My life of SIN...=(

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angelofmusic

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I’m 17 years old and I’ve always thought I was a reasonably good Catholic. By no means perfect in any way but, you know, not too bad.
But now I’ve come to this forum and I’ve realised how many sins I’m committing and I’m terrified!!!
Like my prayer life is good and I ask forgiveness for my sins about 3 times a week as well as thanksgiving and I go to church once a week most of the time.
However, I’ve just realised how much sin I have committed and I ma scared. I really want to go to heaven but…
  1. I’ve had sex before marriage and we’d only been dating just over 2 weeks and we’ve broke up now…
  2. For a long time I thought if I got pregnant I’d have an abortion and when I was 15, I did a “pro-choice” speech for our school speech competition.
  3. I indulge in masturbation about 2 times a week
  4. I think lustful thoughts REALLY often
  5. I often wear skimpy clothing like miniskirts and lowcut tops and bikinis.
  6. I’ve been drunk quite a few times
  7. I’ve often been really disrespectful to my parents at times during my teenage years.
And that’s just the beginning…can I be forgiven???Should I fast for forgiveness??? What shall I do?
 
angelofmusic said:
And that’s just the beginning…can I be forgiven???Should I fast for forgiveness??? What shall I do?
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Yes, not yet, and go to confession ASAP. Then talk to the Priest about possible penances. Consider finding a Spiritual Directer and work with them, Consider joining the CFP penitents.org

I have sinned also. Who hasn’t? I had the same problem some of our Priests have had, for which I got a surgical fix. And there are no sins that cannot be forgiven if confessed with a contrite heart. Read Psalm 51
 
I would advise you to go to confession, and then to make an appointment to talk with the priest or maybe a nun if you’d be more comfortable talking with a female. You have strayed far from the right path, and the road you are on now will only lead you to misery. First of all, stop with those behaviors you listed, esp. the sexual stuff and the underage drinking. Just because you have already done all of this stuff doesn’t mean that you have to keep doing it, you aren’t ruined for life or anything like that. If you have been hanging with a wild crowd at school, you will probably have to find some new friends, because the people you have been drinking and partying with will probably pressure you to keep on doing this stuff, and you know in your heart it is wrong. After you begin to straighten out your life, you may well find that you don’t have much in common with those people anymore. And that’s OK. You don’t have to turn into a total nerd just because you don’t want to party anymore. As far as toning down the skimpy clothes, if you do a google search for modest dressing, you will find websites with some nice tips on how to dress modestly without looking frumpy or out-of-style. It won’t be easy to turn your life around, but it will very much be worth it! Your story could just as well have been mine, except I was in my early 20’s when I was a “wild child.” But the Lord makes all things new! Good luck to you, and God bless.
 
I want to go to confession, however, I feel a lot more comfortable simply talking with God and asking him for forgiveness. I live in a small town with only one Catholic church and we have only one priest, who I don’t feel comfortable enough to talk to . We have no convents in our area so nuns aren’t around either.
 
Well first off, two things.

Welcome to the Catholic message board and thank you for realizing your sins. You are now on your way but you have a long journey. Try going to another parish if you don’t feel comfortable with the one in your area. Reconciliation is a very important step to take in coming closer to God. Don’t worry about the priest getting mad at you; he won’t. Some hold their sins because for fear of embarrassment and trouble. The priest only wants to help. I’ve see a girl my age say “I’m not telling him that, what if he goes to the cops.”
 
Pray every day,repenting,and ask for cleansing of mind and purity of heart,and for guidance in your decisions.
 
angelofmusic said:
I want to go to confession, however, I feel a lot more comfortable simply talking with God and asking him for forgiveness. I live in a small town with only one Catholic church and we have only one priest, who I don’t feel comfortable enough to talk to . We have no convents in our area so nuns aren’t around either.
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As a Catholic, Confession is the way to receive absolution for sins. Regardles of the “comfort” level, if you want to be assured of forgiveness and receive the appropriate penance for you sins, you will have to go to Confession. The priest is a representative of Christ. Try not to think of him as a man that you know but rather as the spokesman for your Lord. You can do Confession behind the screen and your anonymity will be protected.
 
