Thread: I'm not sure it's worth following God anymore.
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I'm not sure it's worth following God anymore.
Posted : 30 Jul, 2012 12:03 AM
I will give the long version of the story since I don't want people to get the wrong idea and try to give me advice I've already heard/taken/ and know.
I was a drug addict/alcoholic atheist until I was 19. I got saved by Christ at 19 and became a believer. After growing up in such a home for so many years, it took a few years to figure out everything I had been doing wrong. I still struggled with my addictions and lived very promiscuously.
I didn't attend church for several years and built my faith and understanding of God solely from reading the Bible. In January of 2004, I finally got totally clean (and have stayed clean), stopped sleeping around, etc, and started attending church and Bible study very regularly.
My faith grew leaps and bounds at this time and I spent several years evangelizing and growing Christ. I was very lonely and prayed God would send me someone to be my wife. After 2.5 years of celibacy and loneliness (I was 25 then), I ran into Joan. We had known each other previously from attending Bible study together for a long time. Since I was going to college for Journalism and she was a reporter, we hit it off and I started to tag along with her as she covered news stories for the experience. She told me she had always wanted to date me so we ended up getting together. Eight months later we were married.
I did not know the extent of the things she struggled with when we got together. She was a full-fledged alcoholic and was extremely promiscuous. When we got together, she quit doing both. But I was still going to school and we struggled to budget money and the like as we lived together. I had to take control of the finances as she had driven us horribly into credit card debt to the sum of $14,000. She also had a student loan and a car loan. I came into the marriage with no debt, so I ended up taking on hers.
I got a very stressful job as a Youth Care Worker for a children's home where I was constantly having to deal with fighting and redirecting troublesome teenagers.
As the years went by, we began attending her church rather than mine and became youth ministers there. We attended church regularly, but I became disillusioned with the whole scene because it wasn't very God-centered. We were basically event-coordinators for the kid's weekly church visits. I got burned out on it because I met such resistance every time I introduced things pertaining to faith in Christ. My wife and I argued a lot because she was the paid minister and she didn't like butting heads with the preacher lady. At one point, my wife began drinking again and we fought about this a lot because I told her she had a responsibility to set a good example to the kids in the youth group. She began talking to another man online as well and the woman who Pastored that church actually encouraged Joan to divorce me because I was controlling about the money and was insistent on not allowing sin into our home. At this time, I started working third shift at my job and I was able to relax a bit about my stress.
Well, we eventually left there and returned to my old church. We began working with the youth there and things were going good. Joan was attending a women's Bible study and made a lot of close friends that were godly women. Joan also got pregnant and we had our daughter, so he had to take a hiatus from working with the church for a while.
Fast forward to Daphne being 1.5 years old. I'm still working thirds and I have my life set up so that I spend all morning and part of the afternoon with my wife and daughter and sleep all evening before going to work. We have been married for 4.5 years at this time and we just got the money to pay off the last of the credit card debt. Daphne stopped nursing as well, and so my wife decided to start drinking again.
Since I was so stoked about finally having some the financial freedom I had worked so hard to gain after all those years of budgeting to pay off the credit card, I went and bought my wife some jewelry. I also went home and was planning a surprise Valentine's Day dinner when I looked on the computer and saw she had been visiting the site she had use to talk to the guy online three years earlier. It didn't take long to figure out her username and I also figured out her password. Sure enough, checked her mail on the site and she was talking to another man.
In the course of their emails, she admitted to the other man that she had cheated on me three years ago with another man on the same site. We live in Illinois and I later found out she had the first guy drive from Virginia to Kentucky to sleep with her in a motel room. Well, I didn't keep what I found out a secret and I approached her about it. She decided she didn't want to be with me anymore and was going to pursue this new affair with another stranger she met online from Massachusetts. Some guy five years younger than her with no job, no career, no degree, no faith in Christ.
She kicked me out of our apartment and moved him in three months later with our daughter while I lost everything and had to move in with my brother. We are divorced now and I'm as lonely and humble as I've ever been.
She is having a great time living it up and drinking with her new boyfriend who gets to spend more time with my daughter than I do. I have to pay child support to support my daughter and him as well while he sits at my house and sleeps with my ex-wife and plays video games (she got a job right after she kicked me out).
