Searching for God
Member
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Central Massachusetts
Posts: 2,051
I tried for years to believe. Church, steps, spirituality, meditation, praying. All that came out of it was more neurosis and less being honest with myself. In my third year of sobriety now and very comfortable with what I don't believe.
Just be yourself and stay sober.
Just be yourself and stay sober.
Mini Novel Post Writer
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Maine
Posts: 3,649
Wow, our experiences are so similar (outside of the fact that I was raised in a Roman Catholic church) that it's uncanny. Same exact mindset, until one day in particular which I'm about to tell you about. I don't have advice but I do have something that might help you. It's how I discovered who God is to me.
Just like you I was raised in a specific faith. I was showed all the pictures that everyone in my faith saw. I read and learned from the same book. I came into religion being taught the overview of what everyone in that religion came to believe. Through that I had presupposed images that were supplied to me of who each of the entities were in that religion and came to accept that those were the same that I should believe in. In order for me to be religious in that faith and that belief, the images that I was supplied had to be what I visualized when I thought of God.
As I grew older and became wiser I began to question things. I never stopped praying and I live my life very much like you live yours. I thank whoever it is that I am praying to for guiding me. In assisting me in being strong. Leading me down the right path. I have no idea who it is that I am praying to but I just feel that it's the right thing to do. I know that when I pray I feel better and the guidance and direction that's supplied to me is always on point. Who cares if I have no concocted image in my head of who this is?
One day when I was newly sober and trying so desperately to find my higher power I was sitting in my backyard having a discussion in my mind to whoever it is that I pray to. How and when was I ever going to find God? For some reason at that very moment it hit me. I was spending so much time weighing my mind down with all the information that had been given to me throughout my life about religion that I had closed my mind to the concept of the God of my understanding. I thought that if I wasn't praying to the man in the pictures that I had been shown or not saying the words that I had learned in prayer then I wasn't praying to God right? Because, after all, that's who everyone else prays to. Or at least I thought. It was at that moment that I realized that I had spent so much time searching for someone who had been there all along, right with me. It was the person that I had been praying to all my life. It was the God of my understanding.
Our minds get so cluttered with what we're taught through the images and words that we are presented as a child that we assume that's what we have to believe in and visualize in order to believe in God.
Your words:
... and I did the same, is it possible that this is the God of your understanding? Who says it has to be a representation of what you were taught growing up? Could it be that you're placing the same limitations on your mind as I did due to those teachings? Could it be the same for you, that what you have been so desperately searching for all along has always been with you? Just think about it, you're praying to who you are for some reason 
Just like you I was raised in a specific faith. I was showed all the pictures that everyone in my faith saw. I read and learned from the same book. I came into religion being taught the overview of what everyone in that religion came to believe. Through that I had presupposed images that were supplied to me of who each of the entities were in that religion and came to accept that those were the same that I should believe in. In order for me to be religious in that faith and that belief, the images that I was supplied had to be what I visualized when I thought of God.
As I grew older and became wiser I began to question things. I never stopped praying and I live my life very much like you live yours. I thank whoever it is that I am praying to for guiding me. In assisting me in being strong. Leading me down the right path. I have no idea who it is that I am praying to but I just feel that it's the right thing to do. I know that when I pray I feel better and the guidance and direction that's supplied to me is always on point. Who cares if I have no concocted image in my head of who this is?
One day when I was newly sober and trying so desperately to find my higher power I was sitting in my backyard having a discussion in my mind to whoever it is that I pray to. How and when was I ever going to find God? For some reason at that very moment it hit me. I was spending so much time weighing my mind down with all the information that had been given to me throughout my life about religion that I had closed my mind to the concept of the God of my understanding. I thought that if I wasn't praying to the man in the pictures that I had been shown or not saying the words that I had learned in prayer then I wasn't praying to God right? Because, after all, that's who everyone else prays to. Or at least I thought. It was at that moment that I realized that I had spent so much time searching for someone who had been there all along, right with me. It was the person that I had been praying to all my life. It was the God of my understanding.
Our minds get so cluttered with what we're taught through the images and words that we are presented as a child that we assume that's what we have to believe in and visualize in order to believe in God.
Your words:
I pray often, but I feel like I don't know exactly who or what I'm praying to.
Member
Join Date: May 2014
Location: northeast US
Posts: 715
Originally Posted by Soliloquy 
Thank you. Everyone of your posts have sincerely given me some comfort.
I get so discouraged because so many times I pray "let me know what to do. I open myself to you. I want to feel your presence. Please help me understand", and I feel like I am not being heard. I don't only pray when I need help, I give thanks as well. I just don't know who or what I'm praying to or if anyone is listening.
So much of my life is consumed by fear. I struggle every single day of my life, worrying about terrible things that can happen. I am very aware of the fact that everyone I love will some day die and we never know when. I become deeply saddened and sometimes almost panicked, overwhelmed by the fact that my children will one day die. Even if it's 90 years from now. The fact I know horrible things will happen to them, painful things, is too much to bare sometimes. Of course I am also worried about all of my other loved ones as well. I have so many terrible scenarios polluting my mind. I want to rid of these thoughts and just have "faith." I'm jealous of people who have the "let go and let God" mentality and really truly have security in doing so.
