I understand regrets. I feel as though I squandered my life because I did not listen to God. I felt that I knew better. Oh how wrong I was.
I did not understand the concept of marriage from God’s perspective, so I believe that He allowed me to do everything wrong to show me my error. As a teenager, I had premarital sex thinking that I could become closer to my girlfriend, but it drove us apart and I was heart broken.
My first wife never wanted children, but we thought that we were in love, but sex itself is not a basis for love so we divorced after 5 years. I got married again at 28, but had sex and lived together prior to marriage and used contraceptives for the first four years of our marriage. It had us married on paper, but we did not have a bond of mutual self giving, so we simply coexisted for 20 years. Married at 28, divorce finalized when I was 49. I had two children which my wife had alienated from me both within and after the marriage. My third wife and I had been together over 12 years and I am now 60.
God has shown me two things, one is His incredible mercy, as I should have been condemned long ago for my sin and have no right to even think of considering myself Christian .
The other is that He has shown me why I have failed, how sin clouded my thinking and caused misery both in myself and those around me.
My wife was raised seventh day Adventist and was baptized but is non-practicing. We have a daughter who is now eight years old that was born from donor eggs and IVF. Yes I know that is against Catholic teaching
She is the sweetest girl. My wife and I have had conflicts, and you can imagine that she is not happy that I am Catholic. We have both been married twice before, but she had no children due to infertility. She is not Catholic and I had to plead with her to go through the annulment process, so that I could be restored to the Church. She agreed and allowed me to have my daughter baptized in the Catholic Church, but I am practicing Catholic on my own and my wife and daughter abstain. My previous marriages were annulled, and my seventh Day Adventist wife had her two previous marriages annulled in the Catholic Church. She did not want to renew our vows in the Catholic Church, but my Bishop gave me what is called a Radical Sanation, which means healing in the root. My marriage is now effectively sealed, and I cannot get an annulment even by the Pope. If my wife leaves me, I can never have another wife unless my current wife would die. She had left me for a short time, due to my Catholic faith but sees that I really love her so she came home. She will attend Mass with me on Christmas but the rest of the year her and my daughter stay home.
It was when I had all of our marriages annulled and I submitted to the authority of the Church, that my sin was taken away and I saw clearly what I had done. I have regrets, but I do not despair. All I have, I place in God’s hands. I now know that His commands alone are right, and I whole heartedly submit.
What I have learned is that we spend too much time trying to avoid suffering. As Christians, we are called to take up our cross and deny ourselves.
Look at His commands, love your enemies and do good to those that persecute you. Turn the other cheek, walk two miles instead of one, give your hat and coat with the shirt off your back.
Why does he say this? Look at what He has done for us. Every mockery, every slap across the face, every drop of spittle, every blow of the whip, every nail, and hours of agony on the cross was unjust. Our Lord did nothing wrong and spoke no falsehood, yet received the death penalty.
Atheists love to ask, if there is a God, then why is there so much suffering in the world? Because suffering willingly, with patience, gives us the chance to imitate God. Our Lord suffered and died for us, do we just watch it happen and live an easy life? Does that honor God, or obey His commands?
Consider the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Our Lord does not say that the rich man was wicked, yet His life had no suffering, and he wound up in flames. Lazarus suffered continuously and he wound up in the bosom of Abraham. Who would you rather be?
Now is the best time to have children to honor God. I appreciate your thoughts and it sounds good to avoid suffering, but Paul tells us that our life is hard, and the only reason we do it, is for Our Lord, as he says, if Christ be not raised, we are among men most miserable. Who wants misery? No one, but a Christian gladly endures it, keeping our eye on the prize.
I pray the stations of the Cross to focus my mind on the suffering of Our Lord and to thank Him for it. I pray the Rosary, not because repetitive prayer gets God to hear me, but to discipline my mind and body to focus on the mysteries of our redemption
God does love you, but avoiding suffering shows that our thinking is off. Paul says be not conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind
You're more of an Adventist than you know. Did you know that the concepts of sin, forgiveness, suffering for God's sake. etc... are all taught by Ellen White? Plus she teaches righteousness by faith. It is a very precious truth. John 17 teaches it from beginning to end, It is knowing God that changes us.
