Chromatica, maybe it would help you to read about the Saints. Many of them went through “dark nights” where they felt abandoned by God, some even felt that there is no God. For example, St Therese, went through a ‘dark night of the soul’ when she was dying of tuberculosis - at the time when she most needed to know that God is with her, she felt far from Him. Mother Teresa went through this for many years. What these Saints teach us though, is that this is a way we can share in Christ’s Passion - when He felt abandoned by the Father when He was on the Cross. They did not rely on their feelings. They still trusted in God. Even though they didn’t feel Him there, they still believed He was, and used that time to love Him more than before. Because of course, love is a choice and not just a feeling. We learn to love when it’s hard to love. We learn to believe when it’s hard to believe: in fact, the Saints, considered their “dark nights” to be great gifts from God, not curses. And in the end, when these Saints learned how to truly love God in a way detached from self and from feeling… they saw that actually, He never left, and was there all along. Some of them even wrote that He was closer to them during this time than when they felt near to Him and received consolations.
Do you think that maybe God is allowing you to feel this way so that you’d also learn to love Him and believe in a way that’s not dependent on feelings? So that you’d be able to choose Him regardless of how you feel? CS Lewis wrote that the devil has little power over a person who looks around at a world from which God seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been abandoned, yet
still obeys. It’s obedience that matters, not feelings… we are sanctified by obedience and trust.
Here is a quote from St Faustina’s Diary:
"My daughter, know that if I allow you to feel and have a more profound knowledge of My sufferings, that is a grace from Me. But when your mind is dimmed and your sufferings are great, it is then that you take an active part in My Passion, and I am conforming you more fully to Myself. It is your task to submit yourself to My will at such time, more than at others… " (Jesus)
Here’s another one:
One day, I saw two roads. One was broad, covered with sand and flowers, full of joy, music and all sorts of pleasures. People walked along it, dancing and enjoying themselves. They reached the end without realising it. And at the end of the roads there was a horrible precipice; that is the abyss of hell. The souls fell blindly into it; as they walked, so they fell. And their number was so great that it was impossible to count them. And I saw the other road, or rather, a path, for it was narrow and strewn with thorns and rocks; and the people who walked along it had tears in their eyes, and all kinds of suffering befell them. Some fell down upon the rocks, but stood up immediately and went on. At the end of the road there was a magnificent garden filled with all sorts of happiness, and all these souls entered there. At the very first instant they forgot all their sufferings.
(Divine Mercy in My Soul, St Faustina)
“My daughter, do you think you have written enough about My mercy? what you have written is but a drop compared to the ocean. I am Love and Mercy Itself. there is no misery that could be a match for My mercy; neither will misery exhaust it, because as it is being granted - it increases. the soul that trusts in My mercy is most fortunate, because I Myself take care of it” (Jesus to St Faustina)
“Eternity draws nigh: soon shall we live the very life of God. After having drunk deep at the fount of bitterness, our thirst will be quenched at the very source of all sweetness.” St Therese
“I desire no sensible consolation in loving; provided Jesus feel my love that is enough for me. Oh! to love Him and to make Him loved… how sweet it is…” St Therese
In the end, we must ask ourselves the question… do we love God because of how it makes us feel, because of the consolations or spiritual experiences we receive, or is it for His own sake? the **only way **we learn to love God for His own sake is when we choose to love and to believe in Him when He seems far, when we feel abandoned by Him. That is more selfless, and in this way, we die to self… He allows these types of trials for a reason. But, He is always with us, regardless of what we feel.
maybe it would help to read St Padre Pio’s words here:
padrepiodevotions.org/wordsoffaith.asp
God bless.
that the reason why we have this phrase at all “too good to be true” is because in our world, that’s how things are sometimes. But not so with God. Why would God be like our fallen world? The world has left God, that’s why there’s suffering and why things don’t always turn out as they should. But God has not left, He said He will be with us always. Even though things aren’t perfect.
if you think that God left… than what does the Cross mean? Christ’s love for us is measured not by our feelings but by His Cross. If He humbled Himself so much that He became a human being… and then died a horrible death for us… why would He EVER leave us, after this? We shouldn’t trust in our feelings, but in the Cross.