I am a former Catholic. I'm not really sure what I believe in now. I yearn to believe in God, but I have my doubts. I find myself feeling alone and hopeless most of the time. I am a working mom.I hate it. I have a 45 minute commute to work. I wanted to be a stay at home mom but that didn't pan out. My husband and I fight all the time. I am resentful and cold. The world is horrible. I have anxiety. I am fearful that something bad could happen to my daughter one day. I feel lonely, sad, and tired. I wish there was a God out there to save me, to change my heart, but I can't find him. Sometimes I pray, but my life seems to continue to be such a horrible mess.
Whatever you do, don't go back to the Catholic church. In fact, if you do decided to believe in God still, you don't need to belong to a specific denomination.
There are SO many things I want to say, and I really want to say something that will actually help you. I will speak from my own experience, and I hope this helps.
I used to feel hopeless, annoyed, angry, etc. ALL the time. I tried talking to people about it, getting help, taking advice from various people, and none of it worked. If it did, it lasted up to 3 days and then everything went back to being miserable. This went on for years. I constantly argued with people and was so confused that I cried a lot because of all of my frustration. I also felt really sluggish, was filled with pride (I was completely unable to humble myself, but then at the same time felt really insecure), and was always searching for pleasure (by being lazy, watching TV, eating too much food, etc.), which made me prone to becoming addicted to things.
I tried to believe in God, but it felt like I was talking to myself when I prayed and I don't know, even though I was convinced that there is a God I couldn't actually BELIEVE it, if that makes any sense. I prayed and prayed for God to save me, change me, just to do
something, but nothing happened.
Now, I used to be really obsessed with personality types, and spiritual gifts also interested me because of this. So one day I was reading about spiritual gifts online, and I came to the conclusion that I had no real spiritual gifts. I was good at many things, but I could tell it was all just naturally learned or talents I was born with. So this told me that I wasn't saved.
Somehow right after that, I found an article about how God won't forgive us if we don't forgive others. Basically, the article talked about how the things that happen to us and what people do to us now won't last forever, and God'll take care of everything in the end, we just have to forgive them. That day, I asked God to help me forgive everyone that I wasn't forgiving (I couldn't do it myself, I tried), and take away all of the negative feelings I had toward certain people so that He'd forgive me. Seconds later, this peace I'd never felt in my entire life came over me. I was no longer angry or annoyed, and I felt a little beautiful sense of joy that I don't think anything on this earth could make me feel. That hopeless feeling went away, suddenly the things I did didn't seem meaningless anymore.
After that, I put great importance in God's words that I never did before. Suddenly His words were more important than food. I gave up things that I was very addicted to overnight and never went back (like TV, video games, food that was bad for my body, things like that). I had this awareness that God is there and I guess the best way to describe it is that it is like a "connection" with God. He caused me to understand the Bible well and not be confused anymore, I was no longer concerned with the things in this world but instead in what God wanted, I wanted to please Him instead of myself which was shown through my actions, and just so many things happened overnight.
In a nutshell, the way I thought changed and then so did my actions. After that though, I read, studied, memorized, thought about, and did the things in the Bible as much as possible, otherwise it's easy to forget and/or be deceived by someone/something.
But even though all of this happened, being a Christian is hard. It's impossible to do it without God. People persecute you, you have to give up yourself and your desires, and things like that. But I'm filled with hope, because even though I suffer now it's only for a short time and I have something amazing to look forward to that will last forever. Plus, pleasure and "happiness" in this world only comes with anxiety and feeling miserable, at least for me it was that way.
If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask. Also, I really,
really hope this helps you and I will be praying for the best for you.
- Eve
