When God doesn't answer

Wow that was really surprising that u mention this, because I woke up this morning and literally thought of this also.

For some reason...for a long time, I believed that as long as I go to church, give the lord a little glimpse of me to show him that I care but also still continue to do the things I do in my "love" life meaning sex, making another person become my HP, make another person become my "priority."

I had to REALLY learn the hard way because that's not how it works. We have to totally surrender to the lord at times, at it STILL continues to be a very difficult process with me...but you will just have to, THERE'S NO OTHER CHOICE.

We can't give a part of ourselves to the lord and then a part ourselves to something else, it's not gonna cleanse our SOUL in anyway, it might feel good for the moment to run to those toxic people...but no easy way out is really worth it, it will KILL us.

Easier said then done...I KNOW. Sometimes I wake up so confused and asked the Lord where r u...I can not feel you at times...where are you in my life. Why do I still not have peace...Everything is a choice in our lives

I chose at times to slip BUT THEN I chose at times to recover...but the most important thing is that I CHOSE TO FORGIVE MYSELF.

Hey Susan

By the way, I have read that book A while ago. Years.

I just RE-READ another book of his...last month....Living a Life That Matters. It helped. Maybe I'll dig out that one too. Thanks.

Presence

Hey Dreamwood

I read your story (from another thread) And we do have a lot in common. I was raised by two dry alcoholics (they were raised by alcoholics and had all the same habits sans the alcohol) My mother was the spiritual abuser---using Christianity to excuse the emotional, psychological and occasionally physical abuse of my father, then calling the excuses forgiveness and me selfish for not liking the way he treated us.

To answer your question: I don't hear from God at all on the subject of "where is my intended?"

But I do hear from Him. The day I got back from meeting my POA (a married friend, that I hadn't seen in 30 years--who I felt ENTITLED to because I'd been left alone), I got an e-mail from someone who sends out daily verses--someone I hadn't heard from in months until THAT day. Paraphrased it said, 'Yes your feet ran to do toxic....but don't turn from God, He's not happy about what you did but he won't abandon you.'

On my way home from seeing the POA, I shifted out of gear--forgetting I was no longer driving the stick-shift I had 4 years earlier--and I did it at 80 mph. I'm lucky I didn't kill anyone, including myself. I didn't even damage the car--it made noise for a little while and straightened itself out(--I guess.) Anyway, I'm pretty sure that e-mail the thing that kept me from just ending it in a more proactive way later.

The next three months were hell on earth anyway. I wanted to NOT want my POA but I kept wanting him desperately. After that went away...then came back(weaker)... and went away again, I felt like I'd thrown away a piece of my childhood I couldn't afford to lose.

I continued moving through some very low times after I stopped craving the POA...whose personality is not compatible with mine anyway. The low times are more generalized...about not having met "THE ONE"(husband) or even "THE ONES"(committed boyfriends)

I started grieving about not ever having a love of my own about four three months before I re-met my POA. I started on my 45th birthday. About three weeks before we eventually reconnected I burst into tears at church over it.

I never thought about Satan much, but I'm more on guard now. That's not to say I dwell on this aspect of Christianity, but it's more real to me now---I mean, nobody but my current POA could have gotten me to sleep with him while he's married--Love addict or no Love addict( prior episodes were 10 years back). My current POA had to come along at exactly the moment he did... a few months after my 45th birthday, just when I'd given up thinking my prayers for someone to love and help were ever going to come to anything.. I felt both abandoned by God and entitled.

How am I now?

I still feel abandoned. I don't feel entitled. I'm over feeling guilty for the most part. I believe getting past the guilt is moving into true belief in the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. I'm not specifically craving the attention of my POA (--I don't think.) I'm still very lonely--on all fronts--but the pain isn't as deep or as acute....sometimes its not there at all maybe. I have less energy to give to friendships that were really lopsided in some critical ways, so I took action. I haven't ended the friendships, I've just moved them further from the center of the bulls-eye that is my life.

