Clements, Heather

ENG 121

Through out my life I have been surrounded by different influences. This has
ranged from skipping school to doing drugs, but the biggest influence by far would have
to be religion. Religion for me has always been a mystery. My father never pushed me to
have a religion and I never felt the need to learn. In my early years my best friend and her
mother were Christian. I would go to church with them sometimes but I never understood
the meaning of it. In high school, I was influenced into the wiccan religion by a friend.
After I met my fiancée I started learning about Christianity and I am starting to accept
and understand the faith. I never thought I would find something to believe in but now
that I have I feel it pertinent to share it with everyone. I want to share what I have learned
and show that religion doesn’t always have to be bad.
My fiancées belief is a little different than most, which is what drew me to it in
the first place. He is mostly Christian with some Buddhist beliefs. He believes in God and
understands the sacrifices that were made for us. He also believes that life has karma and
that there is a delicate balance to life. He learned that life is precious and that everything
we do, we do for God. He is not a hardcore Christian by any means though. He doesn’t
always go to church. He has tattoos and cusses, but he sees the good in everybody. He
made the word mean more than that. He showed me that you don’t have to be perfect to
believe that god loves you. When I used to hear the word Christianity I would think of
my friends mom, who was so rightwing that she wouldn’t even let us watch movies with
magic in it. She was always very adamant about going to church every Sunday. Every
conversation she had would have reference to the bible or God or church. Everything she
did had something to do with religion. When I was younger I used to think she was a
little crazy. I could never understand how somebody could put so much of their life into
something that they couldn’t see. I used to think that if I couldn’t see it then it didn’t
exist.
When I was in junior high I met a girl named Kristy. She was always a little weird
and I was drawn to her. We spent every moment together. After about six months she told
me that she practiced magic. I was so enthralled with the notion that I was immediately
drawn into it. I asked her to teach me and so we started having lessons. Over the years I
became more and more involved in the practice. I eventually called myself Wiccan to
anyone who asked. I did spells, I could conjure circles, and I even had my own wand.
Through it all though I always felt like there was something missing. Everything I did
was always forced, like I was making myself believe in the religion. After about a year of
practicing magic I got so tired of feeling forced that I stopped. After high school I started
to do more research on the religion and I found that wiccans are worshippers of nature.
That called to me somehow and I started to get into the practice once more. I felt like I
had found something to believe in. I have always felt a pull towards nature so I thought it
was the right thing for me to do. I began to get real deep into the worship of trees and
plants and things like that. But I was always afraid to admit that this was my religion and
what I believed. When I moved to Colorado, I learned that my family was Christian. It
was weird at first because they said they went to church and they would pray at dinner,
which is something I never did. In a way I almost scoffed at the way they showed their
belief, especially when Christmas time came. My aunt told me that they baked a cake for
baby Jesus every year and sang happy birthday to him. I was so shocked and taken aback
that I mocked and made fun of them for it a little bit. By this time though I was starting to
feel like the religion I believed in was wrong again. I was starting to give up hope until I
found my fiancée.
When he first told me he was Christian, I admit I cringed a little. The only picture
I had in my mind at that point was the mother of my old friend and my aunt. I was so
afraid that he would hate me for what I did, so for the first month I didn’t tell him. One
day he asked me what I believed in though and I told him. He was thrown off but he still
loved me. After a couple more weeks of being together, he noticed that I had a bible,
which had been passed down from my father. We started looking through it and he was
reading some of his favorite passages, when he asked me if I would like to learn about
Christianity. I told him I was nervous about that and why, and he replied by telling me
what he believed in. I was interested and said that I would love to start learning about it.
Every now and then when we talked he would tell me another bible story and what his
interpretation of it was. To him the bible isn’t a diary or an account of what really went
on but more like a book of stories that share wisdom and meaning behind each one. I
slowly started to understand what being a Christian could mean.
 To this day I still don’t know everything there is to know about Christianity and
I’m sure I will never know it all, but I am now proud to call myself Christian. I found
something worth believing in. Since he has started sharing his wisdom with me I have
learned that I don’t always have to see something to believe it. I can feel the love that I
know God has for me and I can now understand that I am one of god’s children. I know
that what I feel is right and I’m not ashamed to admit what I believe. To me that is true
belief.
Throughout my life I have been surrounded by influences, but since I found
Christianity, I have found the best influence yet. I’m glad that I found the love of God
and the love of a great man. I know that he will continue to help me learn about the love
of God and how to put my belief to best use. I know that I wouldn’t force this religion
upon anyone but I know that it helped me find my way. I would recommend to anyone
having a hard time finding something to believe in to try and feel the love of God.