44 years of loneliness

[Guest Sinatra]

Hello Everyone,

I need help. Like many faith issues and questions, mine is multifacted and "deep." I'm not sure where to start, so I'll try to do a "Readers' Digest" version.

I'm a 44 y/o male, and I am alone. I have family (mom, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc), but I do not have a "helper." A helper as God promises people who need one will be given.

The longest relationship I've ever had lasted only 3 or 4 months, and it has always been the choice of the woman to end them. Only one of these relationships involved any sexual activity, and it, to borrow a modern term, was only "heavy petting." Yes - I'm a 44 year old virgin.

All I want to know is why I'm alone, and why I always end up hurt and full of self-doubt with women that I have feelings for. And why, each time I think that I may have found someone, and am led to believe that, I have the rug pulled out from under me. There may not be "answers" to that question, but I need to get this all out and get the input of other Christians.

And it probably goes without saying that once again I now find myself hurt and rejected by a wonderful woman whom I came to have very deep feelings for, and whom I believed there was a future with.

I have three reasons in my head as to why I am in this situation.

One - my loneliness is a "thorn" God has given me. But if this is the case, it's a thorn that I find pushing me further from God with each disappointment and heart break, rather than drawing me closer and affirming His love and His very existence. What is the purpose of a thorn if there is no reason to be seen in it, and if it is couter-productive?

Two - When I was 17 years old I was "in love" with a girl named Sally. I desperately wanted to be with her. My step-dad had some dirty magazines in a box in the basement which I had found. Quite often I would go downstairs and look at them. I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyhow. One day, while in the throws of desperation over Sally I promised God - I mean actually PROMISED God - that I would never look at pornography again if he would bring Sally and I together. And I went on to make a part of this promise to God that if I did ever look at pronography again, that I would be alone forever, and that every relationship I entered into would end in hurt and pain for me. You can probably guess that within a couple of days I was down in the basement looking at those magazines again. Years after this happened I read in the Bible that only a foolish man makes a promise to God. So .... is God holding me to a foolish promise I made as a love sick, 17-year old kid who didn't know better? Am I being held to that promise? It seems that I am because the conditions are being met. Would God do that to someone?

Three - I have dealt with the sin of pornography since I was a kid when I found my real dad's Playboy magazines and other pornography when I was 8 or 9 years old. My folks divorced when I was seven and my dad and his new wife (which was #3 out of a total so far of five wives) were "swingers," and I found things in their house that no 9 year old boy should see. Through my young adult years and up until this very day pornography has always been a temptation, and one that I find myself yielding to often. I have, over the years, prayed for God to help me with this, but I can only assume that I didn't pray in the right way because here I am, still dealing with it. So .... are these failed relationships and deep, deep pain and heartache God's way of punishing me? Does God punish like that ... a parent who punishes a child playing ball in the house by taking away his bat, ball and glove for the rest of the summer. I know my analogy simplifies it, but do you see what I mean? I don't want pornography - I want a real relationship with a wife. Do I have to overcome this sin before I can have that? And if so - does every man (or woman) who uses pronography have to have the curse of loneliness? I'm not making excuses - I know it's wrong. But it seems this way to me.

Yet, this pattern began long before the day of that promise. From the first girl I ever even had a "crush" on when I was 12 years old I have been rejected. My first "girlfriend" I met in Bible camp when I was in 8th grade. She "broke up " with me after she met another boy in camp. In 9th grade I asked a girl out. She responded by calling me a "dummy" for doing so in front of the entire home room. Maybe those seem like isolated childhood instances. And if my history wasn't what it is, I would agree. But the pattern of hurt and disappointment has continued since then up until this very moment.

Right now I am stinging from a failed realtionship with a woman named Janette. She spent two years in a relationship with a horrible man who used her and abused her and took her for over $40,000. I've known her for 6 years and have always had feelings for her. When her relationship ended I was there for her to help her through the hurt and be there for her. We started to move in a direction beyond friendship, and I was happy about that. But then she met someone else and it all ended. Why would God give that horible man she was with the opportunity to straighten up and be with her - a wonderful, caring woman - but God won't even give me a real chance with her?

