I'm having serious problems with my relationship, or lack thereof, with God and His apparent unsatable need to show His displeasure with me.
I'm going to gloss over oceans here for the sake of brevity but this will still read long. I apologize for that but context is required to get this across. Like many other stories you've probably read here, my life has been very cruel. Over the years the cycle has repeated, only ratcheted up to get over desensitization on my part at each new iterations. At first bad things happened for no reason, then important goals & wishes were denied, then they were granted but only to be taken away, then grant but taken away in the most ridiculously over the top ways, to now a state of never-ending misery that just piles on whenever I let my guard down.
Continuing to jump oceans here, in 2014 I was on a business trip on a job I hated; I had to travel constantly but it allowed for me to take care of my wife so she could pursue her goals without having to be tied to a day job. One day she calls me while out of town to tell me I'm not satisfying her, she had driven to another state to meet a man she'd met online, and that she intended to be with him that evening. Not as a new relationship, but to drive the point home that she felt the need to strike the harshest blow she could to me. That week at the airport to fly home I followed in the footsteps of my father and grandfather (all alcoholics) and chose to drink. I'd been sober for many years up to that point.
A year of hell followed. I was sick, full of despair, in a divorce with an extremely vindictive partner, and suffering from alcoholism like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. Until that point my record in life was clean, I volunteered in and out of church, and while I won't claim to be something special I think I was a good man. I got two DUIs that year. Despite the best efforts of the state, certainly not because of it, I got myself into a real recovery program. Not the thirty day nonsense that insurance companies push but hospitalization, followed by extended partial in-patient, followed by prolonged out-patient. It was a real commitment but I couldn't risk ever hurting anyone because of my genetics and the trauma I was suffering from. I committed, it was really hard, but I've been sober every day since. I took full responsibilities for my two DUIs and have paid every debt. Three years out I'm still in the active punishment phase with an ignition interlock but my access to society has been given back through having a license (try living without one for over a year). I'm skipping what would be a long diatribe on how this system promotes relapse; suffice it to say my life was ruined twice over. Every penny of pension and 401K has been drained, I'm in a structured payment plan from having to declare bankruptcy, and my entire support system and social circle collapsed. Forget the lies you've heard about the magic "bread and butter" license to you can go to work, doctors, and church; they've shaped the law for maximum revenge on DUIs so you cannot get one. Everything they can do to keep you away from medical treatment, AA, and a stable job they bust their humps to do.
Life is lonely and miserable. I only wanted simple things that everyone else gets. Someone to love, a family, a home, and to not live in fear. All of those are completely unobtainable goals now and will be for life.
Getting to the point, this last weekend some old friends from a reenactment group I used to love writing for urged me to join them at a retreat in VA (I live in PA). I've been trying to rebuild a life, be positive, rebuild support, get some friends, see doctors again now that the state allows it, and even maybe trying to date and find someone so I'm not all alone. After three years of living every day in terror of what was coming next I breathed easy and accepted the offer to join them in VA. I let my guard down. That's the mistake where God strikes every time.
Not far from my destination I got off I-95 onto I-295 in VA. A state trooper swung out to get the car ahead of me; however, once he saw my out of state license plate he came alongside my car to motion he wanted me too (I'll explain in a moment). Again summarizing, in two visits to my car he told two different stories about how the car in front of me was speeding and supposedly he'd inferred I must be as well. I'll skip the injustice speech; it's moot to my point. I'm socialized now to be in complete terror of all police and any part of the justice system; I hate them and I hate going to any government building. Still, I fought to breath slowly and told myself I'd be OK, I know they're all liars and power-drunk bullies but it was just a speeding ticket. I was going to be alright.
Well, as I'd learn, VA has rigged Reckless Driving, a criminal offence (not a traffic offense) the way PA has rigged DUIs to fleece out of state drivers like pulling in fish as they go past Washington DC and Richmond on the way south. Apparently it's become a pretty big deal. Unlike every other state, instead of a speeding ticket they changed their laws so that over a certain MPH you jump directly to Reckless Driving which is the equivalent of a DUI without any alcohol being involved. The penalties are truly insane because Reckless Driving was never meant to be used as a substitute for a traffic ticket: Real jail, six month license suspension, and thousands in fines. Another DUI-style money-maker and machine to crush hope to generate more lucrative crimes out of their victims. Reckless Driving is meant to be applied for people racing on the highway, dangerously swerving around traffic, putting pedestrians endanger, and that sort of thing. Not this. The law is applied correctly in PA and in most other states; I've learned the hard way that VA has made it a revenue generator.
