Struggling to grow in faith with loneliness

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cabwaldo

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I’m having trouble with making God the center of my life and the focus of my emotion. I feel lonely because I’ve never truly had a long term emotional connection in a relationship. I’m not talking about anything physical, just emotions here. I know pretty much every other Catholic guy in his early 20s knows what this feels like so I don’t think I’m special.

Note: I’m not a convert because I was born Catholic but wasn’t raised in the faith passed 2nd grade. About a year ago I came back to it on my own thanks to a few friends. I’m also doing everything I can to force my impurity and lust filled thoughts out of my life. I’ve bought myself a rosary, I’m working on going to confession so I can pray a novena to a Saint to help me figure things out and I think my next purchase will be Theology of The Body. I’ve recently been getting my self to read a bible verse and sometimes an our father every single night before bed, even if it’s 1 in the morning and I have an 8 am class. I’ve also come to realize that saying “Hail Mary full of grace, the lord is with thee” over and over and can help with temptation. Praying for the woman who I might look at lustfully helps.

What I’m getting at is that as much as I would love to be in a relationship, I know that:

a. I need to discern whether or not I should be married. I guess you could say I’m already doing that…I don’t know.

b. Someday I will be married (lord willing, and provided I discern that I am supposed to be married) to a woman. That woman is currently a living and breathing person as I write this. She deserves the better version of myself that has overcome as much of my problems as God thinks I need to in order to be worthy of her.

c. Keeping myself convinced of this and… ultimately knowing that this means being lonely still is very hard.

Which comes back to being closer to God to not feel lonely and let him make all these decisions for me. But typing these things out is much much much easier than actually believing them and being totally 100% convicted 100% of the time that God is the source of all happiness.

I’m not really sure what my question is but I hope this made sense and didn’t sound like I was rambling. Thank you.
 
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i can understand…don’t worry if God made you to reach till here he knows how to move you further ahead just hear Him and let Him work on you…pray and pray difficulties and struggles will come …devil tempts us…try to avoid sitting alone be with friends and family…avoid disturbing thoughts…have good hope
God loves you a lot…have hope God is perfect so is His timing
 
You sound like you’re really trying. God bless you for welcoming His grace as much as you can manage.
We can only do the best we can manage, with God’s grace.
And sometimes we don’t know ahead what God wishes for our lives.
His will unfolds slowly for many of us, and we find out as we get closer to the time or the situation.
May God help you to grow and advance in your spiritual life and in wholesome growth withing your unique gift of self.
 
Your on a journey my friend and there is highs and lows but God got a plan for your life and it is good.
 
I’m also in a similar situation. Try praying for your vocation, whatever it may be.
 
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As a Catholic man, I feel your emotional uneasiness as I went through the same thing. Without going into super-deep stuff, I’d simply like to offer an easy suggestion … in these modern times, online dating is super-popular. I met my wife through eHarmony … wish things would have been different, but we are making the difference with what we have. In short, we met, dated, and married and have 2 daughters, but she is not a Catholic. It took years of love and demonstration for her to one day say to me, “what you have between you and your brother, I want that”. What I have between me and my brother is a devotion to God. My wife is going through RCIA, yay!!!

Oh, yeah, my simple suggestion … catholicsingles.com

May the Lord Bless you as you find your Way.
 
I do already have a profile on Catholicmatch.com but that doesn’t seem to be very fruitfull. I’ve gotten 1 response out of 20 or so messages. I don’t think Im unattractive and I’m certainly creative and unique. Being a college student away from home, it’s difficult to find a parish and get to know people. The one I’m at now also lacks a young adult youth group despite having a diverse age group and large number of mass attendees, but I do know one of the preists a little bit.

But the last few days I’ve stepped away from the website because if feel like I’m doing a disservice to someone by trying to pursue them while discerning my vocation. Unless dating is part of discerning marriage?
 
For your discernment, I wouldn’t be able to help other than get holy people involved in your life … maybe get a Spiritual Director or something. There’s basically 3 options, single life, married life, and holy life. For one, what do you want? For two, what do you think God wants for you? (that’s the hard question)

For online dating, patience. Also, there are little things in human behavior that will make your profile more attractive than the others. There’s a lot of nuance, subtlety and blatant things about online dating that can help or hurt. Ask your friends what they think of your profile. Read up online about what makes profiles more or less attractive (take all with a grain of salt, crank up your Prudence meter up to 11).

You’re in college? No Newman Center? Ack! The Newman Center on most college campuses is at least an anchor point for your spiritual life, finding friends in God, making iron friends that keep your iron sharp. See if there is some kind of outreach or something catholic on the campus. If not, wow, what an opportunity, maybe you can start your own catholic youth ministry or bring one to your campus!

Best of Luck Cab!
 
Hi Cabwaldo.

I’m going to make a rather unorthodox suggestion here and suggest you listed to a podcast (a little over an hour) by “School of Greatness” talking to Dr. Brene Brown. She actually talks a lot about loneliness and belonging in a way that I think would be helpful for your situation.

Peace be with you!
 
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