Pray for the courage to go to confession. You simply do not have a choice in the matter. If you ask the Blessed Mother, she will open a path for you and obtain for you special graces to do it. When you know you are weak and can’t do something, that is the time to ask for help. The trick is to want God and his angels and saints more than you want to be a slave of the devil. I will pray for you. 😉
 
blessedtoo said:
As a Catholic, Confession is the way to receive absolution for sins. Regardles of the “comfort” level, if you want to be assured of forgiveness and receive the appropriate penance for you sins, you will have to go to Confession. The priest is a representative of Christ. Try not to think of him as a man that you know but rather as the spokesman for your Lord. You can do Confession behind the screen and your anonymity will be protected.
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Absolutely! I’m sure many of the priests I confess to probably have some idea that it’s me, I have a pretty distinctive voice and do some work around the parish so they may recognise me.

They’re all excellent about treating me just the same as always though, no matter what I confess to. Perhaps they’re just blessed with so many penitents that they forget my confession!

In addition, your sins, while admittedly reasonably serious, are common. There wouldn’t be a one of 'em that your priest wouldn’t have heard dozens if not hundreds of times before. Trust me, they’re most incredibly unlikely to laugh, or yell at you, or go into hysterics over any of them.
 
Welcome to the forum!

First off, don’t judge yourself according to what you read in this website, but rather, speak with your confessor.

and always, always remember, as soon as you ask God for forgiveness, if you are truly sorry for offending Him, your sins will be forgiven. Only God forgives sins. Confession to a priest is for reconciliation, and the sacramental grace received.

Don’t get discouraged we’ve all been through what you’re going through. It gets easier with prayer and time.

Jim
 
JimR-OCDS said:
Don’t get discouraged we’ve all been through what you’re going through. It gets easier with prayer and time.
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That is so true! If you’re not comfortable confessing to your priest, go to a neighboring town where they don’t know you and go to confession there. You can find out where and when by looking on www.masstimes.org. It will be hard at first, but you will feel SOOO much better once you get these sins off your chest and absolved and forgiven. 👍 The first few times I went to confession as a convert, I was so nervous and scared – and the priest actually comforted me and praised me for coming. You won’t be telling him anything he hasn’t heard before, and if it’s any comfort to you, I have had to confess several of the same sins myself, so I know what it’s like. Confession does get easier with time. I went just this morning, and at this point in my life, my relief at getting my sins off of my soul is greater than my anxiety or embarrassment about having to confess them. Hopefully you will reach this point as well. Remember, whatever you don’t confess in this life you’ll have to answer for in the next, and I’d rather die with a clean slate! You have taken the first steps in making things right with God, so keep on walking this journey, even if it’s in baby-steps. Don’t give in to the devil’s lies; he is not happy that you are trying to turn your life around and he will try to put obstacles in your way. Oh, and I forgot to say last time, welcome to the forums! I will say a prayer for you. :heaven:
 
Welcome! I too know how you feel…kinda like i wish i had known all these things about 9 years ago!

Don’t be afraid of the confessional, I was at first. The best way is to just go and do it, and explain your situation. It will be very hard at first, but if you persist in it you will succeed! Confession is a very powerful sacrament, and always keep in the back of your head that it is Christ talking through the priest.

Be strong, keep praying. I know you must feel mortified with yourself, don’t regret. Jesus directed you here, he loves you very much. Feel free to PM me if needed, i went through the same thing about 9 weeks ago.

Be strong! You are with Christ, remember that always!
-revelations
 
Don’t worry, many of the saints and greatest people we know have had experiences like what you describe (myself included - probably worse!) It’s great that you’ve taken a step back and re-evaluated a lot of your choices - that takes a lot of honesty and courage.

But here’s the thing. It seems like everyone is throwing confession at you, which is great advice, but keep something in mind. God will forgive anything if you’re really sorry for it. And the main reason why you should be sorry about sin is that it separates you from God - not because it makes you look bad in comparison with other Catholics (I’m not saying you are necessarily like this, but I have committed this mistake many times). If God truly loves you and cares for you, then sin is a betrayal of that love, and is therefore intolerable for you. It would be like turning your back on your greatest friend (but actually far worse).

If you seek forgiveness, you will have it. If you go to a confession with the mindset of getting back on the right track again and restoring a peace and friendship, you will feel it.

It took me a long time to get to a confession. But once I did it, I realized it was like talking to a therapist, only more peaceful. And often the priest gives you some wonderful spiritual advice. But don’t worry - God’s there with you, working through the Church (the priest). Trust Him.
 
You may not feel comfortable going to the priest, but look at it this way. He’s not judging you, he’s probably praying to be able to give you some words to help you stay away from sin.

