Describe your experience with your spiritual director

  Assignment Write a summary paper to include the following: 1. Describe your experience with your spiritual director either that you began during this course or had previously. Did you notice any changes in yourself? What did you gain from the relationship? What was helpful and not helpful to you? What would you have done differently if the roles were switched? How was your prayer and spiritual life affected? If you were not able to meet with a spiritual guide, reference another supportive listening relationship in your life that modeled the principles of spiritual direction. 2. Either before or after this course, have you discerned an interest in becoming a spiritual director? Why or why not? What have you read in these texts that led you in either direction? 3. Imagine you are creating an article or brochure about spiritual direction. How would you define it (maybe multiple definitions), and how would you describe it to people who don’t know what it is? How would you “sell” its’ benefits? How would you assure people it isn’t being told what to do, think, or believe – that it isn’t indoctrination in to a particular religion? What else would you want people to know to invite them to consider trying it? ***Dear Writer, I am sending you some information for you to add in my paper. Please read what I wrote about a Spiritual Director that I was with. But please add and do what the directions request. I was just filling in some details. Also on question 2, its asking about the texts that I read in the class. I have my papers if you need them, but the books were: 1. The Art of Christian Listening Hart, Thomas, Paulist Press, 1980. ISBN 0-8091-2345-2 2. Holy Listening : The Art of Spiritual Direction Guenther, Margaret, CowleyPublications, 1992. ISBN: 1561010561 3. Candlelight: Illuminating the Art of Spiritual Direction Phillips, Susan S., Morehouse Publishing, 2008 ISBN 978-0-8192-2297-8 Please let me know if you need them to get information for #2 question. Thanks. ****This is the information you can use for my experience with a Spiritual Director. You can say that now I am not seeking one, I am focusing on the Bible and my Pastor at my church teachings only. During my life, I always prayed for guidance from God, only depended on the Bible as well as my Pastor. I had a best friend which was a childhood friend that went to prison for a crime that he never committed. I waited for him until he got out of prison and we were engaged. His passion was always becoming a Pastor. When he was in prison, he became a Pastor, Marriage Counselor and a Spiritual Director. I was extremely happy. During his time incarcerated, I had 3 kids, but he knew that I was still his best friend. He had a 30-year sentence but did 20 years. I was not involved with anyone when he got out of prison. We were Christians, went to church together and we spent quality time as a family. I assisted this Pastor in receiving donations to start his own ministry business. He was a spiritual director to myself and others. He showed others how to see God’s presence in life and listen as he speaks to us. But a year went by and I started seeing a change in my friend. He started allowing money and power to be his first love and not God. Thousands of dollars were donated to him and he had many people in different countries donating him money. He wasn’t the same person I knew and loved, he had become like the world and ungodly. Everything that he said we would create together in our ministry, it wasn’t true. I created it for him and he told me that in the Bible, it states that the man is the head, so he oversaw everything. I was devastated. He verbally abused me in every way he could and began his family assist him with his business. I wrote him a letter and had it sent to his office. I sent him his engagement ring and called off the wedding. Two weeks after this, I found out he was married and had a baby on the way. I was devastated again. I knew that this wasn’t a man of God, he was sinning and had used me for my knowledge and wisdom. Today, he is still a Spiritual Director as well as a Pastor. Him and his wife have 2 children and she had a son from a previous relationship. He contacted me a few months ago apologizing to all the hurtful things he did to me, but I told him that in due time, God will take care of him and his evil ways. He said God has that is why he want to divorce the wife and marry me. I told him that I am happily married, in school to become a Pastor and I will enlighten many about the evil doers that claim they are doing God’s work when, they are doing wickedness and a sinner. I still pray for him, but the last post that I saw of him, he thinks he is “God Almighty.” His congregation isn’t large, but the donations are flowing like a river. He has people fooled that he is a “Man of God” when he is truly a devil in disguise.