Living the Christian Life

Chandra Thomas

Theology

Professor

February 3, 2014

Living the Christian life

A twist of fate is believed by those who do not believe that God works in mysterious ways to perform miracles. Had I not been a Christian with faith and belief, the health of my mother and my admission into Barry University would have been by chance and coincidence. My spirituality, a gift from God, and faith in the Most High has surely been rewarding. I have seen a revelation that has changed my family and my life from depression, sorrow and sadness to joy, happiness and peace. My life has changed for the better because I believed in God and trusted that he had not forsaken me.

I was born and baptized as a Christian and I was one until now. My family is very religious. I lived a very joyful and peaceful life that centered on religion since I was a child. I went to church every day and life seemed so easy. All was well until a couple of years ago when life at home took a bad turn as a result of my mother's illness. My mother suffered an illness that left her with a stroke. This situation changed the way that we were living before and life seemed so hard. As a family, we had to change a lot of aspects of our living in order to face the difficulty that we were facing at that time. I was in college and things got very weighty for to balance both school work and our current situation at home. I faced a very disheartening situation that got me so depressed and I felt like my whole world was a sand castle that was blown down by a mighty wind. As a family we also had to make a few sacrifices to help my mother's situation. One of the most significant sacrifices that we had to make was having me to drop out of school in order to stay home with my mother and take care of her. This sacrifice was a hard decision for me to accept but it was beneficial to my mother because we also saved money for her treatment.

However, I did not lose hope that one day things were going to be well and back to the good terms we had before. I was very optimistic that indeed the day was going to come when everything would well again. In Theology, a subject which is well defined as faith seeing understanding, this optimism is called religious faith. Religious faith is our dedicated and joyous response to God as we commit our human self-determination to the love of God and neighbor as self. This definition of faith clearly matches how I lived my life at this point in my life. I dedicated everything to God and I had so much belief in him about a bright future. This means I began to accept the possibility of a bright and better future as true even in the absence of clear and convincing evidence. No one at home could fully believe that this day would come. I tried hard to convince my brothers and sisters to have faith and belief but they were not as strong as I was. Being the eldest in the family, I had to be strong and show my siblings that indeed life would get better soon.

At some point during this difficult time, things seemed to be harder and life seemed to be heading for the worst. I had to look for a part time job. This was another decision that I made that was hard. The difficult part was thinking about my mother's situation and taking care of my siblings. As the oldest sister, I had to be a pillar of strength to my siblings and make sure that the family kept on going. I took the role of a mother and a sister. Life was turning to the worst and everything was on me. I prayed about her day and night. Everyone looked up to me each day that passed. This situation was hard-hitting but it surely made me stronger, too. I also believe that to a greater extent, this hardship strengthened my faith and my spirituality. Spirituality is the gift from above. In most Christian religions, spirituality is associated with the Holy Spirit of God and some even believe