God Doesn't Want Me?

[Monica4316]

Thank you all so much for all that you wrote. I finally read all of it- very encouraging! I would like to ask for some prayers. I am seriously depressed. I’m not sure I am going to make it through this. Usually in the past I would find comfort in prayer, but now it hurts to pray and it hurts not to pray. I still really feel like I don’t want to be close to God because I feel like He wants that closeness with those called to religious life and not with me. Not that He doesn’t want to be close at all to me. Just not as close as He wants to be to them. Who wants to be second best? I can’t just decide to not feel that way. I’ve tried. I hope you don’t mind me saying all of this. I don’t want to discourage anyone who is discerning.

Rachael, a while ago I felt exactly the same way… I wanted so much to pray and to find comfort in that but it was painful to pray and painful to even look at pictures of Jesus or think of Him… but I felt this great longing for Him at the same time. I think you might be going through a “dark night” of sorts… that’s when a soul feels rejected by God and feels far from Him but still wants to be with Him. In spiritual books, it says that afterwards the soul comes out of this closer to God than before. Don’t despair and HAVE HOPE and try to trust Him… try to say, “Your will be done Lord”. This will please Him so much. I don’t believe that there IS a “second best”. A few days ago I experienced some of God’s love and this was after a month full of struggling and temptation and sin, and His love is unimaginable, He IS love, and I believe He wants to have this union with each person… after all, that is what Heaven is.

Think of the world and how so many people reject God and reject His graces and don’t even care can you imagine how He must feel about a person who feels pain thinking of being separated from Him or not being close to Him? i’m sure He loves that person so much and they’re a consolation to Him.

St John of the Cross said,
“In the first place it should be known that if anyone is seeking God, the Beloved is seeking that person much more.”

Dear Rachel
I too want to enter the religious life. I have been wanting and refusing the call for so long nevertheless more than ever I have now said yes to Jesus. At times am worried what if it’s not my call? I think I will collapse! I asked for advice but later on I realised (from what many people advised me) to pray, hope and to worry not. I know one place that Jesus is always there and this id tabernacle in the church. Just go there and tell him “Jesus my love you know how much I love you, please tell me what to do. I am sad, heart broken and I cant move on” Just repeat these words over and over. You will have the answer right there.

Trust me, Jesus smiles when you write how hurtful you are, he’s caught in amazement to the extent he forgets to reply.Do you know how much people inflict pain to him? especially in religious orders? Those you consider saints might not be saints in the eyes of the lord (Not all who say “lord lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven)

St Padre Pio was denied in the fransiscan friary for lack of education (so according to human standards, he was misfit) But God who qualifies the unqualified made him one of the greatest saints of our century. His Fr had to travel to US to find job so that Padre Pio could study and enter the friary.

Also St John Vianney was refused in the seminary since he could not understand latin, his report was written “he’s too backward” but his spiritual director in france believed in him and taught him in french and he became great priest saint even before he died.

Watch saints movies even in you tube. The best one I recommend would be “the reluctant saint” then please come back to this forum and praise God.
We are waiting.
densline
“If you truly love me, why not suffer for me?” By Jesus
God is but a beautiful rose hidden under the thorns

 

[LilyM]

Thank you all so much for all that you wrote. I finally read all of it- very encouraging! I would like to ask for some prayers. I am seriously depressed. I’m not sure I am going to make it through this. Usually in the past I would find comfort in prayer, but now it hurts to pray and it hurts not to pray. I still really feel like I don’t want to be close to God because I feel like He wants that closeness with those called to religious life and not with me. Not that He doesn’t want to be close at all to me. Just not as close as He wants to be to them. Who wants to be second best? I can’t just decide to not feel that way. I’ve tried. I hope you don’t mind me saying all of this. I don’t want to discourage anyone who is discerning.

To be perfectly frank, I do mind, very much. I’m not married, but on behalf of all the saintly married people I know, you are being extremely insulting. I don’t think you realise quite how much so.

After all, who is closer to Jesus than Mary and Joseph? No one. And do you really need me to remind you that they were married people?

How can you call any institution that is blessed, as Matrimony is, to be instituted as one of the seven sacraments, ‘second best’? How is saying so not an affront to the God who made it a sacrament, who blessed Adam and Eve’s marriage and blessed the Wedding at Cana with His first miracle?

No, you can’t decide what to feel, but you can decide, as Jesus did in Gethsemane, to be the master of your feelings and not their slave.

How big of you to worry about putting people off discerning the religious life - did you give a single second’s thought to the people discerning marriage who you’ve just kindly informed how totally inferior you really think they are? How inferior you very mistakenly imagine GOD thinks they are? Is that not a grave harm to their equally important discernment?

 

[4elise]

To be perfectly frank, I do mind, very much. I’m not married, but on behalf of all the saintly married people I know, you are being extremely insulting. I don’t think you realise quite how much so.

