What is our purpose? Why are we here? What is the meaning of our lives? Are questions that I found myself asking in the seventh grade. I was no older than fourteen and I was under pressure of making my grade and losing my mom, which I hadn't at the time really let sink in.
It was late fall and I was getting ready for school. I threw on my camo vans, a random t-shirt and my jacket. At my bus stop my nose filled with the smell of sewer and shrimp for the restaurant next door. I don't know what started it, maybe seeing the children with their mothers coddled together and feeling alone.
There were many reasons that I started to question my own faith. When I was in middle school, I had experienced a lot of challenging times. I lost my grandfather a year before. My best friends were eventually going to move to other schools. I know our relationship was never going to be the same. I was experiencing many things and it may have been these losses that triggered the coming of my depression.
As the depression overcame me, I distanced myself from everything, combined with the turmoil that I had experienced in early childhood, was causing me to question if there was a God at all. As I'm reaching the end of my high school years, I was given the opportunity to explore a few other religions by my history teacher.
My history teacher had requested that we write about another religion than our own, in an attempt to teach us understanding and acceptance of those who were different. This assignment was a life changing one for me.
I chose to study the Muslim religion, which was far from the terroristic ideals that were spread through the news and other meiad. This paper taught me a lot and encouraged me to learn more. Outside of school, I also researched Buddhism and Christianity in greater depth.
One of the interesting things that I learned was that there are similar ideas throughout all these religions, though they are presented slightly differently. One thing that they had in common was the presence of a greater power. All also believe in Jesus Christ, though they do not all believe that he played the same role in their religion.
I have come to the conclusion that everything happens for a reason and that it's up to you on how you take it.
My inspiration behind the essay was the real life events that happened to me and the lessons I learned. My writing process was a little rough when I first started, with writing I have a lot of trouble with getting my thoughts on the paper but for this one it was a little Easter I believe it was Easter but I know what I was talking about I had experience this is what I feel help me out in the long run. When first writing I had complexions on whether or not I should write it since it was such a touchy subject religion has always been a subject to void nowadays but I wanted anyone who had read my essay to know that religion can mean to be anything they needed to be.
“All also believe in Jesus Christ, though they do not all believe that he played the same role in their religion.”
-Ashleigh
I enjoyed how I got hooked with starting your story with rhetorical questions. Another thing I've enjoyed was that you empathized every little detail giving your writing more spice to me and to the audiences attention.
--Daniel Sorto