I'm at a point now where I find it is completely useless to pray or read the Bible. I figured if God didn't think my marriage and my family worth saving when I prayed, what is worth saving? Now, don't get me wrong, I still believe in God and that God has the power to do anything He wants. But He apparently didn't want to save us or He would have.
Now, I'm completely ruined. I could have been a great Christian husband to some faithful woman, but I can't see the point in it anymore. Furthermore, I can't live a life of sin because I detest it. All the women I know of in this town of 13,000 where I live are, basically, just like my wife.
I have no place in this world. People say, "You gotta take care of that little girl." How can I possibly be anything to her when her mother is going to drink, do drugs, and sleep with whoever she wants and her Dad doesn't pray or read the Bible anymore?
Really, I just don't see the point anymore. Whether I follow God or not, I come up as empty as ever.
I just got back today from an awesome float trip down Current River with my friends and the whole time I was having fun, I wasn't really having fun.
I don't want to be lonely anymore and I don't really feel like waiting to meet another wife at a Bible study, who I read the Word of God with, who I minister with, who I attend church with, who I work with kids with to cheat on me again.
I can't see any point in not going out and sleeping with any number of women in this town and just going back to who I was a decade ago. I waited a long time to get lose everything I had worked for and loved. What's the point of waiting again?
Yes, I would want someone to tell me to get off the pity pot. The reason why is that the main thing in your example was "mother of your children". The death, or unfaithfulness, of a spouse may rip your guts out, but you have a gift from God looking to you for guidance, support, and to be her father. If you didnt have a child and wanted to throw your life into the toilet, then that is your business. But you have a child...and that child is counting upon YOU! You dont have the luxury of feeling sorry for yourself.
There are jobs out there. They may not pay alot, but any work that is honest is nothng to be ashamed of. When I was younger I picked up cans along the roads for money. Collected scrap. Worked as a dishwasher for $3.35/hour. Ive been a short order cook, worked in a ladies garment factory, worked in a convenience store, and in a fish hatchery. I was even a garbageman...and you never smelled anything as bad as the clean-off screens in a wastewater treatment plant. It makes raw sewage smell like roses. Ive also worked construction. God will provide, you just have to place your trust in Him.
Honestly, there is no advice that will help you out. No one understands what you're going through and to pretend we do would only be insulting. Having said that, I would encourage you to speak to a counselor or therapist. I mean no disrespect, I just think you might need help to have the closure you have been needing/seeking with your ex-wife. Perhaps I'm entirely wrong, but it appears you are incredibly bitter and angry in her worldly happiness (rightfully so too). This is where a professional can help you... you have nothing to lose. These "tough love" speeches are as sincere and helpful as a solar powered flashlight and any scripture that is posted you will probably find a way to debunk it (can't say I wouldn't act the same way if in your situation).
Good luck, God bless and don't do anything foolish please. :)
"No one understands what you're going through and to pretend we do would only be insulting"
Never make assumptions. I cant understand what he is going through with his wife and child, because Ive never been married.
However, I do know what it is like to be homeless and without hope. I know what it is like to have to sleep with one eye open because you never know when someone is going to jump you so they can take what few meager items you may have. I know what it is like to contemplate ending your life because it just doesnt seem to be worth going on. Have you ever had to string traps just to catch squirrels or rabbits so you can eat because every time you try to go to a shelter youre jumped by a bunch of thugs? Ever been stabbed or shot? Ever had to eat expired items that have been thrown in a dumpster? (You cant eat wild animals in the summer because they have parasites).
It wasnt drugs or drinking that got me into that position. It was a series of events, lost job, lost house, unable to get work or assistance because I didnt have a permanent address, etc.
During all of that, I never lost faith in God. With God's help, I clawed my way back out of the darkness.
How is this an assumption? In the next line you even somewhat prove my point. "I cant understand what he is going through with his wife and child, because Ive never been married."
No one knows how he feels or what is going on because he is his own unique individual. People that have been in the same exact situation as him still don't know how he feels or even begin to understand how he is taking it.
We all deal with diversity different. If I could I'd give you a pat on the back for facing homeless/starvation all the while keeping your faith in God. I'm not quite sure how this has any relevance to this man's trials other than it can come across as you are better than him because of it.
