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Ebone Rhodes ENGL 1101 Elizabeth Hinnant 9/12/13 In Gods Control One Sunday Morning like any other I am sitting in the front row listening to the pastor. Usually at the end of the sermon there is a time for individuals to come to the altar to accept Christ. All of sudden around the age of six, I found myself rising out of my seat to accept this offer at the altar. Before I knew it I was replying to the pastor with these words, I am saved. These were the words that struck a deep cry within me, as I stood by my mom puzzled as to why I was crying. At this moment I had chosen on my own to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior. I was now accompanied by what my mom told me was the Holy Spirit, and at that moment my life had begun as a Christian, a born again individual and as a child of God. My religion, Christianity, has always been an impacting social force upon my life. I was raised in my church; my church community was and still is very supportive of my family today. The biggest support given by them has definitely been prayer. As a family we believed heavily that prayer changes things, a saying that has been a part of our family for a long time. By prayer, we knew God was listening and that he would bless according to the prayers of our church family and even our own. Religion was a part of my life before I could even speak, write, or read, for I was baptized at only a few months old in my home church. At that point, my life would be driven by my beliefs as well as the beliefs of my family. Some people would argue that I may have been forced to accept my religion, but with my experiences in life, I grew to love God and the Christian life. I can tell you specifically how religion has affected my social life, my

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familys life and more, but how it has affected my source of literacy seems to be quite a challenge. Going back to my younger days, one of the first religious practices that I learned was prayer. Prayer was and still is a source that is very near and dear to my walk with God. Gracing our food was very important in my house as well as in my grandparents home as well. Our grace had lessons of respect, thanksgiving and honor. Throughout the grace we honored God and respected Gods providings such as the food. We were taught to say that grace every time we were to eat. Children obey your parents, for in the Lord it is right, Amen, was the last thing said before we ate. This line had the most impact, for it affected how we learned to speak to our elders as well as our parents. We were taught by this prayer that respect is a very important factor of Christianity, so when my siblings and I spoke to our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and any other elder, we made sure to use the respectful words, yes mam, yes sir, no mam, no sir. This prayer also affected how I would speak to God, for it was necessary to not only give thanks for the food but ultimately for everything. This prayer initially taught me how to acknowledge Gods works and his greatness. Another important prayer that has affected how I speak is the Lords Prayer. It allows me to be conscious of what I say, for I pray Lord forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. This specific part gives me a conscious mind of not only doing the right thing but saying it as well. This part of the prayer whole heartedly speaks of forgiveness, which is one important factor in Christianity. It taught me that when I am accompanied in situations where one would usually react in a hostile manner, to basically stay humble and just forgive. Words of acceptance such as I forgive you, or I accept your apology, are words of forgiveness. Another impact my religion has had on my speech, is learning to speak things into

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existence constantly. This means, being positive, and asking or praying to God for blessings; being encouraging with my words, and speaking blessings upon others . Along with speaking with purpose, religion has taught me to write with a purpose as well. I dont think my religion really started affecting my writing until I actually began to understand my connection with my religion. One part of connecting with Christianity is reading the Bible and understanding it. From reading the Bible, I was introduced to a diverse vernacular, which was difficult for me to understand. At times this forced me to write and summarize what I was specifically reading, allowing me to grasp more of the context. At this point I became used to breaking things down and easily being able to write the point of a specific text. When I think of examples in relation to this, I immediately connect it to Shakespeare and the different vernacular used in his many literary works. Because the words are hard to sometimes understand, the meaning becomes hard to understand as well. So, it forced me to really break the sentences up and dissect them one by one, as I would have done with the Bible. The Bible itself is a book of morality, truth and encouragement. The more I wrote down scriptures about faith, love and encouragement, I began incorporating these aspects in my creative writings such as poetry. For an example, one being a poem I wrote for my aunt, who jokingly dreaded turning The big Thirty. To her it meant getting older and slowing down, like it is to most but I wrote her a poem with encouraging words that thirty is no age to dread but an age to be thankful for. I related it to wisdom, motivation and many others things and most importantly I related it to God. My exact words were And thirty is when you finally realize that God hasnt brought you this far to leave you. These were my encouraging words that I feel were a result of my religion and its background. This example along with many others, show how I try

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to be encouraging, optimistic and cheerful when I write, more specifically when I write creatively. Speaking and writing comes much easier and much more enjoyable to me then reading. So you can guess that I didnt read much then or now, from my Bible, or from any other novels. I will say that my reading the Bible stays on my mind more frequently than reading another novel in my free time. I feel obligated to read the Bible, only because it is part of connecting with Christianity and many other factors relating to it. In my younger days I began reading the Bible, but I started off with one scripture at a time. Doing this allowed me to focus on the main idea of one part of the Bible, rather than on more than one. With this I feel my skills for reading were strengthened, and I was able to focus on the specific text being read and not easily wandering off. Also when reading the Bible, you have different narrators where Jesus could be speaking, Peter, Mary or another person in the Bible. Each individual speaks in different context, like Peter speaking to God, Mary speaking to the angels or Jesus speaking to the lost people. If Jesus was talking, I could easily differentiate between him and another character not only because of the highlighted words but also because of the authority behind the scripture or even the voice behind it. All of these aspects of the bible connecting to tone, allows me now in my reading in some way to try and differentiate the purpose or connection in a specific characters tone. One example being in plays where there is a narrator, along with other characters. Each character has a different role and at some point there tone changes depending on the context and or situation. Shakepeares Hamlet seems to be a good example of this; when Hamlet would change his tone toward Ophelia at certain times in the play. When hamlet was alone with Ophelia at some point he was rude and sarcastic and when in public with Ophelia he was respectful because he had a reputation to uphold.

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Mentioned earlier, the Bible is covered with lessons of morality, and Jesus is one of the people to portray morality and truth throughout the entire bible. As I read about his greatness, it makes me optimistic to read about the same greatness in people readings, because it makes me happy in many ways. Realistically, morality is not portrayed in every source of literature, such as in Raisin in the Sun, where racism and inequality over shines the love and peace that Jesus would have empowered. There are many writings out there, such as blogs, Facebook post, Twitter Post and more that portray the very opposite of any morals at all. Reading the Bible and my religion has taught me one important thing, and that is to pray for the things that are not of God, and not good. My purpose as a Christian is to let individuals hear about Jesus and Christianity, even though they may not be knowledgeable or accepting of it. As I do this I speak with a conscious mind, I write with a humble heart and I read with purpose in order to show how my faith has impacted my life. I write, read and speak this way because of my religion were the thoughts to be pondered upon;This way, or That way of writing, reading and speaking is not fully my way, but ultimately Gods.