:hug: Looking4hope I was reading at my desk lunchtime something my pdoc suggested and I came across something and thought of you. It said "Today I will let go. I will stop trying to control everything. I will stop trying to make myself be and do better, and I will let myself be".

Don't be so hard on yourself, things will get better :hug:

Alffe, Doody, Wren & BJ... I really want to thank you for your honesty with me. It really does help. :hug:

I'm sorry that I don't have more to say. I actually do have a lot I would like to say, but it just doesn't want to come out. I'm still struggling and confused... I feel so inadequate. :(

We are here for you when you feel like talking....or if you just want to lurk. :grouphug:

Looking4hope,

Sharing your feelings, honestly and openly with others is helping yourself. I very often am like Robert DeNiro in the movie Analyze This. On the outside, holding the soldierly hard exterior "supposedly" needed for the battle that may lay ahead. Then, when I'm by myself, tearing at the end of a good movie or, even, at the end of a touching commercial like Deniro's character did.

God's multifacets, of grace and mercy shown unto us through His Son - I am sure - were expressed through tears in the storm that followed the crucifixion. But along with that was the knowledge of sin and death being conquered for all time.

When we compartmentalize our emotions to the point of thinking that we cannot or should not share is, to me, a sign that we have "grown up" too much, and have grown away from God. Two of the most powerful words in the Scriptures, I believe, are: "He wept."

So keep the faucet running and like you said, "this too shall pass" and - it will, it is promised, and you can count on it:

Psalm 30:5 "For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." :winky:

This is very comforting. Thanks for sharing this with me. I believe what you say to be true...

Most of my life, I always thought of God as all-powerful and judgemental. I was forever afraid of dying. A long time ago, a friend reached out to me in a time of trouble and told me how she thought of Jesus as a friend. It was then that Jesus became human to me and I found great comfort in that knowledge. And even more recently, another friend helped me realize that God is the embodiment of love, and ever since then I have been able to see God as a loving father.

:Sigh: With all that said, it hurts to admit the self-loathing that I have been feeling towards myself lately. It is scaring me. I thought that I had worked through all of this before. I feel so unlovable. And I guess because of that, it also explains why I haven't been feeling God's presence in my life. I feel so alone and am tired of fighting the fight.

I long for the joy in the morning, but I haven't been able to see it.

I truly hope you are right, that by talking about it, I am helping myself.

Thank you so much.