help and advice much appreciated pkease.

[waitingtobeamummy]

I have been in the situation I am for the past 6months I think although it did happen gradually.
My mom is a devout catholic and my dad is an athuest. My moms family are very religious but I was allowed to form ny own opinions/didn't go to religious schools etc.
I grew up very spiritual, strong belief in god, not a strict religion as such but I believed in heaven etc.

Over the past 6 months though I feel my spirituality has gone. I'm infertile, having fertility treatment but nothings happening. My friend had twins through ivf and they both just died suddenly. My best friends husband has a terminal brain tumour. My dad is crippled.

I've had wobbles before but I cannot believe that a loving god would let this happy. I have explored the benevolent god theory, free will etc but I cannot believe in it.

I desperately want to have my faith back, I cannot see a life with no belief but I am struggling to be able too. Any ideas what I can do/read etc to help myself?

Sister Wendy Becket's book on prayer. It's absolutely amazing and she addresses difficult questions such as why God allows bad things to happen. I found it very moving. Sorry you've had such a run of awful things happen.

Maybe post it again on the prayer thread. There are some amazing ladies on there who have had tough times and have come through.
Sometimes there just aren't any answers and I feel sad that you are in such a hard place.

How awful. That's a lot of bad news in one go. There's a book by a guy called Philip Yancey who happens to be my fave author, called Where is God when it hurts. He was offering a kindle version free on amazon not long ago to help people think through what happened with that school shooting in America. Worth a look.

Why do you feel such a strong need to return to believing in something that no longer makes any sense for you? It is perfectly possible to live a happy life with a sense of spiritual fulfilment, a wonder of the universe, hope for the future and a sense of connection to and care for all people without having to shoehorn those feelings into a belief in a deity.

Maybe if you spend some time carefully examining your own feelings about what makes a belief in god important to you, you will find what is currently missing for you. That will either lead you back to a belief in god or to something new that makes better sense for you. This is all about your internal journey to making sense of the world.

Read some books on philosophy, views from other religions, some bits from Buddhist teaching, and the understanding you seek will grow. There is unfortunately no quick fix, no way of hooking up to an IV drip of 'god' - whatever understanding you come to will be entirely of your own making.

Good luck- I'm sorry that you are going through such a tough time at the moment, and I hope that things will start to become more positive for you soon.

But that's the thing thistle I have no hope for te future, or spiritual fulfilment. It used to be there and now it's gone and that is what I am searching for to come back. I used to feel passionate about any religion, I loved the feeling of awe going to religious buildings whether it was Christian, Muslim, Sikh etc, but now I feel nothing. I want that feeling of belonging to come back, not to a specific religion but to a belief of some kind because without it I feel I'm a harsher person.
Thank you Jayne, i will have a look at the books and dutch, I will repost too.

Hi waiting

What I am trying to say is that it is completely understandable that you don't currently feel much hope for the future, given what you are going through. You have lost your belief in god because you don't feel hope and fulfilment, not vice versa. You have grown up with a belief system which, when you are at the lowest point in your life doesn't seem to provide a coherent explanation of life for you and hasn't really equipped you to deal with those difficulties in they way you need.

It may be that studying the teachings of other people of your faith may help you return to a feeling of hope and fulfilment, but you may also find what you look for in other belief systems. Either way, when you do return to that feeling it will be through your own work on your internal feelings rather than you finding some way of tapping into any 'higher power' that exists outside of you.

Do you get what I mean? I don't mean to be harsh or to rubbish any beliefs that you have held or do hold, I'm just trying to put across a bit of my own view that has worked for me when I have been through difficulties in the past.

Thank you thistle that makes a lot of sense to me. I really appreciate your advice x