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Is God merciful towards those with religious OCD?

theniceiceman

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Now, I know that God is merciful, but it's one thing to know it and it's another to *feel* it. I think most people who have religious OCD know what I mean. I was born and raised in a Christian home, I got saved when I was a kid, but then I fell away from the faith. It was a combination of OCD (which I didn't recognize as being OCD at the time), anxiety (which I also didn't recognize) and being super shy, which led to me never wanting to go to church or Sunday school. I felt I had to be perfect to be loved by God. I tried listening to God's will for my life, and tried feeling His presence, because in church I would hear people say 'I felt God' or 'and God told me'--so I assumed I was supposed to experience that, too. I was only a child, and I had, as I mentioned, OCD, anxiety, and probably depression and autism too, but I didn't *know* that. I thought I was the only one who struggled. I thought I was just an oddball.

Eventually I just sort of gave up. I didn't feel anything; I thought I wasn't doing Christianity correct. I believed that God existed, i believed I was a sinner, I believed that God sent Jesus to die on the cross to pay for the sins of mankind and that he rose again in 3 days, so I *believed*...I just--the OCD messed me up, I think. To be honest, it's hard for me to even remember a lot of my spirituality when I was a kid. I feel like I repressed it because it caused me so much anxiety and stress.

When I turned 18 and moved out of my parents' house, I stopped going to church. I went to a Christian college and was over-exposed. I didn't like it at all. Ironically, my time there was the only time I ever had any serious doubts about the existence of God and the validity of the Bible. Since then, I've kind of thought random things, but they've never *really* stuck--I think they're just the normal doubts that flit through peoples' minds.

About a month and a half ago, I saw this prediction about the blood moon. I haven't really been practicing my faith for seven years. When I saw that, my mind went to 'rapture', and I immediately became terrified. I started praying. Well, needless to say, my OCD grabbed hold of it, and it's been there ever since. With medication, it's gotten a bit better, but it's still there.

Blasphemous thoughts. Fears. Doubt. It's all there. I went to a Christian counselor and he asked me, what sort of blasphemous thoughts are you having? One of these was about the Holy Spirit, and I told the counselor what it was (cleaned it up a little, but it was still there), and now I'm still battling fear that I've committed the unforgivable sin, even though 99.9% of what I read tells me the only unforgivable sin is not accepting Jesus as Lord and the Savior of the world.

ANYWAY...it's really hard for me to feel like I love God right now, and I think that might be because I'm afraid of Him. Now, that's completely MY fault, not God's. God has given me a great family; He's given me a functioning body, an intelligent mind (my mental health issues are all of an emotional nature), a home, the opportunity to get on disability, a great best friend. I try to read the Bible sometimes, but it never fails that I stumble across a 'scary' verse and just panic. When I was a kid, I remember being so confused as to why God hardened Pharaoh's heart--I just didn't understand why God would do that. Only in the past few weeks have I learned that *Pharaoh* hardened his own heart and that God just sort of helped it along for the greater good of getting the Jews out of Egypt (I think I understand it correctly), but when I was a kid, I thought, God, why would you do that, isn't that mean? I'm even a bit afraid of Jesus because I read things like the unforgivable sin passages or passages where he gets frustrated with his disciples and I'm like, oh my gosh, if he got mad at *them*, I am toast.

So, back to my original question...God is understanding of mental illness, isn't he? He's understanding of those of us who suffer with religious OCD, who struggle to develop a deep connection, who struggle to trust because we have what is AKA 'the doubting disease', who fell away from practicing their faith because they just didn't 'get' it, because they were afraid, etc? I really hope He is. He made us; I know He knows we have OCD, but I really just hope He's merciful and takes that into account. :scratch:
 

EPHESIANS6:10-11

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God knows you have an illness he does take it into account
he knows your never meant the words you said you where only answering what your therapist asked you
i have OCD too i know how thoses thoughts effect us Jesus loves you no matter what
there is no sin that is unforgivable Jesus loves you no matter what sin you have done he died for your sins
i pray that things get better for you
 
