Starting to feel alienated from my own religion

  • Thread starter Thread starter LizKirb
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Yes, an 18 year old is either in college or preparing to go to college - how would it play to say, “well, I know I am going to screw up my grades at some point, so I’ll just prepare to do that ahead of time…” I mean, why count on failure? Why not believe in yourself enough to want the best and want to do your best for God?

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Hi and welcome 🙂 You might enjoy reading some NFP books, NFP is used for many reasons and is not just a Catholic thing. I first started using NFP for my direct health, not because it was 'the right" thing to do according to a religion.
These books really helped me: goodreads.com/book/show/404749.The_Art_of_Natural_Family_Planning
barnesandnoble.com/w/taking-charge-of-your-fertility-10th-anniversary-edition-toni-weschler/1007823648

I think you really might enjoy this book, in particular Kimberly’s perspective
barnesandnoble.com/w/rome-sweet-home-scott-hahn/1102477329?ean=9780898704785&itm=1&usri=rome+sweet+home
 
LizKirb said:
I know there’s people that think like me, but throughout these forums I do see the extreme side of things more frequently and people being somewhat torn down for taking things “less seriously” than others. We’re not all perfect. Why are people acting like it and throwing me to the wolves because I’m not like them?

Thoughts?
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My advice? Leave this forum.

It’s not doing you any good.

God bless.
 
Debora123 said:
My advice? Leave this forum.

It’s not doing you any good.

God bless.
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This forum is an excellent place to work out issues and it appears the OP is.

It is counterproductive to scare someone away unnecessarily.
 
I’m going to guess that although you outlined some issues with Church doctrine, you have no real desire to argue those points at this particular time. I’m going to honor that, and acknowledge that it’s very unlikely I’ll be able to say anything that you haven’t heard a thousand times before. In my own life there were a few (more than a few) Church doctrines that did not agree with. If I could give you any advice, I’d say live like you do anyways. That’s what I did, and in time I came to slowly come around to the Church’s way of thinking. When I did come to emotionally (instead of intellectually) accept the Church’s position on an issue, I was always please that I had taken the safe road.

You’ve come to the Catholic Church, and that is good. In my experience you’ll find a wealth of treasures and oceans of grace as you proceed through your faith journey. You’e accepted that the Catholic Church is the true Church. The Church only asks you to have just a little bit of faith, just a little bit of trust. If the Church is even half of what you will profess it to be, shouldn’t it be worthy of that?

The Church does not require you to be a housewife, the Church is fine with you pursuing a career and the Church is OK with you not wanting to home school your children. Your peers really are in the wrong for passing judgement on your state as a Catholic.

With that said, if you accept that the Church has the authority to teach and interpret the Gospel then it is only logical that you accept the totality of their teachings. If you accept the underlying argument of the Catholic Church, then it really doesn’t make sense to pick and choose. Her teachings are difficult, and you will fail. But remember that Jesus tells us to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Take it one day at a time, one teaching at a time.

I (along with everyone else here) warmly welcome you into the body of the Church. I hope that this post helped. You said that nothing will stop you from receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. Might I humbly suggest that you apply that same attitude to your own struggles?
 
I’m a professional. My husband and I both work, and we’re both engineers. We have 3 children at the moment, and aren’t particularly interested in not having more at this time. A lot of people use NFP but at the moment there isn’t really any need to.

Everyone is so stressed about not having “too many” children. Cut out the TV and you’ll be surprised how much time and how effortless having a few children are, with a house, and a good job, etc etc.
 
I meant to say, people stress about having too many children, not the other way around!

Really, all this seems connected to the ideal that we need ‘me’ time. People don’t want too many kids because they don’t want it to intrude on their personal ‘unwind’ time, husbands complain about not having ‘alone’ time. Me me me. Really, it makes no sense. Very rarely do we ever get to experience that sort of thing anyway and putting that at the center of your life is going to make you horribly miserable because its so difficult to obtain.

Developing a career? Same tired old song as not having enough me time… instead of filling your time with nothing people seek to fill it with too much, alone of course.

You know… school, job, home, husband, kids… it takes determination and sturdy time management. It takes the realization that none of these things are immediate and usually take a lot more time than you anticipate. If instead of always struggling to see the finish line, you focus on doing things well and persevering through the trials you’ll find you can attain most of what you want in time, even if it doesn’t come in the order you were expecting. Number of kids aren’t usually the problem! But they help you recognize there is a problem.

You’ll see in a few years I’m confident 😉
 
I could have written the OP’s post several years ago, and now I’m sad I can’t get pregnant with #3 right away; I want to homeschool my kids; we use NFP; I quit a Ph.D program to stay at home, etc.

This did not happen overnight. If you had told me several years ago I would be here - and happy - I would have run screaming in the other direction. I mean it.

You can’t worry about all this, honey - marriage kids, career, etc. You’re just starting out your life and your faith journey. It’s totally overwhelming to plan all this out, and not really practical anyway. Don’t agree with the church’s teaching on contraception, but know the Church is probably right about it? Accept it on faith, take it to Christ, and let Him do the rest. Seriously, pray, ignore the hypocrites, and keep going where the Spirit leads you. You might be surprised at where that is - and you might not. But the key is not to stress about it!

It makes me sad, though, that you feel alone in your Church community. Reach out to those girls who you say are hypocrites. Try very, very hard to ignore the way you think about them, lol. Is it possible you’re just imagining their judgment about you? I know I do that a lot …
 
SonCatcher said:
This forum is an excellent place to work out issues and it appears the OP is.

It is counterproductive to scare someone away unnecessarily.
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It doesn’t work for everyone. It can be and has been quite detrimental to some people. It really just depends on the person.
 
LizKirb said:
Being Catholic is ridiculously harder than I thought.
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Welcome to the club!!! :rotfl:

I’m sorry, it’s just when I read that statement, I had a simultaneous surge of sympathy and urge to laugh. I’m a cradle Catholic, and it’s not easy for anybody. Being Catholic isn’t just ridiculously hard, it’s impossible– but for the grace of God.

You’ve gotten a lot of responses on this thread already and I don’t want to bore you. Just do your best to stay as close to Our Lord as possible by frequenting the Sacraments and praying consistently. Getting on a regular confession schedule, like once a month, is a great help. Sneaking off to a weekday Mass, when you don’t “have” to be there, just “want” to be there, can be a real treat. And be very frank with Jesus-- tell Him, “I don’t understand this teaching. I don’t get it. I don’t know if I can liveit. I don’t even know if I WANT to live it. So, can you please, for starters, help me to want to?”

Very best regards,

Margaret
 
You have a lot of ideas and plans and that’s good. Have you considered that God has some plans for you as well? The fact that you can swing your legs out of bed and stand up, and have vision, and hearing (I’m assuming you have these faculties) is because God is sustaining you. If He should ‘turn his face from you’ for a moment, you would cease to exist.

I came into the Church in my 20’s and I knew plenty about the culture around me, we can’t help but be saturated in it constantly. Receive the Gospels, let them come into your heart and mind. Search for Christ, knock at the door. Spend time with Him in prayer and scripture. He can turn your life upside down in a moment with His love. You are just coming into the power of God. May Christ increase in you and the world diminish.
 
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