And why does it seem that God has been setting me up for disappointment? Why has He allowed me to believe, on more than one occasion, that I had finally met the woman I should be with, only to end it all?

I'm so full of hurt and doubt right now that I can't think straight. I've prayed and prayed, yet no comfort comes ... no feelings of peace... nothing. I'm on the verge of tears all the time, and I don't know if "turning to God," is even really an option. And this has happened to me too often before. And now I am prayed out.

Right now my motives are selfish - I would do anything for another chance with Janette. But there's something deeper here. Why is God allowing me to be hurt over and over and over again? What am I missing? What's wrong with me?

Please help me. Tell me what God guides you to tell me because I find myself unable to ask Him for anything anymore.

Please help me.

Kent

[Guest RJD Servant]

Hi Sinatra

I would like you to know that I am sorry for your struggle with this sin and that the world around us can only work at feeding it and then you have a hard choice to turn away from the sin with in you.

You have to change the thoughts of your mind towards women.

Women around you are your sisters and your Aunts and mothers that need to be protected from the degrated state of mind that this sin brings.

Until you look at every women with Respect, and Honor whether dressed modist or not they are not to be the Object of your Adultry because when you Look on a women with lust in your heart you Commit Adulty all ready.

Would you want your sisters or aunt or mothers to be treated with this disrespect!

I would guess that your answer would be very angry if any one did.

Change your Heart of Sin with in and burn and turn away from anything that will Feed the Sin with in your own choice of your heart.

Work towards no internet unless you block all Porn, Throw away any magizines or books or Movies or anything that Stimulates the Lustful sins of your own Flesh.

Many men fight against this and have a trial because they do not Lay it down completely with in your own heart. Because My God is a deliver and can turn any heart away from the sins that beset us. Because he loves and desires the Victory before we ask.

None of the points of your passed has made any influence in why you are alone or do not have anyone in your life.

Usually women are very perceptive to the Sin of Lust and desire and will move away from that spirit with in a man.

Let me tell you the trial you bear with porn will change the purity of your heart and the mind and people know it if they have the Spirit to decern. Not saying evey women that has passed through your life but some of it just was not ment to be.

Porn changes the heart and mind and concept of every man to really know the LOVE of God and be able to give off love to those around you.

Encluding dating and meeting women.

You are no longer a Virgin as the vexing of women are apart of your lustful heart. They tore away your virginity from the inside of what should have stayed pure.

Please find a way to stop being Selfish because this is a sin unto yourself and yourself alone but it effects and touches those you become in contact with.

Take your selfishness and turn it into helping people around you that are in need. Work with the homeless and the elderly or the hospitals to give of yourself that God can build up a Godly person of the Heart.

Lay your sin totally on the Alter of God turn 180' turn to be different and catch the sin before it happens or you choose to be a partaker with it.

Tempting is going to be there but you Choose to turn from it everytime because

1. It is against you.

2. It is against God.

3. It is against Women & Men

4. It will destroy you!!!!

5. Mates are hard to find who will live with it so divorce is at the door.

Tempting is going to be there but.

1. God is the Deliver

2. Jesus Blood Covers Sin and takes the desire away.

3. Become Infilled with the HOLY SPIRIT so that the Power will be a KEEPING Power.

4. Fill your MIND with the POWER of the WORD of GOD that will kill this sin and strike it to the Heart of your Soul.

5. Put on the Armor of God that He talks about in Ephesian the 6 chapter I think look it up.

Every part of the Armor helps you not to sin.

6. Pray everyday to give your Life and Choices to the Lord and allow him to convict you to the Core of your heart to change and make right choices with your heart, Eyes, Feet, hands mouth every choice to be done in the Spirit to not fullfill the LUST of your Flesh

The God I serve changes lives forever as we keep him in the forefront of our hearts and minds.

I have never had the Lord to fail me yet it is always I that will walk away and fail him.

But I know that if I pick myself up and go to the cross My God will come place me in the Blood of the Lamb of God and I will awake pure and right in his sight and there will be newness of life to begin again.

You keep going and doing the things in the word of God and follow in the Footsteps of Jesus and the Holy Spirit will convict and guide you unto all truth.

