I don't think I have ever felt more spiritual than when I all could do was feel my every heart beat and hear my every breath.
I hear that.
I don't think I have ever felt more spiritual than when I all could do was feel my every heart beat and hear my every breath.
My problem is I THINK too much. I'm always wrestling with something in my head. Usually about what a spiritual screw-up I am. Wrestling with the fact that Jesus is supposed to be all about grace, but I grew up in a fairly legalistic setting and really struggle with grace (I believe in it, just have trouble applying it in my daily life). I'm also going through this thing with wondering why there rarely seems to be a let-up. I have baggage -- my oldest brother was suicidal for several years when I was growing up, which turned our family upside-down. I wore a back brace in jr. high and high school (although in HS it was only at night) for scoliosis. I had an emotionally abusive boyfriend for several years as a young adult. Then things turned around -- I met the love of my life, we got married, it looked like sunshine and roses from then on. But then I had a baby, and our marriage has been difficult ever since. We used to be best friends, now we love each other but we have major issues. When I was raising my son (well, I'm still raising him, he's almost 17), the second round of CFS kicked in (I had a nasty bout of it for a couple of years in college), and I thought I would die from exhaustion. I didn't understand why God didn't heal me -- I had faith, I knew He loved me, so why wouldn't He heal me? I actually grew a lot spiritually during that time, because I had to get from perplexity and sort-of having my feelings hurt by God to realizing that He is God, and He is the one who is to be in control of my life, not me. So life kinda went on with that fatigue, we moved back to Texas to be closer to my parents, and although I love it here, my spiritual life has taken the biggest battering yet. I still struggle with the CFS, as well as some other things that may or may not be related.
I just do not get how God thinks I can work on my relationship with Him when I have massive brain fog. Things that don't matter so much are fairly easy to do (scrapbooking, writing, doing family history), but anything of any huge importance saps all the energy out of me in every way possible in about five minutes. I can't concentrate enough to have much of a prayer life. I read my Bible every day, but half the time I can't really focus on it. So, if I'm supposed to be growing as a Christian, why am I plagued with this stupid health thing that keeps me from being able to focus on it? I've read several of the earlier entries in this thread and it seems like people are saying they grew closer to God through this illness. I have to fight like a maniac just to keep my head above water, spiritually speaking.
So I feel like I'm on a battlefield and I've been trampled into the mud so many times I don't know where I end and the mud begins. I struggle to get up, I can do it for awhile, and then I'm down again.
I know about resting in God, but I don't think I really know how to do it. I was raised that you WORK on your relationship with God. You don't work for salvation, that's by grace, but in order to really please God, you have to prove you love him by WORKING at it. I can't work at it right now. I'd rather escape into my stories or my other hobbies, or just goofing off on the internet than work on my relationship with God because it is too danged hard to do at this point in my life. I know -- intellectually at least -- that God loves me no matter what. Sometimes I get it that He understands what I'm going through and isn't expecting me to do much. But usually I just feel like a total failure as a Christian. I used to be so strong in my faith, and now I'm just hanging on by my fingernails.
Whew, that made me tired just thinking about it all! So bottom line -- I know Jesus loves me. I just wish I could figure out what I'm supposed to be doing right now. Suffering just seems so ... unproductive, especially when I don't seem to be getting anything positive out of it.
Here I thought I was the only one! :Retro smile:My problem is I THINK too much. I'm always wrestling with something in my head. Usually about what a spiritual screw-up I am.
Are you sure you're not my alter-ego?I just do not get how God thinks I can work on my relationship with Him when I have massive brain fog. Things that don't matter so much are fairly easy to do (scrapbooking, writing, doing family history), but anything of any huge importance saps all the energy out of me in every way possible in about five minutes. I can't concentrate enough to have much of a prayer life. I read my Bible every day, but half the time I can't really focus on it. So, if I'm supposed to be growing as a Christian, why am I plagued with this stupid health thing that keeps me from being able to focus on it? I've read several of the earlier entries in this thread and it seems like people are saying they grew closer to God through this illness. I have to fight like a maniac just to keep my head above water, spiritually speaking.
I call it "subsistance faith," or when I'm really in a cynical mood, "beef jerky faith."I know about resting in God, but I don't think I really know how to do it. I was raised that you WORK on your relationship with God. You don't work for salvation, that's by grace, but in order to really please God, you have to prove you love him by WORKING at it. I can't work at it right now. I'd rather escape into my stories or my other hobbies, or just goofing off on the internet than work on my relationship with God because it is too danged hard to do at this point in my life. I know -- intellectually at least -- that God loves me no matter what. Sometimes I get it that He understands what I'm going through and isn't expecting me to do much. But usually I just feel like a total failure as a Christian. I used to be so strong in my faith, and now I'm just hanging on by my fingernails.
AMMMMMEN, wummun! I keep thinking, OK, I know God is billions of times wiser than me, and who am I to question Him, puny dustspeck that I am, but if I were running the universe, would I take one of my most productive workers and allow her to be afflicted with something that renders her basically a couch potato (which is utter anathema to the core of her soul)?!? Is this good management of human resources?!?:Retro mad:I just wish I could figure out what I'm supposed to be doing right now. Suffering just seems so ... unproductive, especially when I don't seem to be getting anything positive out of it.
Wasteland would be more like it. GRRRR!I think for many of us our CFS is our journey into the wilderness.
Hagar is an interesting character in the Bible. She was a foreign born female slave in the Hebrew testament. In this sense, she has no power. Yet she is also the only person in the Bible to name God.
Genesis 16: 13-14 (Hagar) gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen [c] the One who sees me."