This thread has really blessed me. I feel as though I've been in a wilderness for some years now...and I never expected to be here this long. In the beginning a lot was due to disobedience, wrong relationships, attitude problems,and pride. Then when I truly surrendered everything to God things kept going downhill fast...depression,loneliness, isolation, rejection, etc. I've had lots of ups and downs and victories that God has brought me through so I shouldn't be complaining, but I'm just burnt out from school. For the past few weeks I just said forget everything and I've been going through the motions - going to my job/school, pouring everything I have into taking care of and encouraging other people and then going home and staring at books and the wall. Not eating right, not working out. I've either missed church or I go and sit in the balcony and stare, read the Bible and listen to the sermon. I talk to my family and friends and fake it, laugh and joke and get off the phone and cry or go to sleep. I've just felt like I've been on a long road to nowhere. Many people would never understand why I feel the way I do, on the outside I look blessed, well I am blessed. Nonetheless, I'm trying to pull myself up, read the Bible even when I feel nothing and keep praying. I've been asking God for some energy, I just want to be able to cry out to God, but I can't even seem to do that right now. I think the weather and the holidays are making things worse for me as well, along with the fact that a VERY close family member died around the holidays last year.
I've been reading this thread and the frustrated Christian thread and it has helped. I need to reevaluate and realize that just because I have expected my life to be a certain way, it doesn't mean that its God's will for me to have this and that. For the past year or two, I have really been relinquishing this entitlement attitude that I didn't realize I had...like questioning God on things...like God why me? Why am I going through this? I feel like God has been teaching me and asking why not? Like I don't understand why I've been wired to think that I shouldn't have to go through this or that...when I surrendered to His will struggle was sure to go along with it, I just didn't know the extent at the time. I know my struggle is going to be for His glory and Ill come out with a greater testimony and greater victory in the end. I'm just not feeling it right now...To be honest and simple, I just want to get out of the valley for once. To stop being in a constant state of struggle, adversity...
When I was really into the Word daily and following the guidance of the Holy Spirit hour by hour I would ask God to give me an opportunity to minister to someone. One day a guy who was an acquaintance came up to me and asked me to talk to him about Jesus and that he wanted to meet me for lunch because he felt like I would have something substantial to say....what? I was SO nervous. I went home, prayed and asked God to give me the right things to say. When we met for lunch, he told me some horrible, horrible things that happened in his life that were very private and desperately wanted God to help him. I started telling him different Bible stories about how David and other men had been through things that he had been through but came out on top, as well as some of my wilderness experience that had occurred in the same time frame as his. So many scriptures were flying out of my mouth...scriptures I didn't even know I had memorized. I told him about forgiveness, salvation, everything I could think of. We sat and talked for about an hour and there was no silence. The night before I was so scared that it would be awkward and silent, but he was asking so many questions and I had Biblical answers that made him want to know more about God! He said that I had really blessed him and given him hope and some things to meditate on, and he said he was going to find his Bible and start reading some of the things I had told him about (he was raised Christian but said he didn't know much about what the Bible said). I went home and cried because I knew that without some of the experiences I had been through and staying in the Word I would not have been able to let God use me...that wilderness experience I had been through may have been to help him on that day and time, but at the time I had no idea that I would use what I had been through to help him (2 years later!)
But thanks everyone ...I've been a chronic lurker and you all are really blessing me by being open and sharing your stories.