Reflection Paper

Christianity played a significant role in my life up until lower school. I would go to church with my Dad every Sunday morning to help set up, which is how we became close. I fondly remember how he instilled that with a close relationship to God, you could get through anything. I took what he said to heart, said my prayers before bed and meals, and read my bible. I always dreamed of going to Heaven and spending eternity with my family. As the only religion that I had ever known, I thought everyone else also believed in Christianity. I never questioned any of it until elementary school.

In recent days I had the opportunity to go back to North Carolina for a few short days. There, with a heavy heart from a loss in the family, I had nothing else to look towards. I’ve always heard of individuals finding peace, faith, blessings, and love of Christ from attending church. I’ve never been a person who put their faith into a higher power. As I was growing up my parents never wanted to force me into any religion without me knowing everything about it and choosing which route to take on my own. As the years treaded on, I never bothered myself to learn about the many different religions and what each stands for. So I used this opportunity as mine to attend church for the very first time. I attended the Roman Catholic services held

On September 6, 2017, I were documented for an incident that involved a University Housing policy violation. I was charged with violating the University Housing Alcohol 1.2 policy. With my violation, came consequences. I met with The Residence Conduct Coordinator to discuss my actions and came to the conclusion that I would have to schedule a meeting with The Campus Alcohol and Drug Education Center (CADEC) and with that, a reflection paper.

I grew up in a Christian home, with both my parents fully devoted to their faith. They would take me to church every Sunday and I would learn so much about this person named God. They also took me to Sparks, Cubbies, Awanas, TNT and eventually youth group. So I grew up knowing so much about God and memorizing scripture through the Awana programs. Also I remember every other morning waking up early in the morning, before my dad had to go to work, to my dad singing out so loud, “Devotions, Devotions!” and we would learn about something new that morning, give or take if I was actually awake to learn. A thing that was cool that I really liked about those devotions was when my dad would tell us verses to remember he would sing them to us so that

Ever since I was a young boy, my family would pile into our old 15-passenger van and drive to church each and every Sunday, without fail. I didn't really understand it at first, it was just something I had to do. When I was around 6 years old, my mother encouraged me to accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior. I hardly understood what it meant, but I went through with it, much to my mother’s excitement. Years passed, and my understanding grew. Up until I was around 13 years old, my faith had no correlation to my actions. I could recite bible verses for hours, yet I couldn't say what any of them meant. That all changed one year at Camp Selah, a Then, in the year 2014, my faith took a turn for the worst. I’d had a testing first year of high

Ever since I was a little girl, my family always pushed Christianity. We would all go to church every Sunday and every big holiday, like Easter or Christmas. All of the grandchildren, including me, had to be in the holiday plays, where we would sing and dance for the whole church. We also were all in the choir, we had practice every Saturday, so that we could sing that Sunday. During the service, when I was younger, I would fall asleep to the preacher preaching. Once I turned 9, I couldn’t do that anymore. It was seen as disrespectful because I was old enough to stay awake during church. I always struggled to stay awake while the preacher preached. As my cousins and I grew older, we started going to church less and less, while the adults still pushed the idea.

Throughout my adolescence, I regularly attended the Lutheran church and was enrolled in a Christian school until the age of twelve. I grew up in a middle class neighbor located in a Suburban in Florida near downtown Tampa area. God had completely blessed this only child, who was raised in a stable household with two, loving parents. Most importantly, my Christian parents based every aspect of their lives in devotion to Christ and mentoring the youths in the community. It was important for them to serve others and live a life that was pleasing to God and according the Christian principles that are inscribed in the Holy Bible. My parents viewed each individual as important and often reminded me to seek positive potential in everyone.

The concept of religion has been a vital part of my life for as long as I can remember. Christianity in particular has served as the utmost precedence for my family and I, as I was raised on eminently well-built and eternal Christian values. From the time I can remember, I was always in and involved in the church, whether it was bible study, Sunday school, or just typical Sunday morning worship. Being raised and brought up in the comfort and shelter of the Christian religion has provided me with a genuine appreciation for it. In retrospect, the comfort and shelter of Christianity has sparked fascination and bewilderment. Throughout the emergence of my formal Christian education, there are countless things I hope

We practiced the Christian belief system on my mother’s side. Frequently, we would attend church with her or my grandparents. They would frequently drop us off in the youth group where they would attempt to teach us the religious practices via cartoons and coloring books. Our grandparents took us on every possible church event in the

As a young child, my mom thought it was very important for me to be involved in a community of believers, therefore my mother was very adamant in our attendance in church every Sunday.Due to this strong foundation from my childhood, I have always considered myself a Christian, and a follower of Christ. However I believe I fully grew into my faith around my freshman and sophomore years of high school. During this time I experienced a considerable amount of maturing, not only emotionally, but also spiritually.

Growing up with one Christian parent and one atheist parent confronted me early on with hard decisions surrounding faith. Faith, to me, became choosing between two parents more so than understanding my core beliefs and making the hard choices. I gave my life to Christ for the first time at a very young age in Sunday school; however, the pivotal point in my walk was during my freshman year. Up until that year, the only Christians I had direct contact with all simply went to church on Sundays and often were drunk or in another arguement as soon as Sunday night. The first time I saw someone act like a follower of Christ and not just proclaim to be was through my soccer coach. This coach never went around telling people that he was a believer,

My Christian upbringing has enabled me to learn and embrace God’s love in my life. I know and believe that God exists and has good plans for his children (us). I also believe that I am God’s child and He is always there to assist me and comfort me whenever I need Him. All I must do is call on him. Being brought up in a Christian family, I practice prayer and read the Holy Bible for guidance. I believe that doing this has brought me closer to God and has made me have undoubted faith in God. My faith in God has allowed me to experience the

I grew up in a Christian household. I’m very blessed and grateful that my parents introduced me to Jesus at a young age. Even though I didn’t really understand it all I know it was vitally important to who I am today. My parents always set a good example of how to always show love and care. As a child we went to a local church and I attended the kid’s programs. I also attended a private Christian school all the way up to the 5th grade when I transferred to a public school. I always was introduced to Jesus but never truly knew him. In my young age I thought of all of it basically as another school subject. When I was around 12 years old, I started going into the actual church service instead of the kid’s program and I would draw on a piece of paper instead of truly listening.

Over the course of the semester, there has been numerous amount of areas where I believe I have improved in comparison to high school. What has helped me in my writing is the writing class and the in-class writing workshop. The writing class that is located in the Kremen education building has helped me with my writing greatly because in the writing center the person in charge teach us lenses and we apply those lenses to the writing, draft, or reading that someone brings in. The in-class writing workshop has helped me because other students get to read my writing. This is helpful because I get feedback from many students and they let me know what needs to be fixed. A new tool I have been using is They Say I Say. The book is very helpful because of the information and examples it provides such as the templates. I have been applying the templates into my essays and I have seen a significant difference.

Growing up I always lived in a religious household. We always prayed before we ate, prayed before we went to bed, and always went to church on Sunday and Wednesday night. While I never questioned these actions and never tried to rebel against them, I still didn’t understand the importance of them either. I was merely walking in my parents footsteps, doing what my parents told me, singing along to the children’s songs in Sunday school, gave a tithing of my allowance every Sunday, but my life was void of the real meanings of my actions. This went on for years. Because I had not yet read through the Bible to understand why these actions had any meaning, they were just things I did all the time and I thought that was normal and that was what it meant to be a Christian.