Childhood Innocence:
Christianity, it was the religion Julia was born
into and chose to believe. Partially growing up amongst said religion, she attended
Sunday school regularly at a church in her small hometown. She loved bible
study on Wednesday’s. She even participated in Vacation Bible Study
during the summers. She always brought in an abundant amount of friends to VBS
and became one of the group leaders of the program when she got older. Julia
loved surrounding herself with people who loved the Lord as much as she. These
types of things are ordinary cultuses
within her religion: attending church on Sundays, Bible study on Wednesdays,
communion on the first Sunday and so forth.
Some of her main
beliefs include obeying the Ten Commandments, always forgiving whether or not you
feel you had been wronged, treating people the way you want to be treated, and
always repenting. She doesn’t believe in divorce because marriage is a
union/promise made with God. Certain aspects of her beliefs fall under
ordinary religion
while others meet the criteria of extraordinary religion.
For example, she stands firm by the belief that if she follows her God and
obeys His commandments, she will have a place in Heaven and her spiritual form
will live forever.
There were inconsistencies with her church attendance
during her adolescent years. It wasn’t that she had become disinterested; it
was that her family just stopped attending consistently. By default she did as
well. There were times she would call up one of her friends whose family was
heavily invested in the church and ask if she could go with them to service. However,
that venture was short-lived. Church had become fairly absent from her daily
existence. Oftentimes she would attempt the 365 Bible challenge: a special type
of Bible that broke up books and verses to read each day for a year in order to
complete the sacred text. She viewed reading the Bible as necessary to become
closer to God. Also, it was her only form of learning about Him since church
had fallen from her life. The only problem was she never stuck to it.
High School Woes:
Upon starting high school, the role religion played
in her life started to change once again. Her sister had begun dating a boy who
invited Julia’s sister to church with him. She accepted his offer and following
service that morning, Julia’s sister invited the entire family to attend the next
week. They accepted. It was a new environment, very strange from what she was
accustomed to; nevertheless, it was reminiscent of home. She had grown up in a
predominately white church and the one her sister had taken her to was
predominately black. It was much livelier, cheerful, and family-oriented.
At this point in
her life, Julia had begun dating a boy who she openly explored different sexual
activities with, except for the act of sex itself. However, after she began to
attend church again, Julia started to feel as if she was sinning anytime she engaged
in sexual activity seeing that it was premarital. She felt as if she was
breaking the written code.
She explained this to her boyfriend and he respected her beliefs.
College Breakdown:
Julia became happy at this church and attended
service religiously. She felt a newfound sense of community
with a new group of kind, dedicated individuals; they became her second family.
Three years later, Julia went away to college. Upon entering this new stage
Julia sought to keep religion and her religion-based moral code as part of her
life, but failed on multiple occasions. She attended church once in awhile with
friends but it became a similar situation as with her first church home; it
just did not feel like where she belonged. Julia stopped attending church altogether
and simultaneously begun to feel as if she was losing some of her values. She
started partying on the weekends, getting drunk, and becoming sexually promiscuous.
She looked at her behavior as perpetually destructive
but felt there was no way to stop it. At this point in her life prayer was
obsolete, church was nonexistent, and Bible study went unattended. The day she
got pregnant became the turning point in her life.
She cried and cried and begged of an answer from
her Heavenly Father. Was it punishment for her behavior? She couldn’t face
telling her parents, family or community what she viewed as a mistake. For this
reason, Julia decided to have an abortion. Again, defying the moral code she
once held so firmly. After following through with the abortion Julia felt there
was no way God would ever love her again because she took away a life. Despite
this mindset, she remembered one teaching that was always instilled growing up;
God will always forgive your sins, He died for them.
A few months later
Julia still had not found a family-like church, so instead she began attending
a weekly bible study with a new community of dedicated individuals. Through
them Julia found a religious family once again, and not long after, she found a
church family. There were times when Julia felt as if she was regressing, but
never entirely back to the reckless lifestyle she once lived. It was a struggle
at first to give up the worldly things she was so invested in, but the more she
attended to church, started reading her Bible, and engaging in daily prayers,
the easier it became to remember her values. Most of all it also became clearer
what she truly wanted out of life and what life meant, the creeds.
Today Julia considers herself a newborn Christian; restorative religion took
place in her life.
