NASB) The speaker continued on to say that all we need to do is