My Memories Of God

Sports has always been a huge part of my life. I would be the one team player who took the sports season a little bit too seriously. I was the number 1 doubles player on my school's JV tennis team. Unfortunately, I fractured my ankle during my junior year and wasn't able to play with my team. I was devastated, but I didn’t allow myself to become disconnected from my team. I became the team manager to allow myself to still play a role in my team, despite my injury. I would record scores to my division leaders and take pictures to post on the website I created for my team. After the season was over, my doctor told me my ankles required surgery to become fully healed. I knew that meant I couldn’t continue to play tennis, but I didn’t want to give

Just like him, I did not have much of a relationship with God when I was younger. It took a miracle to make me see that God was really there. He had the miracle of surviving the war, while I had the miracle of my younger brother surviving when all odds were against him. Before my brother went into the hospital, I did not think much of God. I had learned about him in school and was taught how he died so we could live, but my life never seemed very impacted by him in any way. He was someone I knew about, not someone I specifically believe in. However, once my brother got sick that all

There was many factor that led to my initial encounter with god one was my father death. Other was the questions of a teenage looking for his place in the world and other factor was the hate I had toward god. The death of my father was hard for me for so many years. All the question I want to ask him all the thing I want to do with him I never got a change to do. This made me want to know why god would take a father form his son whom look up to him. My hate toward god was one factor to because the more I hated him the more I would find myself look in the word trying to find out why god would take my father. The most important factor I think was the fact that I was a teenage and was feeling like I don’t belong to anything. I was good at sport and have a good time at that. I know there was more to me than just sports. I was quiet and shy and look like I was mad at the world all the time but I know that was more to me.

A few years ago I was training to be professional tennis player at one of India’s top tennis academies. I had been playing tennis only for ten months when my tennis coach suggested I participate in the upcoming national level fastest serve tennis tournament. There was a fear in me, a fear of facing the more skilled, experienced, and accomplished competition, yet my mind wanted to overcome that fear and trust my coach and ten months of training. My coach had immense faith in my abilities to perform well, but being the underdog, I lacked the confidence to compete alongside top ranked players. As the tournament date grew closer, I found myself battling between two paths - give in to my fear and surrender any chance of winning, or escape my comfort

There are many teams that I’ve loved being a part of over the last three years of high school. The first is the golf team. I was blessed to be on the Junior Varsity team during my freshman and sophomore years, and this year I’m now on Varsity. The first two years were incredible. I was with Coach Al VanderHart, and we had such incredible seasons, especially sophomore year. I was blessed to be a team captain with Natalie Mason, and I grew so close to the girls on my team. We had so many traditions, including dressing up on match days, bringing food to the Town Square at Break, devotions before every practice and match, and much more. Another reason my team and I became so close was through the tragic loss of Coach Al’s son. We all surprised Coach by going to the funeral as a team. It was one of the moments in my life where I could feel God the most. Our team gave a big group hug, and we all started crying together, including the coach. It felt so good to lean on each other as a team for support, and it showed me just how powerful God is through the people

Ever since I can remember, I have been playing sports. I played a sport each season and excelled in each sport I played, most likely due to a high level of coordination at a young age. Playing hockey and squash in the winter before middle school, soccer and football in the fall, and the best season of all due to the range of such high level sports, spring, in which I played baseball, lacrosse, and tennis. I knew that I had the most skill in baseball, tennis, and hockey. One day, the day of a little league baseball game, I was sick and been throwing up the night before, my coach told me I did not have to play. The decision was in

My belief in god has no firm beginning. It was just something I accepted like two plus two equals four or that chocolate ice cream tastes really good. I never really knew that you did not have to believe in god as everybody I knew for most of my life did. That was until I encountered, my cousin, Ryan’s beliefs or lack thereof. He thought

Describe your personal experience of God and the understanding of God you derive from biblical, theological and historical sources.