Praying God will give you the strenght to do what is needed.

RJD Servant

.

[Keith]

Kent and Wade,

Mother Theresa once said, "Loneliness and the feeling of being uncared for and unwanted are the greatest poverty."

A Jewish proverb says that "Loneliness eats into the soul."

My heart aches for the pain both of you are going through... as well as countless others. I used to be lonely and it's incredibly difficult to deal with. But know that loneliness really can be overcome.

First, you are never really 'alone'. John 16:32 says "But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me." The Father is always with us. Knowing that and trusting (acting on) that are different though. When we're lonely it's because we are unaware of the One who is everywhere.

If you (said in general) are already groaning hearing about the "Bible answer" to loneliness, then perhaps that's part of the problem. Who are you concentrating on? I say this next thing with as much love as is possible... loneliness is an indication that our relationship with God and others may need some work. Who is better qualified to help than Jesus and His Word?

I believe that if we focus diligently on our relationship with Jesus, and become content with Him alone, that loneliness will subside, or at least lessen, because it's not in the forefront of our minds and hearts. We are also called to serve others. Matthew 20: 28 says, "just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." It's hard to be lonely when you're serving others! I found this out experientially. Be content with Jesus alone and serve others. It takes your mind off of yourself and cures loneliness. Don't sit passively, thinking about it. Distract yourself and take action. Battle it spiritually by memorizing/quoting Psalms and praises! Battle it physically by doing something else to take your mind off of it. Go for a walk somewhere interesting, write a poem or a story, or make a sandwich and a cup of soup and walk around until you find a homeless person and give it to them. But don't sit and dwell on it, feeling sorry for yourself. That's the trap. Loneliness is a subtle (or not so subtle) form of selfishness because you are thinking about yourself all the time.

Now... I understand that what I just said above is more along the lines of a "social loneliness" rather than the "emotional loneliness" that both of you, and others are experiencing. But I couldn't mention loneliness without talking about the social aspect of it because so many suffer from that type, too.

When it comes to emotional loneliness, the longing to share your life with someone else and knowing that there is someone there who understands you. Here are some things you can do to actively combat this type of loneliness...

1. Spend more time with Jesus and in His Word. (Is that groaning I hear?)

2. Become content with Him alone and trust Him with your heart. Don't be afraid to let loose of it and leave it with Him.

3. Work on becoming the right person, instead of searching for the right person. Think of who you want for a marriage partner. What type of person would they be attracted to? Are you that person? What are you willing to change to become more like that person? Are you ready to be a Biblical husband? Would your spouse inherit a bunch of "issues." What do you want to bring to the relationship and what would you actually be bringing to the relationship? Work on these things and use the loneliness to get closer to God. While you are doing what you can in these matters, it might just surprise you that God will be working behind the scenes to prepare the person He has planned for you so that you'll both be ready at the same time. Luke 18:1 says to pray always and never lose heart!

"Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." Hebrews 13:5

[Keith]

I really want to pray before I respond next, ok WSB? My heart aches for you in what you're going through and I don't want to say anything lightly. (No, I have no intention or desire to throw stones or flame you, but I don't want to give a standard/flip answer either.)

____________________________________________________________________

In response to loneliness - and the selfishness it's rooted in - I do want to say this:

I'm telling you the truth, I went through this. I lost all but two of my friends because they couldn't take it anymore. "It's always about Keith." "All he knows how to do is feel sorry for himself." I kept asking God to speak to me and finally heard him one day when He said, "I am... through these people." It's not a fun message to hear, but God has so much more planned for us! But we can't see it because our eyes are on ourselves.

I am telling you the truth. Since I gave every want, desire, wish, dream, need, hurt, question, problem, struggle, emotion and hope over to Him - and left them with Him - it's made a 1000% difference! I finally recognized that my way wasn't working. I had a lifetime of proving that!

What made the biggest difference was the determination to stop being miserable. I got so sick and tired of thinking about myself and even wanting things that I wrote it all down on paper, giving it to God and trusting Him that He would know what's best for me and that His timing is better than mine. I decided to not want anything but what He wanted anymore. I asked Him to make His desires my desires. They weren't at that point, but I wanted them to be. I rambled on, desperately, praying something like this...

