I feel like I’ve finally realized something. Something I should have realized a long time ago. I have heard my entire life that people have relationships with God. It never clicked with me that what I was missing was indeed, a relationship with God. I have never really doubted the existence of God or of Jesus, or the resurrection. I’ve prayed. I’ve read my bible. I’ve gone to church. I’ve done daily devotionals. I’ve read Christian fiction novels. I’ve done everything to learn about God and about Jesus, but I’ve never actively sought that relationship. I feel like I know about God but I don’t know God. It’s frustrating too, because I just don’t understand how I get on the intimate level with God that I want to be on. It seems like everyone’s answer is to just read the bible or go to church or have devotions, or to listen. I’ve done all of this before and I feel like it never works. I’ve gone to retreats, I’ve reached “spiritual highs”, heck, I’ve even felt the Holy Spirit come across my body, but I still don’t know God. I still don’t have that relationship and I have no idea how to get it. I just want…no, I don’t want, I need to know God. I just want to feel loved, and wanted. I want for all of this, all the praying and living the way Jesus lived to be worth it. Right now, my life just feels so unfulfilled and I feel like Jesus is the only way to be filled and feel complete.
I pray and sometimes I can clearly see my prayers being answered, other times not so much, but when I pray, I don’t feel anything in return. I feel like I talk to this God I believe in but that’s it. It’s like talking to a stuffed animal or something. I don’t feel any different when I pray. I do it because it’s what I’ve been taught to do in my life, but it’s just not cutting it. I’ve read my bible. I am particularly fond of Psalms. I have related to loads of passages. I’ve memorized them, I’ve mediated on them, but yet again, I just don’t feel anything. They’re great and all, but at the end of the day, I find myself frustrated. These verses were written by people that had intimate relationships with God and I’m envious of them. How did they get to that point? What did they do that I’m not doing? I used to be very diligent about going to church, but the older I’ve gotten, it’s been difficult to attend because I work most Sundays. Nonetheless, I’ve gone countless times, I’ve tried out different churches, and I feel welcome and loved but I’m not the same as the other people in the room. They know God. The love God. They feel like they actually talk to God and he actually responds. They feel like he is truly their father. I’ve tried praying, and listening, and just waiting on answers, but they haven’t come.
When it comes to loving God, I don’t know to be honest. It never hit me until we were sitting in a chapel service at my university and the speaker asked everyone to pray with him if they loved God and I thought about it, and I was so confused. Do I love God? I believe in him. I believe in Jesus. I believe in the resurrection. I believe that God loves me, but do I love him in return? I felt like a ton of bricks laid on me with that question. I want to love God, but I’m honestly still so angry with him. I am absolutely furious with God. I understand that people say God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. I get that people say God doesn’t do the bad things to you that happen in your life, and that it is Satan or evil or whatever, but God has the power to do anything, so why didn’t God protect me more? Why did God allow my parents to get divorced? Why did he allow my parents to become uninvolved? Why did God allow my mother's second husband, my step father, to hurt me? Why did he let my father walk out on me countless times as a child? Why did God give me a mother that when the tough got going, she literally got going and decided she didn’t want to be a mother to my brother and me? Why did God let my grandfather, the one father figure I had, the most positive influence in my life die? I sat and held my grandfather's hand and prayed for healing while he literally took his last breath. Healing didn't come. Why did God let my brother try and kill himself multiple times leading me to have problems with anxiety? Yes, God saved my brother’s life. My brother was brain dead for three days before miraculously waking up, but then God didn’t heal him. My brother tried it again. Why did God let a drunk driver kill one of my dear friends in a car accident? Why has God allowed me to become very close with two people I thought I would always have in my life, two of my “very best friends” that at the time I considered “sisters”, two rocks, two people that’s family had become like family to me, and then let them just stop being there for me and becoming basically enemies? Why did God allow my father to marry my former step-mother and allow her to become a motherly figure only to have them get divorced and her leave too? Why did he give me two beautiful step-sisters and an adorable baby half-brother only to make it where I never see them because my father and former step-mother got divorced? Why does God keep letting all these bad things keep happening to me every single day, all the time, when all I need is a break? I don’t even want a good life, I just want a year, or even just six months, where nothing traumatic happens. I don’t know how much more of this I’m supposed to be able to take without cracking and crumbling into a million pieces. I have prayed for God to just give me a few good months. Just a few months where nothing bad happens, but that hasn't been answered. How am I supposed to love a God, a Father, who lets his child be broken-hearted her entire young life? So do I love God? I want to, but I can't seem to let go of the anger I have with him.
