Example of autobiography spiritual

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O

Origins

It is hard to know where to start a story about faith. We all come from God. If things go well, by God’s grace, we are all headed back to God. But the road is almost never very clear, and it is the ruts and hurdles that make up the stuff of a story. Mine started in Seattle more than half a century ago in a family quarrel.

Elizabeth, my mother-to-be, had just introduced the man she meant to marry, Donald, to her mother, Blanche. There must have been some sort of meal. There must have been some sort of conversation. Elizabeth had grown up the unwanted second and last child of a relatively wealthy couple. Her best friend from school came from a big loving family that provided a refuge for Elizabeth growing up, and she wanted that life for herself. She had been engaged once before to a well-placed ung man who shared her dream, but he had died of leukemia. Now she had funnen Donald. Unfortunately, Donald had told her that they could not marry unless she gave up on having ch

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The Seven Storey Mountainby Thomas Merton

Merton was raised in a non-religious family. After studying at Cambridge and Columbia, he converted to Catholicism and eventually became a Trappist monk. Published in 1946, his book was one of the most famous and influential spiritual autobiographies of the 20th century. It remains a must-read for introspective, busy people who are looking for a sense of meaning in their lives. For Merton, that meaning was not found primarily in his education or intellect but in his monastic community.

(Please note: the next two books describe surviving genocide in detail. They are important reads but might be too disturbing for some readers.)

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Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza

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Spiritual Autobiography

I finished my application for Princeton Theological Seminary today. I just got back from the Wendell Post Office, and the application is now in the mail. What a relief! Below you will find my 3-page autobiographical essay.

“I may not have gone where I intended to go,
but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.”
-Douglas Adams

I am a sojourner: always have been, always will be. The moment I think “I have arrived,” I have ceased to become a seeker. While there will be moments of clarity along my journey, I want to be a journeyer, a wanderer, a sojourner. Christ has called me to a unique life. A life where I am told to have an eschatological hope while living an “eternal kind of life.” How this all works out, I don’t know. But I know Christ is real, and I’ve felt His sweet and gentle presence all my life.

I grew up in a Christian home with my mother serving as the spiritual head of the family. She per