I was also raised Catholic and never felt accepted by the God I was raised to believe in in Catholicism.
It wasn’t until I hit rock bottom that I finally started talking to God. Nothing fancy, just talking, like I would with a friend.
In a moment of despair, I turned my life over to God. I told Him that if He could straighten out this mess of a life of mine, He could have it. I’d do anything He wanted, even become a missionary and go to Africa, (the most desperate thing I could think of), because I’d rather be happy doing what He wanted me to do than to keep on going the way I was.
He took me up on it.
God doesn’t want you to perform. It’s not a matter of being *good enough* because nobody can. He wants a relationship with you. He doesn’t need you to do anything for Him. He’s God.
But He wants your heart. You don’t need to be perfect and you never will be and He knows that and He’s OK with that.
It hasn’t always been easy. God never promised us the health, wealth, and prosperity that some who call themselves Christian claim, but He does promise us eternal life with Him and to be with us and lead and strengthen us.
I don’t know that I will ever be able to eat most food again, but what He has done in me through this affliction, was worth the cost.
Like Job came to say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.". What greater testimony to the lost than for a believer to get to that level of spiritual maturity! The lost world looks at suffering Christians and, like Job's unfaithful friends, say, "Why don't you just curse God and die!?". They marvel that we can still praise God even in the midst of suffering, but that is one of the purposes of the stuff He allows into ours lives - that ONLY a genuine faith in a genuine God can carry someone through it. It proves that there is a there there! It cannot be faked.
Preach it, sister! : D ; )
Funny how that works, ain't it? Ya go in sayin, "God, I really need this thing fixed... It is so bad!" But when you get your answer, you find out the thing you wanted fixed was not the important part at all! There is such grace from God when we are weak! Such opportunity for praise! That is precisely what FReeper marysecretary (RIP) taught me, in the darkest hours. What a revelation!
'Fix me so I can get on by myself' is *not* the right prayer.