After all, who is closer to Jesus than Mary and Joseph? No one. And do you really need me to remind you that they were married people?

How can you call any institution that is blessed, as Matrimony is, to be instituted as one of the seven sacraments, ‘second best’? How is saying so not an affront to the God who made it a sacrament, who blessed Adam and Eve’s marriage and blessed the Wedding at Cana with His first miracle?

No, you can’t decide what to feel, but you can decide, as Jesus did in Gethsemane, to be the master of your feelings and not their slave.

How big of you to worry about putting people off discerning the religious life - did you give a single second’s thought to the people discerning marriage who you’ve just kindly informed how totally inferior you really think they are? How inferior you very mistakenly imagine GOD thinks they are? Is that not a grave harm to their equally important discernment?

I’m sure that insulting married or single people was never the intention of rachael_maria - rather sharing how she was feeling in her discernment process - she was sharing very deep feelings of sadness, and even jealousy for those who had already completed their discernment and found where God was calling them. She was sharing her feelings, not her thoughts - she asks for our prayers. Let us try to view each of us in charity - especially those who are in a period of struggle and challenge in their prayer lives. Let us try always to reflect God’s love to them.
If you are discerning marriage, you already know just how blessed that life in sacrament can be. Wishing you peace.

 

[RobNY]

How can you call any institution that is blessed, as Matrimony is, to be instituted as one of the seven sacraments, ‘second best’? How is saying so not an affront to the God who made it a sacrament, who blessed Adam and Eve’s marriage and blessed the Wedding at Cana with His first miracle?

Lily,

Religious life is objectively ordered to a state of perfection by the vows which constitute it. “If you would be perfect, sell what you have and come follow me.” Or again, “there are those who are eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom.” And so on.

While for any given person, the best vocation for him is what would make him holiest-- after all, for the person who cannot bear the religious vows, or the particulars of religious life, it would not sanctify him as effectively as the vocation God has for him-- objectively speaking, there is a sense in which the religious state is ‘higher’ than other states of life. Jesus, after all, does say that ‘in heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage.’ Religious life is right now a realized eschatological sign; it is the realization of the Kingdom of God now as it will be at the end of time.

Regardless, every person is still called to perfection (‘be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect’), and is given the grace to do so according to their state in life. And thus every person may reach lofty holiness, ‘religious’ or not. But the state of life is rightly called a state of perfection, as St. Thomas discusses, for instance, in the ST. In this sense, I would cautiously say, the religious life is above the married life, but not to be understood in any way which denigrates married life, which of course has full dignity and is part of God’s plan for the mankind. (As I would note, with you, every person’s discernment is of the utmost importance for that person, because their state in life is the means by which God will save them and completely sanctify them, if they are docile to His will.)

In other words, both of your perspectives have essential truths about the place of married life and religious life in the Church, and it is indeed a wonder of His providence that He has ordered the life of each to the other. The domestic church is the seedbed of all vocations, whereas the religious life is the source of spiritual life for the church. Each order needs the other. Praise and glory to God for His wonderful arrangement of creation and the Church.

But I do think that understanding what a tremendous good religious life is helps us to, in turn, understand how difficult this is for rachel_maria. The object of hope and despair is a ‘difficult good.’ It is understandable and natural that any person would feel great anguish upon being unable to achieve such a ‘difficult good.’

-Rob

 

[LilyM]

I’m sure that insulting married or single people was never the intention of rachael_maria - rather sharing how she was feeling in her discernment process - she was sharing very deep feelings of sadness, and even jealousy for those who had already completed their discernment and found where God was calling them. She was sharing her feelings, not her thoughts - she asks for our prayers. Let us try to view each of us in charity - especially those who are in a period of struggle and challenge in their prayer lives. Let us try always to reflect God’s love to them.
If you are discerning marriage, you already know just how blessed that life in sacrament can be. Wishing you peace.

I never said or thought that it was her intention - the contrary.

Jealousy? What place has jealousy in a heart that is ordered towards Christ? Were the other 11 jealous of the fact that Peter’s calling was different to theirs? Did Christ not in fact rebuke them when they were arguing among themselves who was the greatest?

Charity? It is charitable to empathise with those who are struggling, or in sorrow or grief, true. It is equally charitable to bring people who are in such a situation ‘out of themselves’ so to speak - to get them thinking about others who face different challenges or who are in equally great need, or who simply see the world differently but no less validly.

I know that when I am in a mood such as rachael-maria’s, and I have been, it is of the greatest benefit to me to start thinking about people who might be on the other side of my coin.

 

[Lilllabettt]

I never said or thought that it was her intention - the contrary.

Jealousy? What place has jealousy in a heart that is ordered towards Christ? Were the other 11 jealous of the fact that Peter’s calling was different to theirs? Did Christ not in fact rebuke them when they were arguing among themselves who was the greatest?

