Thank you all for the answers, I do certainly need it. Going for an appointment soon at a therapist. The first time I met her, I spent a full hour crying hysterically when I admitted my disapointment in God not helping me. Probably didn't help her much in her clinical view on religion as something wrong in the brain somewhere.
Emmy: I agree with what you say, but still it doesn't really answer my question. It's not my lack of love I struggle with. I forgive everyone and pray for my enemies, in all situations I do what I can about how to show empathy toward them. When it comes to for example news about horrible things happening in the world, I cannot watch it anymore, because it hurt so much. I never say no if someone need me. I don't judge others, except myself - that's the hardest part, to overcome my largest enemy, myself.
But when it comes to God, it is different, because for so many years life have been a constant misery that when I now pray it feels like talking to a stone, just a feeling of pointlessness, since I've prayed for so long, for just some peace in my life and have something, no matter what, to be happy about. So it is very difficult to turn to God, because I feel He is no longer there for me.
Aiki: Yes, I'm a Christian, accepted and never going to let go of Jesus, like He never lets go of me.
Maybe what I'm doing wrong is just what I told to Emmy, that when I lift up my hands in prayer, they feel like lead and my voice like whisper getting interrupted by the thought and experience of feeling not getting heard no matter what I do. And you say that the joy and peace I'm looking for is found in God, so I guess I'm stuck, because how can I believe when I have given up on Him to ever care. I walk this endless desert and nowhere do I see any help.
You share many things of what is named "mental illness" these days, and I have the same problems. I'm diagnosed c-ptsd and bipolar1, social anxiety, ocd and what have youm, and have been told that the only thing that have prevented me from going full schizofrenic is my ability to see myself in 3rd person. For almost 20 years I've begged God to become free from these horrors, but unlike you, things have just kept going worse. Before I became a Christian I had some problems with depression and some signs of what to come, I was a painter and got intoxicated by expressing myself, I had lots of friends and no problems with love. But today I have no friends, I have no interest in anything anymore - nothing, like living in a coma, being dead live. And when I were a rebellios teenager I smoked some pot, and in fact first time met Jesus and instantly got saved i was alredy stoned, but felt the "vibes" filling the room and myself when talking about Jesus and Christianity as something so good that I couldn't ever let go of it again - people said they had never expected someone like me to become religious. But after Christianity I've become stedily worse, it's simply a miracle that I'm still here alive after suicide attempts,overdosing, endless hospitalizations in mental institutions, I had a year in a rehab just months ago, I became addicted to tranquilizers and heroin, still using stuff like Valium today, though given from the doctors and also opiate-treatment, so I'm off the street, I don't live a life that I feel God disaprove of anymore. I have a son from a previous relationship that didn't work out at all, but have been denied to see him for about 5 years by his fostermother/grandmother, that also block out the rest of my family, don't know what he looks like anymore or what he is doing if he got friends etc. I've been homeless and digging into dumpsters for food. I've been a constant target for bullies and violent people that look at me as some naive hippy that they hate without me knowing why.
So how can I pray when God have promisted bread during prayers, but instead have been given stones and scorpions? I don't know why I have kept on believing at all, in the face of the lack of anything of what seemed to have been promised. I've often thought of the words by Jesus that it is better to be cold then lukewarm, and I'm not cold by disbelief, but neither burning for Christ, since I'm living this vacuum that I certainly don't want or seek, I wish I could burn, but how can I, when I constantly are walking alone, not seeing the Lord that I still trust and love and never will give up?
Kiritsugu: My name in my native language means "elf", so I love elves, so spot on
I know logically and theologically that God loves me, but no peace, no rest.
Bottledwater: I know, probably more then most, that the devil is relentless. He is either trying to kill me from inside, or if I sometimes wake up and realize what he is doing to me, then he completely lets go and instead try to lead me into temptations. He is the accuser, the pointy finger, the one who remembers all the bad things what I would be like to forget and make me forget what I would like to remember of good things. He wants me to know there is no hope, that I'm not like others, my sins are too grave, that I should just give up, destroy myself etc.
I want to focus more on Jesus, but like I've said above in this post, my hands feel tied, my mouth glued together, my thoughts chaos. I want more faith, but how can I continue to have faith, how can I still focus only on the dead tree in my withered garden, with nothing else then thistles and thornes to eat. How can I rejoice in that. How can I pray in honesty without feeling words getting stuck in my throut. I need help I don't have to ask for, help from God, cause obviously there's nothing I can do in myself. I wan't God to be the one I cannot be, inside me, transforming my desert into gardens..
I burn incense every day and just tell God that I'll continue to do this, to let the sweet smoke raise up to heaven until he answers all the prayers I've prayed and bless me just with what I need to live a life, not in pain, but content in Him alone. I don't need anything else. I hate this world and this life, so maybe the smoke rising up soon will remind him about me and all the prayers that have been gotten lost in the air somewhere.
Love to all of you. May God bless you more then what I wish I myself could have been blessed in, above all you yourself could imagine could be true.