It's far, far worse for me. Again, remember if I was home in PA this would be a speeding ticket, nothing more. Also, I refute this trooper's claims as clearly bearing false witness to pull in two fish for one casting of the line. Because I got two DUIs three years ago, once VA convicts and reports me PA will classify me as a "habitual offender." No trial, no appeals, they automatically take your licence for FIVE full years. Essentially, as of 8:30ish Saturday, my life is over. I've verified all of this will occur with more than one lawyer as I've desperately sought any help I can find. The legal council has been that this is the game the state plays and I'm going to go through this; there is no legal escape to a lesser charge no matter what I do to appease them.
To bring this full circle, I didn't enjoy the retreat and cried the full six hour drive home on Sunday and pretty much have done nothing but cry since (and I am by no means a weak man after all I've been through). God knows I cannot live through this again and it's so much worse than before (and before was unbelievably terrible). It's not just the suspension and becoming like a prisoner in solitary confinement. I can't live with the constant terror, once against waiting for arraignment, then trial, then jail in VA, then suspension in PA. To this day I still only check the mail twice a week because I fear a certified letter will be waiting for me, the kind that only comes from one source. I didn't do anything to deserve this and even if the trooper's story were accurate, and I'm completely wrong, it's a speeding ticket, and not for going over 100 MPH or something crazy like that.
With the DUIs three years ago I owned up to those crimes and pled guilty. I did everything I was told to do in good faith. I'll be honesty with you and say that given what I was going through I don't feel I deserve to have been tormented so severely and for so long (and still ongoing). Literally my life has been destroyed twice and I have NOTHING. I have a middle-class job I barely hung onto but I live check-to-check, one disaster away from death. The trauma of it all landed me in the hospital; the bills from that have consumed every spare dime that was freed up for food and living after the bankruptcy settlement. PA has rigged the laws so judges no longer have any discretionary power in setting sentences; it's a McFactory Industry. So I got the same punishment as the guy who rode a bar stool instead of getting help next to me.
I'm constantly angry at myself that someone could have gotten hurt. I was hopeless and full of despair and satan worked in me; that's when he does his best work in my opinion. He made me the opposite of my values and now that I'm recovering I stay sober because I get so mad at myself that there's no room for cravings to begin. I'll never forgive myself; however, if I remove the circumstances of that year overall I've lived as a good man who's never hurt anyone and always tried to help.
I'm at the point now where I am completely certain God is doing these things to me on purpose. I've glossed over so much and still written far too long of a post so thank you if you've stuck with me so far. My life has been constant escalating misery. The way things happen, in these over the top ways, demands that there must be an intelligence behind it. This doesn't happen to people in reality, only in movies or TV. Plus, I know you're taking my word for it but I AM NOT a wicked man. I'm actually a very good man. I do work to honor God, when I'm charitable I don't seek credit, I stand up for Him and take the bullets when my "friends" pile on with how awful Christians are. I've loved Jesus with all my heart. I've wavered like all men do but ultimately I had faith in Him that I'd gone through Hell and in Him I was finally going to be made new and allowed to find some life and never be in terror again.
It's just that I can't believe I'm going through this again. I can't do it! I can't live like this in constant terror and frankly I shouldn't have to. I didn't do anything to anyone and this is over a speeding ticket in any sane state. Plus I still dispute what I'm being accused of. Why is He doing this to me? The pattern is clear, He waits until I breath easy, think there's a chance to build something of a life, and when I'm happy He picks the most ironic, painful moment to strike. This occurring the one time I dare to come out of my cell in my apartment and let myself try to enjoy some social company is when He decides to do this to me? Why?!
Where's the part where those who believe and love Jesus are not to fear satan? Where is He? I don't ask for any wishes from Him; I only want to be loved as much as any other Christian. I don't want to battle with Him and I never have but He won't stop!