You will walk out of there feeling lighter than air.

That said, if you don’t do it face to face, then you may find it easier.
 
Step one: Don’t be too hard on yourself.

This doesn’t mean “Oh, I’ve never done anything really wrong.” It also doesn’t mean “Eh, I’ll blithely keep doing what I’ve been doing and confess every week.” It means “I’ve done wrong, but God will forgive me.” Despairing and distressing over your sins can close you off from God just as surely as sinning nonchalantly can move you away from him. Your sins are bad, true, and you should feel remorse, but don’t dwell on the remorse. Instead, simply try to do better in the future.

Step two: Yes, go to confession.

I completely sympathize with you regarding confession. It’s uncomfortable, it’s nerve wracking, it makes you embarrassed every time you see the priest you confessed to. But, it works. If you go to confession with a contrite heart, you can be infallibly sure that your sins have been forgiven. That’s why God gave us confession, you know: not to make people nervous, but to give us a method which gives us objective certainty that we have been returned to God’s good graces. In any case, the priest has been trained to not be judgmental (not that he doesn’t judge your sins, because he has to to assign penance, but that he doesn’t judge you as anything but a fallen child of God who’s come home), and you can be sure that he won’t tell anyone else about what you said to him.

Step three: Try harder next time.

This is generally a temporary fix, but you do need to try to will yourself out of committing sins. Don’t beat yourself up when you inevitably fail, just get back on the wagon and keep on trying. This isn’t the final step, so sinning here isn’t really much to worry about. This is just a patch job while you try to get to the root of the problem. Think of willing yourself not to sin sorta like Nyquil: yes, you’re only treating the symptoms, but the symptoms can be pretty harmful in themselves, and often, a good night’s sleep can be all you need to get yourself into a better place.

Step four: Why do you sin?

So you’ve dealt with the symptoms, now for the diagnosis! Why is it that you do these things you know to be wrong? Humans are imperfect creatures, but every action they take has reasons behind it. Oh sure, sometimes we make mistakes due to our frailty, such as drawing someone and doing a bad job of it, or because of our ignorance, like if you picked up the wrong bag at a party, but errors of that sort in the moral realm aren’t sins. When you perform an action that you know is contrary to what God wants you to do, you are doing it with a purpose, though you might not know precisely what that purpose is.

For example, when you drink to excess even though you know it’s a sin, what you’re saying deep down is, “Drinking is fun, and I should be allowed to do things that are fun, especially when they don’t hurt anyone.” Since the root of all sin is pride, you can be pretty sure that whatever your reason is, it will somewhat resemble this, this hidden rebellion against God.

Step five: Bend yourself.

Treatment varies depending on what sort of person you are. I, for example, am academically-oriented. I find that the more I understand why a given sin is wrong, the easier time I have of taming my sinful attitude. For me, it’s not enough that the Church says something is wrong (though it should be); I have an innate intellectual desire to go through the step-by-step logical path the argument follows to see exactly why, say, lying is wrong. If you’re like me, then, I would suggest reading up on what the Church has to say about each of your sins you’re combating.

If you’re not handicapped by a need to know why something is wrong, I’m not really sure what advice to offer you, not because you don’t need advice, but because I (emphasis on the singular) don’t see what advice you might need. My curiosity is a covert form of blindness which makes it difficult for me to comprehend simple faith. I guess all I can recommended is to keep in mind that no matter what you think, no matter what reason you have for sinning, over and against God, you can be 100% sure that you are wrong.

In any case, once you know what it is that you believe deep down, your goal is to reform your belief so that it is in line with what God says. This is very hard, and will take a very long time. After all, you’re trying to make yourself red-hot and hammer yourself painfully into a potentially entirely new shape, but once you’ve accomplished that, you won’t want to sin, which will make it much more manageable (maybe even easy, or trivial) to simply will yourself into not committing it.

So that’s my advice. I’m not sure how helpful this method is, or even if it’s possible to do things as systematic as this, but it’s been helpful to me, so maybe you’ll get something out of it as well.
 
Like many of the posters here, I hae committed some of the same sins you have, and it took me years to muster up the nerve to walk into the Confessional. When I finally did, I was literally tingling when I walked out. It was a HUGE weight lifted and in hind-sight, it wasn’t as horrible as I had made it up to be in my mind. PP-ers are right - there is probably nothing that you confess that a priest hasn’t heard a million times before. And the fact that you are THERE will just make them happy.

