I suppose that I’m looking for some sort of answers here. I’ve prayed for years for Him to just take me. I do not have a physical illness, I believe it’s simply a spiritual illness. I’ve struggled with this since my early teens, I’m 38, and have only had peppered moments of happiness. I do not have any plans of suicide, I just want this ride to come to an end.
My worst enemy is myself. I constantly feel unworthy, unforgivable and like a complete failure. I have hurt so many people and even though I feel horribly about it, I continue to make the same types of decisions and cause more pain.
Do any of you ever feel utterly lost? Have any of you been in this abyss and found a way out of it? I pray but how long do you have to knock before it is opened?
Right away I can see you are humble. You admit your shortcomings. You are good. You’d like to be better. You are braving some serious emotional and spiritual storms YET you WON’T consider suicide (the easy way out, despair, a cowardly surrender, or copping out).
You may be having a “dark night of the soul” like some of the great saints (Jesus in the Garden, St. Vincent de Paul, many others had a crisis of faith but came through).
You have good insights. Unforgivable not being one of them. :tsktsk: Every day is New Year’s Day with God’s mercy and our repentence. :extrahappy:
Isaiah 1:18 Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool. 19 If you are willing, and obey, you shall eat the good things of the land;
I have and do feel utterly lost sometimes. :sad_yes: When I went through my divorce (I was the ‘left’ party not the leaver); when I’ve been laid off (like now - with Unemployment Insurance gone, a too small pension to keep my place, and monthly bills exceeding my monthly income). Now that I can’t pay the mortgage I’d contracted and paid so well since 2003, I feel like I’m stealing too.
Good news today was there may be a program to help both me and the bank temporarily (and later, when I AM employed again I can “put things right” like the scripture above says).
You are doing well not to despair, but come here for counsel and fellowship. Pity parties should have and early curfew though. They can be deadly if we don’t call them off (for all the perversely self-indulgent victimhood sympathy they may bribe us with).
I know what you mean about pills too. Sometimes Doctors are just guessing. Drug ‘A’ has good results with some, prescribe it. BAD side effect on patient … uh oh. Cut the dose down. Prescribe another drug. etc.
A great non-medical prescription for the blues is to – Do something for someone else! Someone who is in even worse straights than you are (to give us balance), or who can’t pay you back!
THEN we know that (for at least that moment) we are doing God’s will, are being ambassadors of His love, and are accomplishing our central purpose in life for all the
unattended to trivial details a critic might accuse us of. Even our own conscience.
Good luck with picking your NEXT good deed. Posting here publicly today with your honest, suffering heart will be hard to top but – throw yourself a well-deserved YOU day now, you’ve earned it!
HAVE your favorite candy bar! Thank God for your taste buds. If it’s a Mounds, Almond Joy or a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup … give the OTHER one to a friend. Or SOMEBODY.
(If you are diabetic … have something else. And I will go to confession for my errant counsel that meant well.)