I've concluded, and this isn't a new thought, that I'm in a war I never wanted. I've begged on my knees for Him to please stop. I cannot win against Him; He's all powerful. I don't want to fight Him, I want to honor Him and be with Him but He hates me and won't give me any indication of what I did so long ago that my entire life has gone this way. I've started researching how to purchase a gun, and I'm not being melodramatic. If He hates me this much there's no way He'll ever let me into Heaven so really there's no reason not to just cut to chase. I'm not kidding about this, I CAN NOT live through this again. It's so much more constant, unyielding stress and fear than you can ever understand.
I lost my parents during the first DUI, I finally got them back, but upon hearing this latest news I lost them again and they won't talk to me. Not because I did something wrong but because they themselves cannot stand the stress of it and they're honest about that fact. I can't emphasize enough how I've been left with nothing, none of things most take for granted. My life is miserable but I committed to Jesus while I was in the hospital that I trusted Him and I'd do my work to make life better because I believed all things would work out right in Him. Now I know those are lies; the promises in the Bible are all lies. He's a vindictive and angry God. I can't see any reason why all of the wicked in my life have families and have prospered while I am constantly tortured. I'll even take the torture I've been though and shut up about it if He'd just let me go forward and have a shot at happiness. Why is this perfect storm happening to me now?! It has to be Him; these elements don't come together so perfectly by chance to destroy a man's hope and sanity.
There is literally nothing on Earth I can do to make Him stop; I'm powerless before Him. I cannot appease Him and I've tried to live right with my knees getting knocked out from under me at each step. I've always gotten up to live the way Jesus taught but now I don't know what's actually true anymore. One thing is for certain, God does lie. That Biblical claim is a falsehood, the promises made by God and Jesus are not upheld. I know this through personal experience.
I absolutely cannot live through this. I shouldn't have to be facing this; I've paid and paid and paid. What can you do when the game is so rigged against you? I'm going to go to jail and lose what little I have because I dared to risk rebuilding my life. I went on a road trip, that's my crime. There's no hope to escape the coming fate. What are you supposed to do when faced by this (AGAIN, but even worse this time)? Is there any point in even trying to or is it just time to give up?
I'm going to gloss over oceans here for the sake of brevity but this will still read long. I apologize for that but context is required to get this across. Like many other stories you've probably read here, my life has been very cruel. Over the years the cycle has repeated, only ratcheted up to get over desensitization on my part at each new iterations. At first bad things happened for no reason, then important goals & wishes were denied, then they were granted but only to be taken away, then grant but taken away in the most ridiculously over the top ways, to now a state of never-ending misery that just piles on whenever I let my guard down.
Continuing to jump oceans here, in 2014 I was on a business trip on a job I hated; I had to travel constantly but it allowed for me to take care of my wife so she could pursue her goals without having to be tied to a day job. One day she calls me while out of town to tell me I'm not satisfying her, she had driven to another state to meet a man she'd met online, and that she intended to be with him that evening. Not as a new relationship, but to drive the point home that she felt the need to strike the harshest blow she could to me. That week at the airport to fly home I followed in the footsteps of my father and grandfather (all alcoholics) and chose to drink. I'd been sober for many years up to that point.
A year of hell followed. I was sick, full of despair, in a divorce with an extremely vindictive partner, and suffering from alcoholism like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. Until that point my record in life was clean, I volunteered in and out of church, and while I won't claim to be something special I think I was a good man. I got two DUIs that year. Despite the best efforts of the state, certainly not because of it, I got myself into a real recovery program. Not the thirty day nonsense that insurance companies push but hospitalization, followed by extended partial in-patient, followed by prolonged out-patient. It was a real commitment but I couldn't risk ever hurting anyone because of my genetics and the trauma I was suffering from. I committed, it was really hard, but I've been sober every day since. I took full responsibilities for my two DUIs and have paid every debt. Three years out I'm still in the active punishment phase with an ignition interlock but my access to society has been given back through having a license (try living without one for over a year). I'm skipping what would be a long diatribe on how this system promotes relapse; suffice it to say my life was ruined twice over. Every penny of pension and 401K has been drained, I'm in a structured payment plan from having to declare bankruptcy, and my entire support system and social circle collapsed. Forget the lies you've heard about the magic "bread and butter" license to you can go to work, doctors, and church; they've shaped the law for maximum revenge on DUIs so you cannot get one. Everything they can do to keep you away from medical treatment, AA, and a stable job they bust their humps to do.