"God, I'm so sick of being lonely and wanting things. I'm so sick of thinking about me, me, me! Please, help me to be content with what I have and with You. That if I never received another good thing in my life, that just having You would be enough. Help me get to the point that no matter what my circumstances are, like Paul said, it doesn't matter because I have You with me and You care for me. And nothing can change that! You are enough... help me to see that! Help me to trust that everything that happens will work out for good because I love You and I'm called according to Your purpose. Help me take my eyes off myself, once and for all, and to start seeing things - and people - the way You do. Help me want to see other people saved. I don't want to care about the treasures of this earth and want to start storing my treasures in heaven. After all, that's where I'll be spending eternity, which is so much longer than the blink of an eye we have living on this earth. I just want what You want. (Or at least I want to want what You want.) I know this isn't going to happen magically and I have a big part to play in this, but I'm asking that the Holy Spirit will help me in every way!"

If you need something symbolic to do to release these things, get some rocks. With a marker, write the things in your life that you want to leave in Jesus' care. Put them in a bucket and take them to a lake or a river. Pick them up, one-by-one, give that thing/problem over to Him and refuse to take it back into your own care. Then throw that rock into the water to symbolize releasing it into His care. You can't swim out to pick that stone back up, so neither will you take that problem/thing back from Him once you've given it to Him in prayer.

Living by our emotions and how we feel is exhausting!!! It's a losing battle because until Jesus returns, things will never be perfect. Our emotions are tied to our thoughts because our thoughts affect our emotions. We can't change our emotions but we can change the way we think! With His help and with our diligence. No, it's not easy, but it really, really, really is worth it!

[kodischild]

Sinatra and WSB, My heart goes out to both of you.

I suspect I will be spending the rest of my life alone. I'm sure there will be times when I will also feel alone and frustrated. For now I pray that God will prepare me for, and introduce me to, the person he wants me to be with. But if I'm supposed to be alone then I pray that he will help me to learn to live with it. Then I put it in God's hands. I do this a lot! Mostly because then I take it out of God's hands and start fussing about it again.

Anyway, I can somewhat understand how you guys feel. I hope you can find some relief somehow.

Maybe there was something to be said for the old fashioned arranged marriage. Anyone want my dad's phone number? How about the mail order bride idea? You'll find me on pg 21 of the JC Penny catalog. I'll pay my own postage.

[yomotalking]

Hello Everyone,

I need help. Like many faith issues and questions, mine is multifacted and "deep." I'm not sure where to start, so I'll try to do a "Readers' Digest" version.

I'm a 44 y/o male, and I am alone. I have family (mom, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc), but I do not have a "helper." A helper as God promises people who need one will be given.

The longest relationship I've ever had lasted only 3 or 4 months, and it has always been the choice of the woman to end them. Only one of these relationships involved any sexual activity, and it, to borrow a modern term, was only "heavy petting." Yes - I'm a 44 year old virgin.

All I want to know is why I'm alone, and why I always end up hurt and full of self-doubt with women that I have feelings for. And why, each time I think that I may have found someone, and am led to believe that, I have the rug pulled out from under me. There may not be "answers" to that question, but I need to get this all out and get the input of other Christians.

And it probably goes without saying that once again I now find myself hurt and rejected by a wonderful woman whom I came to have very deep feelings for, and whom I believed there was a future with.

I have three reasons in my head as to why I am in this situation.

One - my loneliness is a "thorn" God has given me. But if this is the case, it's a thorn that I find pushing me further from God with each disappointment and heart break, rather than drawing me closer and affirming His love and His very existence. What is the purpose of a thorn if there is no reason to be seen in it, and if it is couter-productive?