I wrote my POA a couple of weeks ago and told him I was hurt AND told him I was sorry I brought him into my mid-life crisis or had slipped into his. He basically apologized for not writing and for making me think he was ignoring me. (He's not much of a communicator in person--that's why we'd never be compatible in any way except sexually) He said he enjoyed our time together and promised to always respond in the future. I said I'd say "hello" near the holidays...and that's it. He sent me the picture of his brothers and sisters that I'd asked for before. (hadn't seen them since we were all kids. His brother was my brother's best friend.)
I wrote him back and said "Wow" and "Thanks" plus two or three other words.

For some reason that made me feel like I had closure. It also ended the ever resurfacing guilt. In-all-about-me-land: I feel like I wasn't THE ONE damaging his marriage--it already was what it was; he doesn't seem to feel any remorse or anything else about it. OR maybe he's just one of those people who have to feel like they're in complete control of all their choices regardless of what's true, regardless of what his marriage is really like. I don't know. I don't have to know. I don't feel compelled to contact him.

I'm better about the LA thing in general terms...OR nobody who pushes my buttons has arrived to test me. It is one or the other. I am a love addict but I'm a very selective one; I don't connect to men that easily. Never have. My past, it's not surprising--I suppose.
Christian Therapy has gone as far as it can.

Here and Now: It always seems like men show up when I'm really locked onto somebody else....One I considered for half a minute AFTER I was NO LONGER locked on the POA got testy with me on phone when I told him I couldn't talk long because I was sick. I did NOT feel guilty for NOT giving Mr. Low Self-Control another chance. Another seemed like he was interested....and really attractive in multiple ways...but didn't act like he was all that interested in me, so next.

I'm in a new job, learning things, meeting new people, and I actually like them. It's the most diverse environment I've had the opportunity to work in for a while. I'm going to be happy there.

I'm having a hard time keeping everything up....house, car, etc. The only thing that's clean is my desk at work.

I think about God a lot but I don't pray much, even less in the last month or so. I have Christian Music that plays every morning--adoration, contrition, thankfulness, supplication....that sort of prays for me as I get dressed--inspires the ten second prayers I do manage to pray... I don't hear anything anyway.

But I know He's there. At my lowest moment of any given day, an acquaintance or stranger does or says something nice to me.

This is the first time in my life I haven' t been striving for something--advancing at work, or grades at school, saving ENOUGH money for retirement while enjoying life, earning more money in the stock market, trying to get some certificate or degree. I'm not doing anything except...

....grieving the loss of this dream I had of being temporarily adored and loved long term in a marriage. The pain isn't as acute as it was last birthday, but I'm going to be 50 in about a heartbeat...I have to have a full life without the thing I wanted most. (It's so insulting when people think I'm saying I have dreams of being Cinderella forever....but I think you know what I mean here. So I won't explain it.)

Anyway....Hope deferred makes the heart sick, right? (Proverbs)

It's sick but starting to heal? I can't tell if there is acceptance mixed in with the resignation or not most days.

I go to work. I exercise. I watch movies. I go to church--and feel relatively good for as long as I'm there. I have a couple of friends I do talk to there, but I don't share as much anymore since I was tired of being Donna-Downer. Just last month they said how much better I looked--on one of my lowest days.

I know I'm still going through a grieving process--I really wanted to find someone to travel through this life with. It's hard moving forward without anyone I'm really close to. It's hard giving that legitimate desire up. I've only recently begun to believe I can make it out the other side.

Presence

I have only read havefaith's post and am not sure about others. But as for me, I cannot deny the fact that though I am not perfect, I have been able to heal and recover completely. I am inwardly changing day by day. I am able to manage my life so well and people can see this. Thus, even employers hire me now to 'manage' people and their businesses. So if that is not God's answer or even greater than a cure....What is it then? But I understood that it is all by faith and by grace, so that no one can boast for receiving more than the others.


This year, I have known God in a more personal way than the other previous years and started loving the Bible, reading it daily or almost daily. All I can say is he is real and he makes my life wonderful and purposeful. He is the reason I live victoriously, joyfully, and confidently. I cannot hide this. It is the truth.