Personal Narrative: Hannah Corley's Relationship With The Church

Hannah Corley invited me to her church as soon as she learned I was interested in strengthening my faith. Although we never went into a much detail, she knew that I had a rather turbulent relationship with the church which caused me to become really angry at the Lord. She was always very understanding of that, and once she shared some of her hardships with me I realized that despite being rather young, she is still one of the strongest people I know in regards to faith.
Hannah is a seventeen-year-old high school student who was raised in the church. However, she was not officially saved until she was in junior high: “[The night I was saved] was actually kind of funny. So, we were at this retreat at our church my friend, [Name Retracted], and
I were sitting way in the back together and we were cutting up, laughing together. Our guest speaker was like, ‘Hey, you two pay attention’ then [Name Retracted] fell asleep and I got saved five minutes later,” she recounts with a laugh. Hannah adds, “I never really done anything bad, like I never smoked or drank, but I kind of just realized I don’t have a relationship with Jesus; that’s something that I want. There was never a big epiphany, like there was never a big moment, but since then there have been moments where I can say ‘Wow where would I be right now if that wouldn’t have happened?’” This is especially clear as she looks at her friends, most of whom are Christians; she can notice the difference between those who have officially been saved and those who only go to church every Sunday. That is not to say, of course, that her friends are bad people. However, they do go to parties quite often, and even though Hannah has tried, she has never been able to enjoy the parties; “[Parties] just aren’t for me, I guess,” she says.
Even though Christianity has caused a slight separation between her and her friends, it has done more good than bad. The biggest example of this is how she was able to do mission work in the Dominican Republic, which she always wanted to do. One Sunday while she was sharing her testimony with the congregants, she casually mentioned how she felt called to do mission work. After she was done sharing, another member of the church came up to her, told her about the plan for members for the church to go to the Dominican Republic, and invited her to go along. She was ecstatic about this, and she went during the first semester of her junior year of high school.
The things she saw in the Dominican Republic has completely changed her life. The thing she seemed the most fixated on was the home where women who escaped prostitution lived. Hannah and the other women in the group often went to help around the house and witness to the women who lived there. These women worked on jewelry in a little workshop behind the house to try to earn money for themselves and their families so they would no longer have to sell their bodies. Although Hannah knew the harsh realities of life in other countries, seeing it firsthand still came as an utter shock. She recounts being completely caught off guard when she realized that the group she was in could not be very open about the fact that they were there on mission work, as that could result in deportation. However, Hannah knows that the reward of possibly seeing these women again in heaven and the knowledge that they escaped sex work was much bigger than the dangers that went along with sharing God’s word. This experience also confirmed her thought that she was being called to do mission work.
However, mission work is not the only thing Hannah feels called to do.
She also feels as if the Lord is calling her to go into the medical field, which she knows seems strange as the media seems to paint doctors with any religious background as being less competent. Even without the negative portrayal of religious people in the medical, field she often worries how her faith and career will interact. She has not decided what particular medical field she would like to work in yet, but she has often been told that she seems as if she would make a great OB/GYN. When she toys with that idea in her mind a huge problem comes up: What should she do if a woman comes in wanting to end her pregnancy? Like so many other Christians she has very strong feelings against this, but as a doctor how far can she go to get this woman to change her mind? She realizes that if she runs her own practice she could quite easily deny the patient and refuse to give the woman the name of someone who would do as the woman wishes. However, in real life this may not be the most plausible situation as she must be careful while mentioning her religious beliefs in the workplace, especially as a doctor. She does not have the power to stop the woman and if she does not own her own practice she may end up working at a place that does offer that particular service. She tries not to let these doubts bother her, though, because she realizes that the Lord is calling her into the medical field for a reason, and she cannot fight
Him.
Hannah is quick to add that she is not trying to sound judgmental towards the women who are forced to make that choice. She knows all too well that Christians can be judgmental at times; however, she also acknowledges that Christianity is not meant to be like that. She believes there is a big difference in judging the sin and judging the sinner. She has a friend who is transgender and she can see that the majority of the time he is already judging himself for what is often seen as a sin even though he/she cannot control it which is made evident in the way he talks about it. Even when she thinks about the girl who challenged prayer here at Morgan City High School just two years ago, she does not feel the need to judge that particular girl because of her beliefs. “It is all about hating the sin and loving the sinner,” Hannah claims. She beliefs that prayer-not judgement- is the best way to lead people away from their sins.
It would be completely wrong to deny how much Hannah’s faith in the Lord and her relationship with Jesus has changed her life. Even if I did not know her before she had officially been saved, I could still see the way her faith radiates off her now. She does not judge those who do not have a relationship with Jesus nor those who are angry at Jesus and the Lord for the hardships they have encountered in their life. She tries not to worry about what her future holds because she realizes it is in the Lord’s hands, and she has faith that everything will turn out okay in the end. All of this reinsured me that I was not alone in my anxieties about religion, and as a result, I was finally able to let my guard down to allow myself to truly submerse myself in God’s word. I truly believe that many others will also come to the same conclusion as I did once they get to know Hannah and see how faith has changed her life.