I’m only nineteen and I already feel exhausted with this life. I’m nineteen years-old, but grew up long before I hit eighteen. I’ve cooked for myself ever since I can remember. I don’t think we’ve ever had family dinner with just my mom and brother. I can’t remember the last time I was allowed to just be a kid. I've checked my own homework, I've gotten myself ready for first days of schools, I've consoled myself from nightmares, I don't even feel like I had parents. The last time I was allowed to be broken and just fixed. I have so much on me now too in college. I have a job. I keep a 3.96GPA in the nursing major. I have friends and an president of multiple groups on my campus. It’s not enough for my family though. Nothing I do is enough for them. Why do they have such high expectations for me?
God is supposed to love you how you are right? Regardless of your flaws? He forgives all. He is supposed to be supportive. I need him to be my support system. I need to be enough for him but I feel like I’ll never be enough in the eyes of God. If I can’t even be enough for my mother, my grandmother, or my family as a whole, could I even be enough for God? I’ve really only had a handful of people ever say the words “I’m proud of you” without following up with a “but you could be doing this”. I’ve had aunts and uncles say “I’m proud of you” and leave it at that and I come to tears because maybe I’m enough for them. Maybe, if I’m enough for them, I could be enough for God? They tell me God loves me, that I am a child of God, that I have a Christ-like spirit, but I feel guilty taking those compliments. How can I be Christ-like when I don't even feel a relationship to God? When all I feel is betrayal? I need to KNOW God. I need him to love me and to let me lean on him.
But how? How do I get to know God? How do I get that relationship? What am I doing wrong? Between a Christian education pre-k-12th grade, and a Christian college, and being active in the church, and reading my bible, I know all about God and about Jesus and what all they can do, but no one has ever told me how I am supposed to get to know God. To really know him. To have a relationship with God. I’m afraid it’s too late. It’s been literally sixteen years of being fed God every day, and learning all of this stuff. So is it too late for me? Will I ever be able to know God? What do I do?
I pray and sometimes I can clearly see my prayers being answered, other times not so much, but when I pray, I don’t feel anything in return. I feel like I talk to this God I believe in but that’s it. It’s like talking to a stuffed animal or something. I don’t feel any different when I pray. I do it because it’s what I’ve been taught to do in my life, but it’s just not cutting it. I’ve read my bible. I am particularly fond of Psalms. I have related to loads of passages. I’ve memorized them, I’ve mediated on them, but yet again, I just don’t feel anything. They’re great and all, but at the end of the day, I find myself frustrated. These verses were written by people that had intimate relationships with God and I’m envious of them. How did they get to that point? What did they do that I’m not doing? I used to be very diligent about going to church, but the older I’ve gotten, it’s been difficult to attend because I work most Sundays. Nonetheless, I’ve gone countless times, I’ve tried out different churches, and I feel welcome and loved but I’m not the same as the other people in the room. They know God. The love God. They feel like they actually talk to God and he actually responds. They feel like he is truly their father. I’ve tried praying, and listening, and just waiting on answers, but they haven’t come.