Believe me, the Lord, His Blessed Mother, all of the Saints and angels will be celebrating to have you come back Home. Yes the anticipation of it is “scary”, but not going is MUCH worse. I will be praying for you. 🙂
 
Dear Angel, I just came back from confession and my penance is to see the choices I have made and how they have affected me even how they may still affect me now that I am 40 and to make 1 thing right in my life. When I was a teen I was very lonely. My parents had divorced and I was basically raising myself. I wanted to be loved and began having premarital sex with 1 person. I told myself it was ok because I loved him. I became pregnant within a month. I had an abortion. I was afraid to go to my parents and had thought of myself as a good person up until that point. I never took the time to weigh things out so I wouldn’t have to deal with what was happening. Soon after I took drugs and alcohol. Then I just didn’t care anymore and began stealing, more sex, etc. We are told sin can seperate us from God. It is true. We can become that other person we never thought we could become if we do not put the brakes on it. I was a point of great despair, even suicidal and felt God could never love me now. But He did call me back and I realized it was better to face what I had done and move in the right direction. I cried when I confessed these sins and could barely choke them out. The priest asked me to please come sit with him so we could see each other and was very understanding. Instead of feeling ashamed and frightened as I worried I would feel, I felt relief and loved. It is never too late and you see from my life that I have done so much worse. Please go to confession and also find someone you can talk to. Maybe there are reasons you are doing these things that you need to think about. It is never too late to put the brakes on it. You can fall very deeply though if you don’t. How hard it will be to turn then if you think it’s hard enough now. Take it from one who has been there. The only one who wants to keep you on this track and from confession and coming to God is the evil one. Don’t let him. Just by posting here please realize it is God who is calling you to Him. Even though you feel your sins, He is calling you back to Him or you wouldn’t even be thinking about it or struggling with your dilemma. I will pray for you. Things are hard when you are a teen, I know. Gwendolyn
 
angelofmusic said:
What shall I do?
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Step 1:

Realize God loves you and that nothing you do could ever make God stop loving you. Nothing. God loves you right now - more than you love yourself.

To help you realize Step 1, remember that you are God’s creation. God is an artist, and like any good artist, God put something of Himself in you. If God did not love you and did not intend to love you forever, he wouldn’t have made you.

And, really, to get to that place of realization of the love of God, just stop. Be still. Slow down. And know that He is God.

After you are aware of God’s Love for you, I’m fully convinced you’ll be given the grace to go to confession and amend your life. Nothing is more powerful than the love of God.
 
angelofmusic said:
I’m 17 years old and I’ve always thought I was a reasonably good Catholic. By no means perfect in any way but, you know, not too bad.
But now I’ve come to this forum and I’ve realised how many sins I’m committing and I’m terrified!!!
Like my prayer life is good and I ask forgiveness for my sins about 3 times a week as well as thanksgiving and I go to church once a week most of the time.
However, I’ve just realised how much sin I have committed and I ma scared. I really want to go to heaven but…
  1. I’ve had sex before marriage and we’d only been dating just over 2 weeks and we’ve broke up now…
  2. For a long time I thought if I got pregnant I’d have an abortion and when I was 15, I did a “pro-choice” speech for our school speech competition.
  3. I indulge in masturbation about 2 times a week
  4. I think lustful thoughts REALLY often
  5. I often wear skimpy clothing like miniskirts and lowcut tops and bikinis.
  6. I’ve been drunk quite a few times
  7. I’ve often been really disrespectful to my parents at times during my teenage years.
And that’s just the beginning…can I be forgiven???Should I fast for forgiveness??? What shall I do?
Click to expand...
Dear angel, you should thank God that you are asking these questions. Jesus is calling you to a life on holiness as He does with all of us.

Just bite the bullet. Go to confession and be brutally honest. You don’t have to go into much detail but don’t minimize what you’ve done. The more honest and repentant you are, the more grace you will receive.

I was nervous about going to my first confession after about 15 years but like all difficult things, it’s seldom as difficult as it appears. Just remember that the devil will try to prevent you from going by making you fearful. Don’t worry and trust in God.

It’s time to make changes in your life and it can be difficult to leave old ways behind but you will receive great peace of mind if you do. If you do fall into sin again, don’t despair. Get up and try harder.

The important thing is that you consciously decide to live according to God’s ways.

God bless you,
Noel.
 
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