Life is lonely and miserable. I only wanted simple things that everyone else gets. Someone to love, a family, a home, and to not live in fear. All of those are completely unobtainable goals now and will be for life.
Getting to the point, this last weekend some old friends from a reenactment group I used to love writing for urged me to join them at a retreat in VA (I live in PA). I've been trying to rebuild a life, be positive, rebuild support, get some friends, see doctors again now that the state allows it, and even maybe trying to date and find someone so I'm not all alone. After three years of living every day in terror of what was coming next I breathed easy and accepted the offer to join them in VA. I let my guard down. That's the mistake where God strikes every time.
Not far from my destination I got off I-95 onto I-295 in VA. A state trooper swung out to get the car ahead of me; however, once he saw my out of state license plate he came alongside my car to motion he wanted me too (I'll explain in a moment). Again summarizing, in two visits to my car he told two different stories about how the car in front of me was speeding and supposedly he'd inferred I must be as well. I'll skip the injustice speech; it's moot to my point. I'm socialized now to be in complete terror of all police and any part of the justice system; I hate them and I hate going to any government building. Still, I fought to breath slowly and told myself I'd be OK, I know they're all liars and power-drunk bullies but it was just a speeding ticket. I was going to be alright.
Well, as I'd learn, VA has rigged Reckless Driving, a criminal offence (not a traffic offense) the way PA has rigged DUIs to fleece out of state drivers like pulling in fish as they go past Washington DC and Richmond on the way south. Apparently it's become a pretty big deal. Unlike every other state, instead of a speeding ticket they changed their laws so that over a certain MPH you jump directly to Reckless Driving which is the equivalent of a DUI without any alcohol being involved. The penalties are truly insane because Reckless Driving was never meant to be used as a substitute for a traffic ticket: Real jail, six month license suspension, and thousands in fines. Another DUI-style money-maker and machine to crush hope to generate more lucrative crimes out of their victims. Reckless Driving is meant to be applied for people racing on the highway, dangerously swerving around traffic, putting pedestrians endanger, and that sort of thing. Not this. The law is applied correctly in PA and in most other states; I've learned the hard way that VA has made it a revenue generator.
It's far, far worse for me. Again, remember if I was home in PA this would be a speeding ticket, nothing more. Also, I refute this trooper's claims as clearly bearing false witness to pull in two fish for one casting of the line. Because I got two DUIs three years ago, once VA convicts and reports me PA will classify me as a "habitual offender." No trial, no appeals, they automatically take your licence for FIVE full years. Essentially, as of 8:30ish Saturday, my life is over. I've verified all of this will occur with more than one lawyer as I've desperately sought any help I can find. The legal council has been that this is the game the state plays and I'm going to go through this; there is no legal escape to a lesser charge no matter what I do to appease them.
To bring this full circle, I didn't enjoy the retreat and cried the full six hour drive home on Sunday and pretty much have done nothing but cry since (and I am by no means a weak man after all I've been through). God knows I cannot live through this again and it's so much worse than before (and before was unbelievably terrible). It's not just the suspension and becoming like a prisoner in solitary confinement. I can't live with the constant terror, once against waiting for arraignment, then trial, then jail in VA, then suspension in PA. To this day I still only check the mail twice a week because I fear a certified letter will be waiting for me, the kind that only comes from one source. I didn't do anything to deserve this and even if the trooper's story were accurate, and I'm completely wrong, it's a speeding ticket, and not for going over 100 MPH or something crazy like that.
With the DUIs three years ago I owned up to those crimes and pled guilty. I did everything I was told to do in good faith. I'll be honesty with you and say that given what I was going through I don't feel I deserve to have been tormented so severely and for so long (and still ongoing). Literally my life has been destroyed twice and I have NOTHING. I have a middle-class job I barely hung onto but I live check-to-check, one disaster away from death. The trauma of it all landed me in the hospital; the bills from that have consumed every spare dime that was freed up for food and living after the bankruptcy settlement. PA has rigged the laws so judges no longer have any discretionary power in setting sentences; it's a McFactory Industry. So I got the same punishment as the guy who rode a bar stool instead of getting help next to me.