When it comes to loving God, I don’t know to be honest. It never hit me until we were sitting in a chapel service at my university and the speaker asked everyone to pray with him if they loved God and I thought about it, and I was so confused. Do I love God? I believe in him. I believe in Jesus. I believe in the resurrection. I believe that God loves me, but do I love him in return? I felt like a ton of bricks laid on me with that question. I want to love God, but I’m honestly still so angry with him. I am absolutely furious with God. I understand that people say God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. I get that people say God doesn’t do the bad things to you that happen in your life, and that it is Satan or evil or whatever, but God has the power to do anything, so why didn’t God protect me more? Why did God allow my parents to get divorced? Why did he allow my parents to become uninvolved? Why did God allow my mother's second husband, my step father, to hurt me? Why did he let my father walk out on me countless times as a child? Why did God give me a mother that when the tough got going, she literally got going and decided she didn’t want to be a mother to my brother and me? Why did God let my grandfather, the one father figure I had, the most positive influence in my life die? I sat and held my grandfather's hand and prayed for healing while he literally took his last breath. Healing didn't come. Why did God let my brother try and kill himself multiple times leading me to have problems with anxiety? Yes, God saved my brother’s life. My brother was brain dead for three days before miraculously waking up, but then God didn’t heal him. My brother tried it again. Why did God let a drunk driver kill one of my dear friends in a car accident? Why has God allowed me to become very close with two people I thought I would always have in my life, two of my “very best friends” that at the time I considered “sisters”, two rocks, two people that’s family had become like family to me, and then let them just stop being there for me and becoming basically enemies? Why did God allow my father to marry my former step-mother and allow her to become a motherly figure only to have them get divorced and her leave too? Why did he give me two beautiful step-sisters and an adorable baby half-brother only to make it where I never see them because my father and former step-mother got divorced? Why does God keep letting all these bad things keep happening to me every single day, all the time, when all I need is a break? I don’t even want a good life, I just want a year, or even just six months, where nothing traumatic happens. I don’t know how much more of this I’m supposed to be able to take without cracking and crumbling into a million pieces. I have prayed for God to just give me a few good months. Just a few months where nothing bad happens, but that hasn't been answered. How am I supposed to love a God, a Father, who lets his child be broken-hearted her entire young life? So do I love God? I want to, but I can't seem to let go of the anger I have with him.
I’m only nineteen and I already feel exhausted with this life. I’m nineteen years-old, but grew up long before I hit eighteen. I’ve cooked for myself ever since I can remember. I don’t think we’ve ever had family dinner with just my mom and brother. I can’t remember the last time I was allowed to just be a kid. I've checked my own homework, I've gotten myself ready for first days of schools, I've consoled myself from nightmares, I don't even feel like I had parents. The last time I was allowed to be broken and just fixed. I have so much on me now too in college. I have a job. I keep a 3.96GPA in the nursing major. I have friends and an president of multiple groups on my campus. It’s not enough for my family though. Nothing I do is enough for them. Why do they have such high expectations for me?
God is supposed to love you how you are right? Regardless of your flaws? He forgives all. He is supposed to be supportive. I need him to be my support system. I need to be enough for him but I feel like I’ll never be enough in the eyes of God. If I can’t even be enough for my mother, my grandmother, or my family as a whole, could I even be enough for God? I’ve really only had a handful of people ever say the words “I’m proud of you” without following up with a “but you could be doing this”. I’ve had aunts and uncles say “I’m proud of you” and leave it at that and I come to tears because maybe I’m enough for them. Maybe, if I’m enough for them, I could be enough for God? They tell me God loves me, that I am a child of God, that I have a Christ-like spirit, but I feel guilty taking those compliments. How can I be Christ-like when I don't even feel a relationship to God? When all I feel is betrayal? I need to KNOW God. I need him to love me and to let me lean on him.
But how? How do I get to know God? How do I get that relationship? What am I doing wrong? Between a Christian education pre-k-12th grade, and a Christian college, and being active in the church, and reading my bible, I know all about God and about Jesus and what all they can do, but no one has ever told me how I am supposed to get to know God. To really know him. To have a relationship with God. I’m afraid it’s too late. It’s been literally sixteen years of being fed God every day, and learning all of this stuff. So is it too late for me? Will I ever be able to know God? What do I do?