During practices, when I’d begin to get tired, he’d tell me to push my body to a place it’s never been pushed before. This taught me the desire to keep pushing myself over any obstacle I’d encounter in the future. After every match lost, he taught me to never give up, furthermore, learn from this, and continue to want to get better. Even after the matches I’ve won, he would state that there is always room from improvement, because there is always someone better than me. These lessons gave me an even greater desire to keep my life in motion, which was to become successful in the

Basketball was my favorite sport growing up. I’ve played since I was little and I still play the game today. I played basketball at my elementary school, St. Cecilia, from Kindergarten till 8th Grade and also played AAU basketball for about 2 years before entering High School. Going into my freshmen year of High School, the first sport I played was basketball. Tryouts began in about the start of November and ended about 2 weeks after. I had made the Freshmen A team. I was excited and as the season progressed, we didn’t win many games but I still had fun playing. Nearing the end of the season, golf was another sport coming up that I also wanted to try and play. I say “try and play” because at the time, I was also going to play AAU basketball. I had set in my mind that I was going to play basketball for all of my four years of high school, but my parents pushed me to tryout for golf. When the basketball season ended, golf tryouts started. Tryouts lasted for about 2 weeks, and I made the JV team. When I found out I made the team, I was very surprised. I hadn’t put in the hard work as others before tryouts came around, but the coach saw potential in me and that I can become a great player. The coach saw so much potential in me, that every week, I kept progressing in skill and fine tuning my mechanics. Halfway through the season, about 4 or 5 weeks after I made the team, my coach gave me the chance to play with the Varsity Golf team for a couple days. I was excited and eager to

“Oh no, please don’t tell me this is happening. Mom, can I just skip this tournament?” I pleaded, “There is absolutely no hope for me.” Being the dramatic person I am, I lamented the imminent end of my tennis career. I went into the tournament with an expectation of failure. I started the match by accidentally whacking the ball over the fence, tripping on my own feet rushing to end the point. The little confidence I had when going into the match dissipated within a few minutes. I continued the match pondering how to angle my racket to put spin on the ball. Every time I failed, I blamed it on the high skill level of my opponent. Unsurprisingly, I lost in an hour. When looking back on that match, I realized that it could have gone differently had I not brought myself down before. My lack of

Over the summer, I played tennis with my dad and younger brother pretty often. I always had this preconceived notion before we went to play that I was a better player than my brother, even though he is amazing, especially for his age. One day, I played awfully; I felt like I hadn’t played that poorly in years. Instinctively, I came up with every possible excuse to reason why I played so badly. It was too hot; I couldn’t see the ball; I was distracted by the dogs barking nearby. I went on and on with excuses, external factors, but I never attributed my failure to any internal factors. I didn’t understand why I didn’t play well, so there must have been some other reason. I grudgingly accepted my defeat and told myself that there is always another day for me to play better. I realized that I wasn’t being honest with myself about the game after I went home and started replaying it in my head. It slowly dawned on me that I was at fault for not playing well, not the weather or other noises. I didn’t bend my knees enough, I didn’t follow through with my racquet, and I was too lazy when I had to sprint towards the ball. It was because of me that I lost the game, not because of something else. This showed me that just because something doesn’t go my way doesn’t mean I get to blame it on some external factor; I have to take some time to think about what happened to see if the reason the event occurred was due to what I did. On the other hand, when I found out that I performed really well on any test, I didn’t attribute it to the weather or to any other external factor; I never thought “The test was just really easy that time” or “The teacher graded it leniently this time”. I gave credit to myself for putting so much time and effort into studying, and I

One of the memories that is more permeate in my mind is when my father had to travel to China for business intentions. I remember when he leaves the country, but not more than when he arrived home. Usually, when he came back home, he usually bring with him some gifts for me and my mother, and he never forgets to bring me my favorite gift which I still love when he give away to me. I like to call it as the God´s dessert because of its curious shape of production, intense flavor, and delightful meaning.

To this day, I can still remember standing at the end of my driveway watching my mother arrive home from the bus stop. This day was different; she was not coming home empty handed. In fact, she had stopped at a yard sale on the way home and bought a prize for me, a doll named Suzy. This memory, from the age of two, embraces the story of my mother and my entire childhood. In Indianapolis, Indiana in September 1980, I was born to a single mother. Throughout her life, she worked for the phone company in downtown Indianapolis. Even though she raised us through hardships and despair, she always took the time to love my brother and me outwardly. Until second grade, I have no recollection of my father visiting more than three occasions. At last, in fourth grade we began to spend weekends at his house and with his family. Sadly, when I was eleven we learned that my father had cancer. One week before Christmas, after a school music program, I read his obituary in the paper and told my mother he had passed away. From that moment, our family forever changed, specifically my relationship with my mother.

¶ 324.9a - Describe your personal experience of God and the understanding of God you derive from biblical, theological, and historical sources.