For Lily or whomever else feels the desire to rebuke a suffering person because “Jesus did it”: kindly recall that you are, in fact, not Jesus.

Its not WWJD but WWJH(ave)M(e)D

Thank you.

 

[LilyM]

For Lily or whomever else feels the desire to rebuke a suffering person because “Jesus did it”: kindly recall that you are, in fact, not Jesus.

Its not WWJD but WWJH(ave)M(e)D

Thank you.

‘When your brother sins, rebuke him’. That’s what Jesus would have all of us do, and its a duty sadly neglected by many of us.

I’ve suffered plenty, and been occasionally rebuked (rightly) even at such times, for our sufferings can indeed be the occasion of all kinds of sins for us.

Despair is a sin, a grave one at that, and rachael-maria seems to be near to if not actually fallen into such a sin - despairing of God’s love of her, despairing of the possibility of having a close relationship with Him outside the religious life and so on.

 

[Lilllabettt]

Lilly:

Rachael Maria is expressing feelings of which people are typically ashamed (depression, jealousy, etc.)

Trying to guilt her into “snapping out of it” by telling her that expressing these emotions is insulting, selfish, “gravely harming” to other peoples discernment, etc. is not helpful on any level: spiritual, emotional, etc.

You really need to be more careful dealing with people in distress. Otherwise one day you may say the wrong thing to a suffering person and there will be serious consequences for that person’s soul. And you will be held responsible for it.

Grief is isolating. This should be a safe place for Rachael Marie to be heard.

 

[4elise]

Grief is isolating. This should be a safe place for Rachael Marie to be heard.

very well said — and I think we all do have Rachael’s best intention at heart -

Know Rachael that we are all praying for you dear one.
May you continue to know and come to believe just how precious you are to our dear Lord!

 

[4elise]

I never said or thought that it was her intention - the contrary.

Jealousy? What place has jealousy in a heart that is ordered towards Christ? Were the other 11 jealous of the fact that Peter’s calling was different to theirs? Did Christ not in fact rebuke them when they were arguing among themselves who was the greatest?

Charity? It is charitable to empathise with those who are struggling, or in sorrow or grief, true. It is equally charitable to bring people who are in such a situation ‘out of themselves’ so to speak - to get them thinking about others who face different challenges or who are in equally great need, or who simply see the world differently but no less validly.

I know that when I am in a mood such as rachael-maria’s, and I have been, it is of the greatest benefit to me to start thinking about people who might be on the other side of my coin.

Lily, I do believe you have our dear sister’s best interest at heart - your experience may well be that ‘tough love’ is sometimes the best way to help someone be challenged to move beyond their sorrow or grief - and that may well be true - it may be better excercised, IMHO, face to face when it can be accompanied by the hug, the reassurance that direct contact can add. It was my feeling that - here on the forums - we needed to reflect God’s love, and hopefully as she came to feel that love she will be able to move beyond the grief -

God Bless,

 

[rachael_maria]

Thank you to everyone who has replied. I think I understand where you are coming from, Lily, so I am sorry for anyway I offended you.

I am doing better. I will be seeing a counselor- although he is a married man and I’m not sure that I can tell him how I feel about some things- I don’t want to cause offense or hurt his feelings in any way. I would appreciate continued prayers- and I will pray for each of you as well. God bless.

 

[Lilllabettt]

RM, do not hesitate to be open with your counselor. You should absolutely not worry about hurting him as a married man in any way.

It is absolutely ridiculous that it was suggested to you on this board that your speaking about your feelings is hurtful to married people. That is ignorance talking to you. A professional counselor would never never never never never suggest such a thing.

You are absolutely not hurtful or offensive for posting your feelings. You are BRAVE!

Worry, guilt, anxiety … these things hide in the dark. Be brave again and talk to your counselor, expose them to the light. Show the Healer your wounds.

God bless you RM, you’re in my prayers today.

 

[4elise]

RM, do not hesitate to be open with your counselor. You should absolutely not worry about hurting him as a married man in any way.

It is absolutely ridiculous that it was suggested to you on this board that your speaking about your feelings is hurtful to married people. That is ignorance talking to you. A professional counselor would never never never never never suggest such a thing.

You are absolutely not hurtful or offensive for posting your feelings. You are BRAVE!

Worry, guilt, anxiety … these things hide in the dark. Be brave again and talk to your counselor, expose them to the light. Show the Healer your wounds.

God bless you RM, you’re in my prayers today.

EXACTLY right - perfect response and I second every single word.
Blessings to RM and all who are struggling today - and blessings to you Lillabett for the beautiful way you have reached out to our sister in reflecting Gods precious love for her.

 

[rachael_maria]

Thank you all. I am going to leave the forums at the advice of my counselor. I was able to talk openly with him. God bless!