Your assumption was that none of us could understand the ordeals he is facing. He mentioned that he is facing being homeless. That is something I can understand.
In his original post, he listed all the things that is making him question following God. His wife and child were one of those things. I admitted that that was something I had never faced, but I have faced most of his other problems. I have literally faced death many, many times. I should have never seen my 2nd birthday.
Now you are trying to put words in my mouth. I never said anything about being better than anyone else. The point I was making was that rejecting God will gain him nothing and may lose him everything. In fact, I was trying to point out to him that he isnt alone, that others have faced similar problems.
As far as his wife and child are concerned, no judge in the world will give him joint custody if he is homeless. He must do everything he can, as a man, to keep his home. If that means collecting and selling scrap, selling blood, or begging in the streets, then that is what he must do. His child's future depends on him. My own mother once told me that pride is something that no parent can afford. He needs to man up and stop feeling sorry for himself.
I am a very blunt person. I do not gild the truth. Now Im sure that other will try to soften the truth and have the best intentions in doing so. But, as the old saying goes, "the road to h*ll is paved with good intentions".
Crayola, you have the heart and wisdom of an old time Jesus lover. I commend you at your age for your words and encouragement. You have a tremendous grasp of reality for your age.
Apostelle, I don't believe there comes a point in every person's life where they are faced with such enormous and overwhelming situations. I have been. I can tell that you have been as well.
I'm glad that God has pulled you through the hardships you have faced. What a blessing. But, I think it would go a long way for you to soften your heart. That hardliner thinking is very discouraging. If when you were homeless, some well-paid minister was telling you to just "get over it" and "pull yourself up by your bootstraps", you would think to yourself, "this person has NO IDEA what I'm going through."
So is your response to my situation. And since I've started this post, I'm glad to say that I'm finally not angry about the situation. That's a huge freaking deal.
Furthermore, I went to lunch with my ex-wife as a courtesy and she told me she regretted what she had done and wished she hadn't done it. This gave me a great deal of closure on the mess. (I do not want to be back with her after what she's done to me, so that's a moot point.)
Thank you to everyone who has prayed for me. I'm still facing some very uncertain economic hardship that may cost me the last of what I have and put me in the street. I am blessed to say that each day that goes by I'm finally giving more and more of these things over to God's hands and just saying to Him, "I'll do my best and what I think I should be doing, you give me the results you want me to have and teach me what you want me to learn."
And I leave it at that. I spent so much time worrying about how I was going to provide for my family and about how things would get better in time, that I wasted a great deal of my life for nothing. I can't live that way anymore. If I find myself homeless, I'm just going to say, "This is where God wants me for now; there is a purpose in this." If there is a better way to approach this, I'm all ears.
Let's say there are two men who return from war. Man A was on the front line and had 100 of his best friends blown up right before his very eyes and he killed about 100 enemy soldiers. Man B was a potato peeler and chef. He never fired a single weapon. Just because Man B went to the same war doesn't mean he knows what Man A went through. Even if Man B had 100 of his best friends blown up and he killed 100 enemy troops, he STILL doesn't know what the man feels.
I think you are the one putting words in my mouth. I said and have continue to say that we don't know what he is going through because he is a unique individual. This doesn't mean that no one in the world knows homelessness, it just means no one knows how he is taking or or how he feels. If you can find where I said "no one knows what it's like to be homeless" and you paste it for me, I will apologize and that will be the end of it.
Lastly, I wasn't putting any words in your mouth. I said it comes across as you are better than him. If you can paste where I said "you're saying you are better than him" then I'll apologize and that will be the end of it. Regardless of your intent, that is how it came across to me and I won't speak for anyone else but I doubt I was the only one.
Thank you very much for your kind words. I probably wasn't very helpful but if anything I said at least brought you one second of peace, then I'm glad I wrote what I did.
God bless you brother and I hope you endure to the end. :)
Thats a strawman arguement, Crayola, and not a very good one.
He chose to do drugs. He chose to marry a bad woman. No one held a gun to his head and forced him to do those things. Now he is having a pity party and you are bringing the cake. He doesnt need an enabler.
