I want to thank everyone who responded to my topic. About 95 percent of what was discussed ministered to me greatly.
In fact so much, that it would take too long to answer each individually! Thanks again!!! B)
I was a quiet, pensive child, and not the kind to be cruel to people, but something reinforced in me not to judge others when I was a teen. I was watching one of those health and exercise programs, when the host had on a guest who was extremely obese. He asked her how she got to that point and her response was that when her daughter was seven years old, she was kidnapped by a stranger, raped, and killed. She buried her utter grief in food, for she did not do drugs or smoked.
I did the same thing as a teen. I drank to numb the horrible abuse that was going on in my life, and I mean horrible. Many times I drank to the point of blacking out.
But when I became an adult I became more mature and learned better coping skills. I no longer drink to that blacking out point. I am now a mild to moderate drinker (I feel as if I am being healed gradually), any most of the time could take it or leave it. Like I said, gradually.
But once in a while I fall off the wagon and get drunk. Not to the point of passing out thank God. Those days are forever gone. But I sometimes feel the need to numb the pain, just as that woman did, and I turn to alcohol when, due to my fault, I grow impatient with God's timing. I just need to numb the pain or I will lose it, it gets that intense.
My ex husband kidnapped my daughter when she was very young, when he had no legal custody whatsoever due to his life style. I do not know where she is and know that he is raising her as an atheist as he is. This hurts me more than words can say. I pray everyday for God to send her "witnessing spirits".
I cry my self to sleep every night inwardly, and sometimes outwardly. But I have learned to shut down those tears for they made me miss work once cause my face was so swollen I could just not go in.
So, I started this topic for, like I said, my confusion. For I once fell into legalism. To the point I suffered from the fear of the unpardonable sin for over a decade. Not fun let me tell you that. But one day, as if appointed by God, I stumbled across a program discussing the subject of legalism. It recommended if you had fallen into it, to stop all activity for a short while that you were doing to earn your salvation. No attending church, no tithing, etc. The only thing you were not to stop doing was praying to God and reading and studying His word.
So I tried it. And it worked! I was released from that horrible dark night of the soul once it registered into my spirit there was nothing apart from the cross that could save me. As a result, I now attend church and give monetarily, stemming from a place of love, not as a down payment for my mansion in the sky (earth after 10,000 years).
Now I just have to find the right church is all. Please don't get me wrong, I do not leave a church for insignificant reasons of disagreement. Just the larger ones that will lead to a weakened walk with Him. Like the church I left because the tithing money was used to buy the pastor and his wife each a BMW.
Now it seems like this one I shall be leaving as well. For I do not ever want to go back to that dark, dark place again where I thought God had thrown me away cause I could not perform well enough to Holy standard. No one can do that except that they do one thing. And I have done it.
May God Bless You All More Than You Can Ever Imagine~
