I like trying to grow closer to God, but I hate going to church. I pray and read my Bible. I listen to church sermons, BUT i have extreme social anxiety and I have to go to church alone in a family centered city. However, I do feel like God gives messages in the church or reinforces things I read in the Bible. Still, it's a nightmare and every Sunday my out of state bf asks me if I'm going. I feel so guilty rn and trying to force myself to go. I have anxiety all this morning just thinking about going. I'm sure it's worse cause I'm pmsing rn and my hormones are a mess, but literally I feel like crying and it's only and hour into the day.
I usually feel kind of okay when I get there and he starts reading the Bible, but otherwise I feel like an outsider to all the families and their kids.
Btw it's not just church. I hate going to work and dealing with people they drain me. I cancelled my facial this morning cause I hate the anxiety I get from dealing with people and I used up all my social energy at my nieces party last night. Socializing more often doesn't seem to take away my desire to get away from people and be in my own world.
Awwww, the world is so mean these days and look what it is doing to you, sister
I do know the truthful answer for you, and it's hard but it works. It takes practise. In your heart you need to make a change, to not see your life as one that is for you but as one that is for sacrifice to God.
Look at King David's attitude in 2 Samuel 16:12 - is it not the very same as Jesus said, to turn the other cheek?
What is happening is that you are feeling offended that people are so loveless, and it is so foreign to you because you are one of those who gives and gives and gives. But you are now feeling like a victim because nobody treats you the way that you ought to be treated. Everybody takes, and takes, and takes.. and then they want even more still!
The one thing that will liberate you, if you can figure out how to do it, is to rise above the victim mentality and to see the ones who afflict you just as the way that Jesus saw them in Mark 6:34. Then when you see them for they way they truly are .. as poor lost ones not knowing the right way to go, and that when they hurt you, it is because the only way they know how to get relief from their misery, is to take away the joy from the one that they are envying.
But you are right, that the world is draining us. Remember that Jesus often had to withdraw to quiet places to pray alone, and in this way, He stayed so full of love and mercy etc, that He even knew when someone got healed by just touching the hem of His garment!
One thing I have noticed is that television is teaching very poor personality character to people, where many scenes portray cattiness, self-centredness, lewdness, just generally not holy conduct .. and this rubs off. When people watch these programs for hours each day, and when they laugh at it or admire it, thinking it is a good way to be, it then becomes a part of their character. And so we are walking amongst people who reflect catty, shallow, self-centredness, holding contempt in their heart for the Ned Flanders' .. so love has really become so depleted in society, where everyone is groaning under the stress and nobody is there to relieve them of it.
If you cannot forgive them, then it will destroy you. This is why Jesus said that we must possess our lives by our endurance. It is getting ferocious because this is not yet wide knowledge, but it is possible to rise above it by making a mind-shift.
So hopefully this gives you some ideas that you can take to The Lord in prayer,
He will help you be more than a conqueror