Two - When I was 17 years old I was "in love" with a girl named Sally. I desperately wanted to be with her. My step-dad had some dirty magazines in a box in the basement which I had found. Quite often I would go downstairs and look at them. I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyhow. One day, while in the throws of desperation over Sally I promised God - I mean actually PROMISED God - that I would never look at pornography again if he would bring Sally and I together. And I went on to make a part of this promise to God that if I did ever look at pronography again, that I would be alone forever, and that every relationship I entered into would end in hurt and pain for me. You can probably guess that within a couple of days I was down in the basement looking at those magazines again. Years after this happened I read in the Bible that only a foolish man makes a promise to God. So .... is God holding me to a foolish promise I made as a love sick, 17-year old kid who didn't know better? Am I being held to that promise? It seems that I am because the conditions are being met. Would God do that to someone?

Three - I have dealt with the sin of pornography since I was a kid when I found my real dad's Playboy magazines and other pornography when I was 8 or 9 years old. My folks divorced when I was seven and my dad and his new wife (which was #3 out of a total so far of five wives) were "swingers," and I found things in their house that no 9 year old boy should see. Through my young adult years and up until this very day pornography has always been a temptation, and one that I find myself yielding to often. I have, over the years, prayed for God to help me with this, but I can only assume that I didn't pray in the right way because here I am, still dealing with it. So .... are these failed relationships and deep, deep pain and heartache God's way of punishing me? Does God punish like that ... a parent who punishes a child playing ball in the house by taking away his bat, ball and glove for the rest of the summer. I know my analogy simplifies it, but do you see what I mean? I don't want pornography - I want a real relationship with a wife. Do I have to overcome this sin before I can have that? And if so - does every man (or woman) who uses pronography have to have the curse of loneliness? I'm not making excuses - I know it's wrong. But it seems this way to me.

Yet, this pattern began long before the day of that promise. From the first girl I ever even had a "crush" on when I was 12 years old I have been rejected. My first "girlfriend" I met in Bible camp when I was in 8th grade. She "broke up " with me after she met another boy in camp. In 9th grade I asked a girl out. She responded by calling me a "dummy" for doing so in front of the entire home room. Maybe those seem like isolated childhood instances. And if my history wasn't what it is, I would agree. But the pattern of hurt and disappointment has continued since then up until this very moment.

Right now I am stinging from a failed realtionship with a woman named Janette. She spent two years in a relationship with a horrible man who used her and abused her and took her for over $40,000. I've known her for 6 years and have always had feelings for her. When her relationship ended I was there for her to help her through the hurt and be there for her. We started to move in a direction beyond friendship, and I was happy about that. But then she met someone else and it all ended. Why would God give that horible man she was with the opportunity to straighten up and be with her - a wonderful, caring woman - but God won't even give me a real chance with her?

And why does it seem that God has been setting me up for disappointment? Why has He allowed me to believe, on more than one occasion, that I had finally met the woman I should be with, only to end it all?

I'm so full of hurt and doubt right now that I can't think straight. I've prayed and prayed, yet no comfort comes ... no feelings of peace... nothing. I'm on the verge of tears all the time, and I don't know if "turning to God," is even really an option. And this has happened to me too often before. And now I am prayed out.

Right now my motives are selfish - I would do anything for another chance with Janette. But there's something deeper here. Why is God allowing me to be hurt over and over and over again? What am I missing? What's wrong with me?

Please help me. Tell me what God guides you to tell me because I find myself unable to ask Him for anything anymore.

Please help me.

Kent

I believe you mentioned Readers digest.

I read that too.

It's brill!

[angels4u]

Living by our emotions and how we feel is exhausting!!! It's a losing battle because until Jesus returns, things will never be perfect. Our emotions are tied to our thoughts because our thoughts affect our emotions. We can't change our emotions but we can change the way we think! With His help and with our diligence. No, it's not easy, but it really, really, really is worth it!

Amen

[heavenlyfavoured]

Hi guys,

I know am female, but do i have a word 4 u guys!

Can't chat now, where am at its 10.00 PM so till tomorrow.

Goodnight and God bless!!!

[heavenlyfavoured]

Hi,

O.K Mayb its better 2 make this short, simple and clear.

Fast and Pray. Thats the answer. Repent, fast and pray!

Thats what i did and still doing and my answer is just around the corner.

Yah! Thats my advise, its ur choice 2 accept it or not.

God bless!!!

[Guest womanafterGod]

r u ok?