Personal Narrative: My Spiritual Autobiography

I crawled into bed with her one night. Under the blankets and wrapped in her arms, I whispered, “Why did the doctors take your hair away?” To this, my mom softly explained to me the process of chemotherapy. I was four years old at the time, and two years prior to this my mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Having never drank, smoked, or done drugs, her diagnosis came as an incredible shock. She fought it for the next three years of her life, and though I was very little at the time, I have very vivid memories of being with her through this. I remember rubbing her bald head while we watched movies, I remember painting her pictures daily, and most often I remember doing yoga with her on the beach.

Writing this Professional Project required some deep soul searching while deepening my spirituality to train the veterans of Tabernacle African Methodist Episcopal Church to become Disciples of Christ. Completing the nine training sessions will be beneficial for the congregation. A selection of a Steering Committee from the various boards within the church will assist me with the effectiveness of the Professional Project. Teaching the veterans about The Fruit of the Spirit will strengthen my spiritual walk with Christ as well. Each branch of the military has military core values and a comparison will be made with each Fruit of the Spirit during the training process. Presentations and workshops on The Fruit of the Spirit will undergird

NYPD Standard Operational Procedure when anyone is transferred: The next day they must report in civilian attire to Health Services Division to take a Drug Screening Test. I was fuming about this involuntary transfer to Internal Affairs in the elevator when it reached the eight floor. Not familiar with Health Services Division, preoccupied by still really being pissed off, I followed a small group into a meeting room with about twenty seats. As I sat down I suddenly noticed these guys didn’t really look like cops. When one of these weird individuals said to me “I ain’t crazy, no matter what they say, I wanna be a cop and I wanna a gun.” I was momentarily confused.

In late August 2015, I spoke with Corey over the phone about what needs to be done in order to facilitate a non-profit line of literature for the group. Calling him from my cellphone, I said to him halfway our phone call, “Corey, let it be assured that this idea of mine is a ‘kill two birds with one stone’ proposition, which has the potential to solve our group financing and publicity handicaps.” Then he responded to me by saying, “I honestly do think it is an interesting proposition and would like very much like to see what can be done to get Fire of the Spirit in a position where we can actually do just that. I want you to know that I really do value the hard work and determination which you bring to FOS. I really want to do whatever we can to make this new venture for Fire of the Spirit a reality but it is going to be a lot of work and I will need your help to make it possible.”

I spent from kindergarten to eighth grade at a Catholic school. I learned about both the Bible and the Catholic faith and never saw them at odds with each other. After eighth grade I attended Wayne Christian. I was shocked at how uneducated these Christians were on their fellow believers, claiming that the Catholics were not Christians. I try to dispel their ignorance with education such as explaining the Catholic perspective on Saint Mary, sainthood, and certain rites of the Church. Day after day I corrected them on Catholic beliefs, me against a whole school of people. I eventually had to leave the school because the people were to set in their ways. That is when I challenge something that outraged me.

There are so many different religions in the world and so many people to fill them. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism make up the most populated religions in the world. I happen to not really take part in any of those religions. Most of my family is Roman Catholic and my distant relative, Raffaello Delle Nocche, is even up for sainthood. I feel the most accurate religion that I fall into is agnosticism. I am not really sure if God is real or not, but I do believe that he could be. I have experienced some hard times in my life that have needed God and I have prayed to him during those times. Other times however I question how God could allow so many terrible things to take place in everyday life.

This week’s assignment in retrospection has taken me through a whirlwind of memories, as my past is scattered with times of great joy and other times of despair and intense loss. All of this has ended up being useful. Some of the most growth in character has come from hard times. In reading the book Courage and Calling by Smith (2011) Smith spoke of looking for “footprints of the Spirit throughout our stories”. This focus gave me great joy and revelation.

Since I was born I was raised in the United Methodist church. I was baptized before I could walk and I attended church every Sunday. Looking back, I can not think of a time where I was not acutely aware of the Holy Spirit's presence within my life. The primary thing that has probably held me back was me taking this for granted. My primary source of growth for this time was that I nurtured a good prayer life and had many excellent spiritual mentors over the years. I grew up in a Christian household and worked part time at camp Loucon since I was 16. I have had my share of doubts and struggles in this time, the primary one being my father having a stroke. This tested my faith greatly, as he is still alive, but I have to watch him struggle to

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.

Now, I am going to request a very religious thing. Something, I would never thought to do before. However a co-worker's family is going through some rough times at the moment. I do realize not many folks connected with my face book find themselves overly religious. Yet I do want to ask for a exception this time. Therefor I am asking you guys to offer prayers, strength, courage and/or good vibes to Sharon Dixon, her husband and family.

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.

I live in a Christian home where both my parents are Christians and I have various family members who are also saved. Because I live in a Christian home, I've always gone to Church and Sunday school and grew up listing to the Bible. Thanks to my Christian background, I knew all about Jesus and that I needed to put my faith in Him. Yet, in spite of all that I knew of the Bible (which was very little) I wouldn't make the decision to follow Christ. At the time I thought getting saved was something I had to do when I was older. I didn't think I needed to get saved because I was young, I thought I could put it off until I was an adult.

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 as a Christian, I was always told that we were in the middle of a war, with God on one side, and Satan or the Devil on the other with no middle ground. This, of course, was not an actual war. Yet, during the summer of 2012, I felt as if I was fighting the devil.

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