Here's a quote from her book The Desire of Ages. I find this to be a fantastic promise of God for it is Biblical as demonstrated by John 17: 3.
The Lord is disappointed when His people place a low estimate
upon themselves. He desires His chosen heritage to value themselves
according to the price He has placed upon them. God wanted them,
else He would not have sent His Son on such an expensive errand
to redeem them. He has a use for them, and He is well pleased
when they make the very highest demands upon Him, that they may
glorify His name. They may expect large things if they have faith in
His promises.
But to pray in Christ’s name means much. It means that we are
to accept His character, manifest His spirit, and work His works.
The Saviour’s promise is given on condition. “If ye love Me,” He
says, “keep My commandments.” He saves men, not in sin, but from
sin; and those who love Him will show their love by obedience.
All true obedience comes from the heart. It was heart work with
Christ. And if we consent, He will so identify Himself with our
thoughts and aims, so blend our hearts and minds into conformity to
His will, that when obeying Him we shall be but carrying out our
own impulses. The will, refined and sanctified, will find its highest
delight in doing His service. When we know God as it is our privilege
to know Him, our life will be a life of continual obedience. Through
an appreciation of the character of Christ, through communion with
God, sin will become hateful to us.
As Christ lived the law in humanity, so we may do if we will
take hold of the Strong for strength. But we are not to place the
responsibility of our duty upon others, and wait for them to tell us
what to do. We cannot depend for counsel upon humanity. The Lord
will teach us our duty just as willingly as He will teach somebody
else. If we come to Him in faith, He will speak His mysteries to us
personally. Our hearts will often burn within us as One draws nigh
to commune with us as He did with Enoch. Those who decide to
do nothing in any line that will displease God, will know, after pre-
senting their case before Him, just what course to pursue.
The quote comes from a chapter titled Let Not your Heart be Troubled from the words of Jesus.
John 14: 1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
Don't let your heart be troubled. Just don't allow it to happen. Keep your eyes upon Jesus and don't let the devil distract you from Him and you will always have the peace Jesus promised us.
John 14: 27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
The promises of Jesus are extremely powerful as are all Biblical promises. Two of my favorites are Ezekiel 36: 25-27 and 1Corinthians 1: 30. To have God's wisdom is an incredible promise. And to have him cleanse us from all our idols so that we can walk in His statutes and judgments and do them is incredible.
I grew up in a Adventist, but not a Christian home. I wanted to be a singing evangelist from the time I was small. But sin got in the way, Yet God has worked miracle after miracle in my life. My guardian angel has spoken to me twice in attempts to save my life and twice literally saved it. But even then I have still been rebellious. It seems to me that there has been an intense spiritual warfare around me.
I was foolish enough to tell the devil once that I was his if he would do something for me. I was rebaptised into the SDA church in the 70s. The very day I was rebaptised I started having these headaches that were so intense that taking codeine was like peeing on forest fire. My right eye would turn blood red and stream water. The pain was so intense I would literally beat my head against the wall. The next day the right side pf my head would feel like someone had beaten my head with a baseball bat. I suffered with those for 20 years every fall and spring.
Here's a story I wrote 20+ years ago about another experience of mine.
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
.
The moon rose on the snow covered landscape flooding my world with
bright moonlight. I finished my reading for the evening, turned the Iight off, and
leaned back against the couch thinking while I watched the scattered clouds drift
by under the full moon. The clouds made moving patches of darkness across an
otherwise brilliantly white landscape, as they slid under the moon.
My mind wandered back to a few weeks before when I had been baptized
and committed my life to Christ. I relived again that wonderful feeling I
experienced as I came up out of the watery grave of baptism into a new life. I
had never before known the peace and happiness in my life that I had
experienced since I had met Jesus and committed my life to Him. My days and
nights were spent in prayer, praise, and study of the Word of God. The
depression I had known for years seemed to have vanished into thin air.
As I lay there counting my blessings, my heart overflowed with gratitude
towards my Creator. He had rescued me from the life of self-destruction that I
had led since t graduated from high school. Because of this I could relate to the
words of David very well, when he said, "He brought me up out of an horrible pit,
out of the miry clay, set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings." Psalm
4O:2. I felt Iike nothing that I could offer Him was good enough, for my life up till
then had been one great failure.