I belief whole heartedly in the afterlife. Some years ago I was in love with someone who I had planned spending the rest of my life with. He was someone I grew up with a really good friend. We were born exactly one week apart and we're in the same class from k-12. We reconnected after high school. Both had been divorced and had boys the same age. Our first kiss was on April Fools day 2006. One night in March 2007 he was at a Port Call. We had been taking on the phone, and both of us had gone out with friends. At the end of the night I called him and a stranger answered his phone, said they found the phone outside of a fish market and that he must've dropped it. There was blizzard conditions that night where he was. I had a horrible feeling. I didn't hear back from him. In the morning, something about the way the sun beamed through the window I felt like he was dead. I know that sounds crazy but it was true. I called his dad and told him I was worried. Everyone thought I was over reacting. I kept seeing these beams of light, and I can't explain it but I just knew. I contacted the ship. They contacted me back saying he was missing. Over a week went by. Finally, divers found his body in the harbor, confirming what I already knew. My world fell to pieces and. I went into a deep darkness. I still believe that it was foul play, as does his family. Investigators didn't pursue it because they said he had drank an equivalent of 6 beers that night . Well the man was over 200 lbs and could hold his booze. He had custody of his son and I was planning on soon coming to live with them and we were going to have a happy family. We had never had a single argument. It was perfect. Well when April Fools day came along shortly after his funeral, it felt like a sick joke. But something was happening. He was visiting me in my dreams. It was like I was partially awake. My room, everything was the same but he was there. I knew he was dead and I talked to him. I still believe it was him. I know that it was more than just dreams. After a while he quit coming and I would beg for him to come back but soon the dreams of him were just regular dreams and I didn't feel like it was really him. In retrospect i think he wanted me to move on and live my life. In fact, I believe he set me up with my now husband. His ex asked me to a concert with her. I met my husband there. We fell in love that night and planned on getting married the next day. I mentioned that my love who died's birthday was one week apart from mine. His was a week after, my now husbands is the week before.
Anyway I know I'm rambling about that. But the experience of knowing that my boyfriend had died within hours of it happening, and then seeing him in my dreams...that makes me know that there is something beyond this life. I just want to be able to start living the life I have now. I want to feel safe and I want to be able to appreciate everything and everyone I have without worrying about it going away. I want to have "faith."
I guess I'll just keep searching and praying and doing what I believe to do is right and believe that any good God will see that and take care of me.
I get so discouraged because so many times I pray "let me know what to do. I open myself to you. I want to feel your presence. Please help me understand", and I feel like I am not being heard. I don't only pray when I need help, I give thanks as well. I just don't know who or what I'm praying to or if anyone is listening.
So much of my life is consumed by fear. I struggle every single day of my life, worrying about terrible things that can happen. I am very aware of the fact that everyone I love will some day die and we never know when. I become deeply saddened and sometimes almost panicked, overwhelmed by the fact that my children will one day die. Even if it's 90 years from now. The fact I know horrible things will happen to them, painful things, is too much to bare sometimes. Of course I am also worried about all of my other loved ones as well. I have so many terrible scenarios polluting my mind. I want to rid of these thoughts and just have "faith." I'm jealous of people who have the "let go and let God" mentality and really truly have security in doing so.
I belief whole heartedly in the afterlife. Some years ago I was in love with someone who I had planned spending the rest of my life with. He was someone I grew up with a really good friend. We were born exactly one week apart and we're in the same class from k-12. We reconnected after high school. Both had been divorced and had boys the same age. Our first kiss was on April Fools day 2006. One night in March 2007 he was at a Port Call. We had been taking on the phone, and both of us had gone out with friends. At the end of the night I called him and a stranger answered his phone, said they found the phone outside of a fish market and that he must've dropped it. There was blizzard conditions that night where he was. I had a horrible feeling. I didn't hear back from him. In the morning, something about the way the sun beamed through the window I felt like he was dead. I know that sounds crazy but it was true. I called his dad and told him I was worried. Everyone thought I was over reacting. I kept seeing these beams of light, and I can't explain it but I just knew. I contacted the ship. They contacted me back saying he was missing. Over a week went by. Finally, divers found his body in the harbor, confirming what I already knew. My world fell to pieces and. I went into a deep darkness. I still believe that it was foul play, as does his family. Investigators didn't pursue it because they said he had drank an equivalent of 6 beers that night . Well the man was over 200 lbs and could hold his booze. He had custody of his son and I was planning on soon coming to live with them and we were going to have a happy family. We had never had a single argument. It was perfect. Well when April Fools day came along shortly after his funeral, it felt like a sick joke. But something was happening. He was visiting me in my dreams. It was like I was partially awake. My room, everything was the same but he was there. I knew he was dead and I talked to him. I still believe it was him. I know that it was more than just dreams. After a while he quit coming and I would beg for him to come back but soon the dreams of him were just regular dreams and I didn't feel like it was really him. In retrospect i think he wanted me to move on and live my life. In fact, I believe he set me up with my now husband. His ex asked me to a concert with her. I met my husband there. We fell in love that night and planned on getting married the next day. I mentioned that my love who died's birthday was one week apart from mine. His was a week after, my now husbands is the week before.
Anyway I know I'm rambling about that. But the experience of knowing that my boyfriend had died within hours of it happening, and then seeing him in my dreams...that makes me know that there is something beyond this life. I just want to be able to start living the life I have now. I want to feel safe and I want to be able to appreciate everything and everyone I have without worrying about it going away. I want to have "faith."
I guess I'll just keep searching and praying and doing what I believe to do is right and believe that any good God will see that and take care of me.
Member
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 23
I've been a believer since a small child. Because of that I don't have the aha moment a lot of people do. What I do realize to help keep my faith in check, is to remember that if God can do all that he has done etc, how can I figure out and understand His way 100% of the time. Hang in there, don't push it, God is always with us.
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