Turning away from Christ – Big Mistake
When I was a kid, my family was Mormon (LDS) because my stepfather was one. He would take us to church, and I had bad experiences in that church that I won’t get into detail here but the way I was treated caused me to question God’s existence and his love for me. Compound that the Mormons told me that God hated me because of stupid things that only they think are a sin and I ended up walking away because of the worldly lie that God hated me.
How could I believe in a God that hated me over things that seemed nonsensical. I didn’t search for him myself which looking back at it I should have done but my faith was so weak because no one would answer any questions and people would treat me badly when I did ask that I just decided to not even try.
This was the biggest mistake in my life. Walking away from God over things man would claim instead of seeking him through his word. One hinderance to this was the fact that I had a very hard time understanding the KJV bible due to the ancient English dialects (I can’t even read Shakespear) and no one would help me with the understanding. Mormons are not forgiving anyone who questions Gods word, even if it is just trying to clarify what is said due to understanding issues. I didn’t even think to look for other translations and I really wish I had.
After Turning away – my life taking a bad turn
Turning away from God was the single biggest mistake in my life as it lead to all the other mistakes in my life. Do I think I would have been perfect if I had stayed and sought God? No, only Jesus was perfect, and we can’t be that image of perfection but at least I would have hopefully made less worldly mistakes.
I tried to find comfort in worldly things: Money, sex (luckily only with my wife of the time, porn, etcetera. I tried drinking but even in that time I think God was trying to watch over me. I never felt any pleasure from drinking and never felt any sort of high feeling, so I never sought out drugs.
I ended up with a family when I was too young and marrying a pagan woman who hated God. I cursed Gods name on a daily basis because I believed he hated me. I was so much like Saul in the way I showed hatred towards anything religious and anything that even resembled God. Now I can look back and see how foolish I was. It brings me great shame remembering the things I did and the things I would say. God, please forgive me.
Nothing I found would fill that emptiness that was in my heart. I had momentary pleasures as I had the family that I had wanted all my life.’ I had wanted to be a father and a husband since I was a little kid. Partially because I wanted to be a better father and husband than my dad was. He wasn’t around when I was young, and I ended up with an abusive stepfather but that is a story for another time.
My heart would grow harder by the day. I wasn’t finding satisfaction with anything I would do or anything I would try. I couldn’t fill that hole no matter what I tried. I grew angry and selfish and very cocky. Add to this a (bad) diagnosis of bipolar disorder and a bunch of prescriptions that didn’t help anything and just made me more unstable the more drugs the doctors pumped into my body, and it was a recipe of disaster.
In 2007 I became disabled due to the bad diagnosis. Everything came crashing down in a span of 3 months. I lost my job, my belongings, my home, and even my family as my wife was unfaithful and took my kids away from me. I eventually was able to get my son back from my wife after she basically discarded him due to his autism. I thank God for giving him back to me now. It gave me purpose to start to be able to try to crawl out of the hole I had dug for myself.
I was in constant pain.
With the loss of my family, home, job. I was adrift with no purpose and a man needs purpose. I ended up living with my mother and on disability. I had tried to live with my father but that only worked for 6 months as he doesn’t understand the type of pain, I was in.
After 6 months my wife had left the area, I was in with my kids. I tried to move to the city she was in so I could be near my kids but had to leave as I could not find work and my mother was in an accident and needed someone to drive her around for work. My ex-wife wouldn’t let me see my kids either so all that fell apart.
My mind was keeping me in constant pain and fear. I had developed severe depression over the years and a hatred for myself that cannot be rivaled by anything on this earth. I kept harming myself by cutting to try and relieve the pain. It was only for moments that it helped but at that point a moment without the mental anguish was some relief.
I was living in a constant state of wanting to just scream at the world. Wanting to take my failures out on others constantly. Thankfully I never did and was able to turn the hatred internally, so I never harmed anyone. well except the guy I found my ex-wife with, he and I got into a fight once and I ended up on probation for that one.
The Nightmares
When I was a kid, I started to have the most horrible nightmares and day terrors. Sometimes I would see monsters crawling on the walls of my schools or see skeletons and demons at the end of my bed at night.
I had nightmares that were either mental or physical torture.
One of the worst ones I ever experienced was where I was tied to a poll with my hands above me and everyone I knew: friend, family, foe. Would come along and cut strips of my flesh off my body and then eat it laughing.
My dreams were so bad and so realistic that I could smell the blood in the air and feel it run down my body and feel the stickiness of it when I was touched. I could feel the texture of the rope and the hardness of the poll. Every slice was anguished and the throbbing after the flesh was gone was completely horrible.
20+ years the enemy tortured me this way. Every night was a different hell.
God returning purpose to my life.
I was in a bad way but now that I look back at things, I can see the influence God has had in my life. In that pain I was in he decided to return some purpose into my life.
One day my ex-wife called me and said something that actually brought me joy and sadness all in one. On that call she said “Come get this kid” to which I gratefully did.
I am going to try and not go into details, but God brought my son back into my life. I spent time working on him and getting him back into treatment for his Aspergers and concentration problems. Within one month of having him back I had enrolled him into school and got him back on his meds and the result was he was back to making straight A’s again.
After 6 months of hearing how good he was doing my ex tried to take him back, but I refused. Thankfully he has been with me since. My son brought back to me so God could restore purpose into my life and give me something to work towards. Thank you, Jesus!
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