Hi everyone. Lately I have been having trouble coping with the idea of God’s existence…
I am a 17 year old high school student. I have been raised Catholic and I go to a Catholic high school, but I’ve been having troubling thoughts lately. I constantly think about death & cancer-caused deaths. This worries me tremendously. I’m afraid that either my mother (who is alone raising me) or me will get cancer and die from it prematurely. I realize that this isn’t healthy to think this way, but she smokes and I have my doubts…
All these worries trouble me greatly, and whenever I pray for help & comfort, it seems like I don’t receive it. I can see God working in my life (assuming he exists), but it could just be good luck in my favor. Please help me everyone. I want to live as God’s child, but I am losing faith every day and am turning away from Him.
Dear soul,
I’m nobody worth thinking about. I just wanted to say my heart goes out for you in your struggles.
If you want to know God exists, pray to Him daily for faith and knowledge that will help you and strengthen you. It may take a while. For me, it took me six months before He answered my prayer, when my faith was just a house of cards, and I didn’t know if it was true or not, and I was doubting whether it was true and was very much afraid He didn’t exist. I was so afraid, full of doubt and unsure of my faith. I thought it might all be wrong, and I dreaded that possibility.
I prayed once every day for God to help me to know Him and have a personal relationship with Him. Finally, after a lot of pain and struggle, He answered my prayer and revealed Himself clearly, giving me powerful signs that I knew were from Him. He washed away my doubts and gave me faith and peace. He gave me a close relationship with Him.
Jesus says in the Gospel, “Everyone who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” He adds that any natural father would never give a stone to his child when that child asks for a loaf of bread, and He comments that if this is true of a natural father, how much more generous is the Heavenly Father in giving heavenly, spiritual gifts? God will never refuse you if He knows you sincerely want a relationship with Him, and if you show this by asking Him daily for that relationship to grow, and for you to gain faith and peace.
If you pray daily for faith and knowledge, God will answer your prayer. He says so Himself, in His Word. And ask your Mother, the Virgin Mary, at the same time to give you faith and knowledge.
This will help. It may not be immediate, but it will help and bring you to where you need to be eventually, if you stick with it.
Another good idea is to spend time in the chapel at your church, in the presence of the Eucharist. This was immensely helpful to my sister, when she endured great doubts and fears for over a year. I advised her to start going to the chapel regularly, telling her that Jesus would help her there, and she said, “I don’t even know if I believe Jesus is in there.”
I told her, “It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not, because He is there. And because He truly is there, He will help you when you come to Him there, whether you believe or not.”
So she started going there, because she really cared about being closer to Him, even though she wasn’t sure she believed. She went for 30 minutes a day, and He changed her life within just a few months, giving her peace and faith and removing all her fears.
Jesus will help you too. Just lean on Him. Ask Him daily for faith, knowledge and peace, and for whatever your soul needs. Don’t make demands on Him. Put your future and your mother’s future in His hands and just ask Him to put that future on the course that He knows is best for your lives.
And ask Mary.
And if you have time, when you can, I know you would be blessed if you could visit the chapel too.
Just lean on Him, even though you have trouble believing in Him right now. He is there and if you stick with your prayer to be close to Him, He will answer you. Just faithfully, each day, come to Him and put your problems in His hands, and wait until He answers.
That’s not hard. It’s not very time consuming. Just a minute or two out of your 12 hour day to make a prayer and put everything in His hands, and a bit more time if you’re willing to take the extra step and go to chapel when you can, and speak to Him there as well, in His very own room and house.
He is a very caring Father to you and if you try to place it in His hands daily and come to Him daily (whether in the chapel or not, though the chapel would help), He will take care of you.
Either dwelling on the past or worrying about what could go wrong, what could have been if this had happened instead of that etc. Focus on the here and now. You have your mom, you love her, cherish her. If her smoking worries you, perhaps lift up this intention to God through the intercession of Mary (novena) or through other saints. I have pretty intense anxiety myself I need to be careful what thoughts I let in and what thoughts I drive out. God bless.