I came out of my reverie, thanked God once again for my new life, and
looked back out the window at the magnificent view that I felt God had provided
just for me that night.
Suddenly, t was not where I had been the moment before. I was no
longer looking out the picture window of my parent's living room at Montana's
Yaak River Valley.
I was now standing in a large room with no windows. The building was a
large one of log construction, and at one end of the room was a Iarge, river-rock
fireplace with mantel and hearth. A large fire burned in the fireplace and there
was someone standing in front of the fireplace, back towards me, looking into the
fire. A large, very long table capable of seating maybe a hundred people filled
most of the room. I stood at one end of the table, facing down its length, to the
person in front of fireplace at the opposite end. On either side of the table were
people facing away from me wearing !ong, black, hooded robes, and I slowly
became aware of the sounds of chanting coming from the hooded figures.
I stood wondering where I was, but for some reason feeling no fear, even
though I had never experienced anything like this before. I looked back down to
the other end of the long table, and the person standing there slowly turned
around and walked up to his end of the table without looking up at me. I couldn't
see his face because this person too was wearing a hood, and the light coming
from the fire behind him was only light source in the room. He Iooked up when
he got to the end of the table, threw the hood back and then ! could see his face
and eyes. He locked eyes with me, raised his arm, and pointing at me began to
beckon with his index finger.
"You're mine, you're mine, you're mine," he said, still beckoning me
towards him with his index finger. Slowly I began to float down the length of that
massive table. His eyes were locked on mine and I could not tear mine away.
He seemed to be willing me on down the table, causing me to come ever closer
to him.
I had come to within a couple of inches of his face and felt I was about to
be sucked right into him, when the realization struck me who this was. This was
a one-way trip from which I was never to return. The devil had come to try take
over my mind.
Suddenly the spellwas broken as I realized all this and my hearts cry
burst out of my lips. "No!" was all I could scream, but it was enough.
lwas once again lying on the couch in my parent's home in Yaak,
Montana. The goose bumps stood out all over me and my heart was beating like
a jackhammer on steroids. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood
on end. I knew fear as I had never known it before, and have never known it like
that since
I rolled over on the couch and began to pray, but as I did a scene from my
past came before me with lifelike clarity. I remembered telling the devil I was his.
A long forgotten deed had come back to haunt me.
I had been willing to squander my soul for a momentary pleasure, and
thus had come to the point of telling the devil I was his. I had made a bargain
with the devil and now he had come to claim what was rightfully his.
With desperation I began to pray again. I told the Lord that I knew I had
done this. I told Him I had gotten into this through my own stupidity, and I
confessed just how wrong I had been and told God that I was in over my head. I
told Him I had no chance to win fighting with the devil, and with that I began to
claim the promises I had learned in the Bible. I claimed the promise of 2nd
Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for thee, my strength is made perfect in
weakness." I claimed Psalm 91:11, "For He shall give his angels charge over
thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." I claimed the promise that ma,il. extremity is
God's opportunity and every other promise that I could think of. I prayed as
Jacob must have prayed at the Brook Jabbok the night he thought he was
wrestling for his life with his brother Esau.
As I prayed and claimed the promises of God I could feel the struggle in
the room. There was an actual physical struggle in that room that night for I
could feelwingtips brush against my back as I Iay face down and prayed for help.
I would feelwarm ones and cold ones, sometimes lightly brushing against me
and sometimes forcefully hitting me. I don't know how long I prayed. lt might
have been hours, or it might have been only a few minutes. Ijust do not know.
All I know is I have never been so afraid.
Finally the struggle was over, and a warmth and peace filled that living
room that I have not the words to describe. I lay there and told God how thankful
I was for His loving care and slowly drifted off to sleep. I was at peace, and my
heart was filled with gratitude.
Do I believe in angels? Oh yes, definitely yes. ls God real? Oh yes,
definitely yes.
When I am told that the Bible is just my "guide" and that I should not take it
literally, I know different. When I am told that the Bible does not apply today, I
know different. The promises of God's Word are as true today as they were the
day they were given. When He says, "Come now, and let us reason together,
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red
like crimson, they shall be as woo)" believe Him. He has always kept His word
with me, and He wi!!with you too.
This has been a more than long enough post so I'll stop here. If you like I'll tell you more about my life later,