My Spiritual Autobiography
I have a unique opportunity to review my life through volumes of diaries that I began maintaining at age ten. I often return to it to review my life and examine how I now feel about how I felt then. This has prompted a more organized reflective tool entitled That was Then Then is Now: My Conversation with My Diary. This work is more than my reflection. It is a cathartic tool that allows me to reveal the heart of a developing young woman to other young women, to mothers, daughters, sisters, and best friends, and pastors, and husbands, fathers, brothers and boyfriends. I have never been strung out. I was not a teen mother, as a matter of fact, I have never had a child. I grew up in the same house with both my …show more content…
As a young child, I watched my mother’s body succumb to the challenges associated with Multiple Sclerosis. Because I am able to reflect on my feelings at the time through my diaries, I am able to see how my perspectives about my relationship with my mother and with my realities shaped. One entry is a 12-year-old’s rant about the unfairness of having to be the one at home with my mother most—my father worked and coached, and my sister because she could drive, would find all means to be anywhere but at home. In one entry, I relate that I hated my mother and that I wished she were dead; however, in the same entry I note “but she is my mother and I love her”. I invariably grew so much closer to my mother. For several years, as my mother lived in a nursing facility, I enjoyed sharing time with her and my dad at the facility, sitting by the facility’s lake, watching movies, sharing with other residents, and our favorite—eating a chocolate Frosty from Wendy’s. I also recall sitting with her and physically anointing her legs and body in a cry to God to heal my mother. Her physical healing never came, and I grew angry with God because of it. My mother died in 1999, yet I came to understand that God heals in many ways. Though her body was never healed, she exuded a deep love and peace for people that I try to model every …show more content…
I have come to appreciate that thread is my leadership. In my family, though the younger, I am the leader. At work, under whatever condition, I become the leading voice. Among my friends and teammates in high school and college, I have always been the leader. Though I have come to understand this as a gift, I also realize that leadership is also a place of isolation. I am often called upon for the challenge, but never for the party. I have embraced this, particularly because I often feel uncomfortable at the party. So, I endeavor to maintain close friendships that do not come with any pretense. These friendships afford me a safe space to vent, destabilize, break, build, reflect, and revive. I am careful to keep My Jerusalem Circle tight knit. Many even in that circle do not know one another, but each provides motivation and nourishment for my spiritual journey.
I constantly work on feeding my internal perspective with positivity, and it has taken much to grow to embrace the little girl that I read about in my diary. I have always acted confident. My mother, as a music educator and Minister of Music, would always say in choir rehearsal, “if you don’t know, at least act like you do.” I held on to that as a strategy for overcoming apprehension. I have come to know that what I articulated as an “act” is really moving in faith. I don’t know, but I am clear that God knows, so I act
I have a unique opportunity to review my life through volumes of diaries that I began maintaining at age ten. I often return to it to review my life and examine how I now feel about how I felt then. This has prompted a more organized reflective tool entitled That was Then Then is Now: My Conversation with My Diary. This work is more than my reflection. It is a cathartic tool that allows me to reveal the heart of a developing young woman to other young women, to mothers, daughters, sisters, and best friends, and pastors, and husbands, fathers, brothers and boyfriends. I have never been strung out. I was not a teen mother, as a matter of fact, I have never had a child. I grew up in the same house with both my …show more content…
As a young child, I watched my mother’s body succumb to the challenges associated with Multiple Sclerosis. Because I am able to reflect on my feelings at the time through my diaries, I am able to see how my perspectives about my relationship with my mother and with my realities shaped. One entry is a 12-year-old’s rant about the unfairness of having to be the one at home with my mother most—my father worked and coached, and my sister because she could drive, would find all means to be anywhere but at home. In one entry, I relate that I hated my mother and that I wished she were dead; however, in the same entry I note “but she is my mother and I love her”. I invariably grew so much closer to my mother. For several years, as my mother lived in a nursing facility, I enjoyed sharing time with her and my dad at the facility, sitting by the facility’s lake, watching movies, sharing with other residents, and our favorite—eating a chocolate Frosty from Wendy’s. I also recall sitting with her and physically anointing her legs and body in a cry to God to heal my mother. Her physical healing never came, and I grew angry with God because of it. My mother died in 1999, yet I came to understand that God heals in many ways. Though her body was never healed, she exuded a deep love and peace for people that I try to model every …show more content…
I have come to appreciate that thread is my leadership. In my family, though the younger, I am the leader. At work, under whatever condition, I become the leading voice. Among my friends and teammates in high school and college, I have always been the leader. Though I have come to understand this as a gift, I also realize that leadership is also a place of isolation. I am often called upon for the challenge, but never for the party. I have embraced this, particularly because I often feel uncomfortable at the party. So, I endeavor to maintain close friendships that do not come with any pretense. These friendships afford me a safe space to vent, destabilize, break, build, reflect, and revive. I am careful to keep My Jerusalem Circle tight knit. Many even in that circle do not know one another, but each provides motivation and nourishment for my spiritual journey.
I constantly work on feeding my internal perspective with positivity, and it has taken much to grow to embrace the little girl that I read about in my diary. I have always acted confident. My mother, as a music educator and Minister of Music, would always say in choir rehearsal, “if you don’t know, at least act like you do.” I held on to that as a strategy for overcoming apprehension. I have come to know that what I articulated as an “act” is really moving in faith. I don’t know, but I am clear that God knows, so I act