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Mikhaela

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I have been wondering if I have a form of OCD. I read the Word come across the scary Scriptures. I believe everything the Scripture says. I want the deepness others have when they speak about it. I come to realize I am afraid of Him.I also know that my understanding of Him isn't quite right either. That is why I read Scripture even the scary. When I come across those I panic and I am like I have done these I need to ask forgiveness and repent... it is a never ending cycle it seems( I know repentance is life long). I get fixated on the scary verses. I understand what you mean about Jesus getting mad at the disciples. I want a deeper relationship with Jesus instead of just always asking for something and asking for forgiveness. I am in no way saying these things are not important,they are. I am just saying my mind seems to be fixated on that it's frustrating to me! Then I get caught up on what does this really mean etc. Oh so annoying. It burdens me. I want to love Him fully and have a relationship without always asking the same thing over and over again. Logically speaking when you have a relationship with someone it is more than just asking you know what I mean? To me I sound like a broken record before God. It frustrates me because I think I am frustrating Him and then well I end up walking away. I have come to terms recently that I need to know God more and to know Him is by reading Scripture and asking Him to show me what He says means. I have tuned my back on the old life that God saved me from. I realized I was holding on to my own life. it has been a interesting last couple weeks to say the least and in a good way. There are times were I just cry because I don't know if the Lord loves or did he leave me because I have backslidden in a terrible way. It was brought up to me by the Holy Spirit I believe, to Repent. I come to realize I had no clue what that was and it means to 'change ones mind' and not 'turn from sin'. In effect I repented and come to realize I needed to change my mind about God and who He really is. I come to realize also that I viewed Him as one who is constantly looking to beat me over the head for every thing I did wrong. Man was I ever so wrong about the LORD! I committed to repentance and leaving behind the old ways of life. And to ask God for forgiveness and ask Jesus to help me know who He really is and not that 'god' that haunted me and tormented me day and night. I know I am a sinner I know Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life my Saviour and my God. I know I can trust Him. He does understand us who have mental health disorders. Remember he said to the pharisees in Matthew 9:13 "But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." He came for folks like us. He himself is merciful. He knows our hearts he knows our struggles. He is the great Physician. He is the healer.He dies for us.He arose again and is at the right hand of the Father. The law came through Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Grace is unmeritted favor.We cannot earn it and we don't deserve it but God is God and He gave us grace :). He loves you and all of us. We need not lean on our own understanding. Man does not live on bread alone but by every word that comes out from the mouth of God. Sorry for the long post. I just needed to share this. The Lord our God is mercy itself. Peace .
 
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fashionista1

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Dear Iceman: I totally understand what you're going through. I consider myself a Christian, and sincerely DESIRE to love God, but have literally no feelings of love toward Him. It is likely due to the fact that I am also afraid of Him. I guess it's pretty hard to love someone that you are afraid of. My ocd began with blasphemous thoughts many years ago. They are not as bad today as Zoloft helps, although they're not completely gone but more like background noise. I try to read the Bible and pray, but the ocd interferes with that too. It sort of feels like a duty and not something I look forward too (almost like an ocd ritual, if you know what I mean).

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I understand and wish I could somehow help you.

Take care,
fashionista1
 
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theniceiceman

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Dear Iceman: I totally understand what you're going through. I consider myself a Christian, and sincerely DESIRE to love God, but have literally no feelings of love toward Him. It is likely due to the fact that I am also afraid of Him. I guess it's pretty hard to love someone that you are afraid of. My ocd began with blasphemous thoughts many years ago. They are not as bad today as Zoloft helps, although they're not completely gone but more like background noise. I try to read the Bible and pray, but the ocd interferes with that too. It sort of feels like a duty and not something I look forward too (almost like an ocd ritual, if you know what I mean).

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I understand and wish I could somehow help you.

Take care,
fashionista1

Thanks! I posted something on your profile; I'd love it if we could chat.
 
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SarahsKnight

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Thank you everyone for your responses, they really help a lot. I hope you're all doing well :)

It's amazing how many of us have gone or go through this particularly harmful OCD, sir. In anything, the sheer number of us who suffered should hint to us that it is an illness, nothing more, and I know God understands it. As for what you said about comparing your bad thoughts, lack of practicing your faith, etc. to Jesus' own disciples getting Him angry with them for their own faults, even then, Iceman, did Jesus sound all trigger-happy and threatening them that they were about to go to hell or something? Not to my memory. I personally think He suffers even as we suffer, or have suffered, our fears and anxieties from religious OCD. He took our place in a lot of things during His life and at the cross, it seems. He has been called Man of Sorrows, after all.

It is good to see you tried to find a good medication to help treat the symptoms. I know they aren't a magic solution, but they can help. Also, my practical advice to you is that you may want to try to stay away from reading up on the "scary" sounding verses for a while until you feel more confident, especially in meditating on them. I know myself that taking the scary verses alone can be really dangerous to your emotional health at this point; back when I suffered the same kind of OCD problem as you and the others here, I quite distinctly remember having a breakdown one night - one of many - that crippled me for at least five of the eight hours on my shift at work (luckily there was someone there I was working with that evening who kind of knew about what I was going through already), and left me midly gloomy and exhausted the rest of the night, all because at random I just started thinking about the verse in, I believe it was, Hebrews, that speaks of a fiery judgment from God that shall "devour the adversaries". Immediately in my current state of mind - the obsession part of OCD - latched onto that one verse and I for no reason at all started thinking it would apply to me or already did. That I was an " adversary". How wrong I was! And how wrong it was of me to sell God short by thinking He would let me suffer this unnecessary and crippling fear of hell and losing His love (and then do that very thing to me at the end at judgment, anyway), torturing me like this, at the drop of a hat seven months prior. If salvation hangs on a constant thread like that, then I'd say we might as well all just give up hope. But again, that was fearful paranoia and years of spoken tradition that led me to that point of sickness for eight months, not God. He was the one helping me through it in His time. :)
 
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