I'm constantly angry at myself that someone could have gotten hurt. I was hopeless and full of despair and satan worked in me; that's when he does his best work in my opinion. He made me the opposite of my values and now that I'm recovering I stay sober because I get so mad at myself that there's no room for cravings to begin. I'll never forgive myself; however, if I remove the circumstances of that year overall I've lived as a good man who's never hurt anyone and always tried to help.
I'm at the point now where I am completely certain God is doing these things to me on purpose. I've glossed over so much and still written far too long of a post so thank you if you've stuck with me so far. My life has been constant escalating misery. The way things happen, in these over the top ways, demands that there must be an intelligence behind it. This doesn't happen to people in reality, only in movies or TV. Plus, I know you're taking my word for it but I AM NOT a wicked man. I'm actually a very good man. I do work to honor God, when I'm charitable I don't seek credit, I stand up for Him and take the bullets when my "friends" pile on with how awful Christians are. I've loved Jesus with all my heart. I've wavered like all men do but ultimately I had faith in Him that I'd gone through Hell and in Him I was finally going to be made new and allowed to find some life and never be in terror again.
It's just that I can't believe I'm going through this again. I can't do it! I can't live like this in constant terror and frankly I shouldn't have to. I didn't do anything to anyone and this is over a speeding ticket in any sane state. Plus I still dispute what I'm being accused of. Why is He doing this to me? The pattern is clear, He waits until I breath easy, think there's a chance to build something of a life, and when I'm happy He picks the most ironic, painful moment to strike. This occurring the one time I dare to come out of my cell in my apartment and let myself try to enjoy some social company is when He decides to do this to me? Why?!
Where's the part where those who believe and love Jesus are not to fear satan? Where is He? I don't ask for any wishes from Him; I only want to be loved as much as any other Christian. I don't want to battle with Him and I never have but He won't stop!
I've concluded, and this isn't a new thought, that I'm in a war I never wanted. I've begged on my knees for Him to please stop. I cannot win against Him; He's all powerful. I don't want to fight Him, I want to honor Him and be with Him but He hates me and won't give me any indication of what I did so long ago that my entire life has gone this way. I've started researching how to purchase a gun, and I'm not being melodramatic. If He hates me this much there's no way He'll ever let me into Heaven so really there's no reason not to just cut to chase. I'm not kidding about this, I CAN NOT live through this again. It's so much more constant, unyielding stress and fear than you can ever understand.
I lost my parents during the first DUI, I finally got them back, but upon hearing this latest news I lost them again and they won't talk to me. Not because I did something wrong but because they themselves cannot stand the stress of it and they're honest about that fact. I can't emphasize enough how I've been left with nothing, none of things most take for granted. My life is miserable but I committed to Jesus while I was in the hospital that I trusted Him and I'd do my work to make life better because I believed all things would work out right in Him. Now I know those are lies; the promises in the Bible are all lies. He's a vindictive and angry God. I can't see any reason why all of the wicked in my life have families and have prospered while I am constantly tortured. I'll even take the torture I've been though and shut up about it if He'd just let me go forward and have a shot at happiness. Why is this perfect storm happening to me now?! It has to be Him; these elements don't come together so perfectly by chance to destroy a man's hope and sanity.
There is literally nothing on Earth I can do to make Him stop; I'm powerless before Him. I cannot appease Him and I've tried to live right with my knees getting knocked out from under me at each step. I've always gotten up to live the way Jesus taught but now I don't know what's actually true anymore. One thing is for certain, God does lie. That Biblical claim is a falsehood, the promises made by God and Jesus are not upheld. I know this through personal experience.
I absolutely cannot live through this. I shouldn't have to be facing this; I've paid and paid and paid. What can you do when the game is so rigged against you? I'm going to go to jail and lose what little I have because I dared to risk rebuilding my life. I went on a road trip, that's my crime. There's no hope to escape the coming fate. What are you supposed to do when faced by this (AGAIN, but even worse this time)? Is there any point in even trying to or is it just time to give up?
