Need advice

[enoob57]

The Church of Christ is bent toward a do get relationship with God ~when in fact it is a relationship and do reality... I went to one for about a year and your right the worship is slightly off. You must be immersed into God by Spirit to have new birth and eternal life with God... the foolishness is they think that which will pass away can be manipulated for eternal things when God has said

2 Peter 3:10-13

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,

12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
KJV

If you are to have a stone house what must it be made of; if you are to have a brick house what must it be made of; if you are to have an eternal house what must it be made of.... so if the material is not here then in faith

Heb 11:1-3
 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.

3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
KJV
we look for that which is promised as though it were already here and that which we are in as though it is of no more value than to be burned up...

[HikerMom]

Debp...hopefully, yes I could take someone to the ladies study.  I just need to give it a little more time to get to know people.

Steven...I think I am understanding most of what you are saying.  Definitely there are good and bad churches in any denomination, but the doctrine of baptism being necessary and having to agree with that before you can make it to heaven seems to lead to a self sufficiency or self satisfaction that is at odds with being poor in spirit and trusting God....

 

[HikerMom]

Just wanted to write down my thoughts right now on the insomnia I am dealing with....Larry 2 , I am hoping you will see this and possibly respond.  You are one of the few people who has ever been able to understand when I share this journey.  If you don't see this then I suppose it will work as a journal for me.  It is always helpful to look back and see how we have grown. 

My insomnia started when my daughter went through a suicidal period a few years ago.  She is gay and atheist, and whenever she has a breakup the fallout is just devastating.  Every breakup seems worse than the last, and she barely survived the last one.  She isn't a dramatic person and so by the time I hear about it, things are pretty bad.  She has been dating her current girlfriend for over two years and recently moved in.  They are moving out of state to attend the same graduate school.  And my daughter has been talking more about her depression and anxiety.   So I imagine I am likely to have to go through this again in the future.

When she became suicidal, I apparently was trying to control and prevent the suicide by praying too hard.  And so I started jerking awake.  Eventually after she improved, I became afraid of the insomnia.  I tried so hard to fix it.  I made myself really, really ill doing that.  A counselor said to me that what God wanted from me in this was to try not to fix it or figure it out.

I am so much improved from last year.  But I am hurting badly today and the last few days.  This ironic thing has happened where I am afraid to try to fix anything (thinking God wants me to apply this lesson in other areas!) or else I will not sleep.  But the very act of not trying to fix thing ends up being me trying to fix the sleep.  One of the major things I try to work on is my health struggles.  But then I become afraid that working on it is costing me sleep, and so I think you can imagine the vicious cycle I get in.  

I try to remind myself that I do believe that God wants to fix this but there is something more important for me right now than sleep.  I just feel like such a failure at understanding what He wants from me in this.  I want to sleep so badly.  And yet I believe He loves me and is doing this for my good...

Anxiety will sometimes hit me during the day.  Usually, ignoring it turns out the best.  I don't always know why it hits, though I suspect it is usually fear about not sleeping.  Sometimes I try to think if I have tried to problem solve my heath issues or other things too much and if that is the source of the anxiety...always hoping I can stop doing something if it is producing anxiety in my life....Then I become afraid to do things thinking I will make my sleep worse.   

I never know whether I might be trying to fix something and that causes a problem or if I am actually unconsciously trying to fix the sleep....

I think probably when I am afraid to do something then I need to do it anyway because the fear is really just about the sleep.  I don't know...

A few months ago, I would sing my favorite Christian songs when I couldn't sleep or sometimes I would say a verse in my head.....but it made things worse.  I suspect I was unconsciously trying to fix the sleep just as I was trying to fix my daughter's struggles with prayer.  So now I have to stop myself whenever I start to sing at night.  It's just such a nice distraction from thinking, but I guess it is me trying to fix the anxiety which always makes things worse!  So then I get upset and I often ask God to take control of my thoughts.  He usually pulls my mind off everything and then I usually get 6 or so hours of sleep.   

This probably sounds completely crazy!!!  I am thankful for any encouragement you might have...This is such a difficult journey and just when I think it is about to end then things get worse again...

Your sister in Chirst, jen  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 27, 2018 by HikerMom
clarification

[HikerMom]

I think God reminded me again last night to just know that no matter what happens I will be ok.  Yesterday was rough.  After church I just wanted to stay in bed and cry all day.  I knew that was a BAD idea.  So I asked God to help me get through the day.  And there were some really good times.  I think it grew my faith again to see how God will help me even when I don't sleep.  I think I need to just ignore my fears about other things interfering with sleep.  It just leads to a never ending cycle where I am overthinking everything. 

I think God wanted me to know when my daughter was suicidal that I couldn't control it, and that if she went through with it then He would help me through it...that I would be ok with Him beside me to take care of me.  It's funny that I entitled this thread "Need Advice."  I really don't want advice on this topic...I am hypersensitive about it and going without sleep has only increased that feeling.  It is such a hard journey for anyone to understand.  Myself included.  Most of my family can't be supportive on this journey.  They just think they have the answers to fix it.  I know they don't want me to hurt anymore, but their advice just feels like criticism.  Even when I tell them that the counselor has said don't try to fix it, they try to fix it.  Thank God that my husband knows he can't.  He has been very supportive.