All I would say, and it sounds like you are already doing this, is don’t say “I won’t ever be reconciled with the Church.” Don’t close yourself off to that possibility. Leave the door open and continue the conversation. If God is really speaking to you, and you are really diligent in seeking the answers, they will be revealed to you. Remember the scripture that says “Ask and you shall receive, knock and the door will be opened…” I think maybe God is just testing you here. I’ve found in my own life that the clearest understanding often comes after submission, not before. I think it’s in part because God wants us to obey him, but beyond that, just on a human level, we are sensorial creatures. We are what we do. So if we do something long enough, eventually through life experience we will begin to understand why we are doing it. I have discovered this in cooking and in reading about nutrition. At first I may prepare a certain dish a certain way only because I was raised that way and that’s how my mom did it and because I simply don’t know much about cooking. But one day I stray from the path and try my own thing, and I get poor results, and I realize that’s why she always did it that way. The spiritual life is much the same way. We learn from our mistakes, but we also learn from our obedience. You follow the recipe faithfully time and time again and over time you discover things you never noticed before that contribute to a clearer understanding of how it works. For instance, baking. After doing so much baking (muffins, breads, cookies, cakes, pizza, you name it) I’ve come to the realization that most baked goods basically have all the same components, just in different amounts (milk, eggs, flour, salt, sugar, baking soda or powder etc). This is not something my mother taught me. It’s something I learned just by doing it over the years. But it contributes to my understanding about baking and frees me up to try new things b/c I’m more likely now than before to do them successfully.
