God Is Mean

[CV75]

5 hours ago, Rain said:

I came to the conclusion some time ago that God is not all powerful. The people in the church actually talk about how he isn't all powerful, though they don't say it that way, when they say he can't make us choose the right.

There are so many things we have our children do on their own to help them grow, but there are other things that it would be abuse or neglect if we let our children go through. 

There are just too many things that would be cruel or abusive with God and combined with what I said first about being not all powerful, I think often, he just doesn't have the power, for whatever reason, to stop what is going on.  And I'm ok with that. I'm at peace with it.

I would say He doesn't have the power to stop that which we might find incomprehensibly evil because He gave us that power, our agency. That is an omni-meek and omni-lowly thing to do. This to me highlights His power to give us His Son, an Atoning Savior who is also meek and lowly (and all other things the Father is) and who has the power to introduce and continue that which it i said we shall find incomprehensively good. 

[JVW]

Ok, so there are a ton of really good comments here but I don't exactly have the time to individually respond to them all so hopefully this response will work without quotes.

After my 12 step meeting last night (funnily enough, the 12 steps are all about learning to humbly trust God) I chatted with the missionaries for a little bit about my current wrestle. They gave me two invitations and I'm going to follow them because I believe in the missionaries calling. One was to read a talk from Elder Holland from 1999 entitled "The High Priest of Good Things To Come" and the other was to study about faith. I haven't done either of those yet, but I had work today. Anyways, as I was speaking and crystallizing my thoughts I said something to this effect,

"I am willing to give up most of everything I have. I can't say all because if God has in His plan that if I follow Him then He will cause death or intense suffering of some of my immediate family, but if I don't follow Him then He will leave them alone and let them live long and healthy lives, then I don't know that I'd have the strength to deal with that."

Upon further reflection, I think I need to be honest with myself and really consider how much am I willing to give up, or humbly allow God to take away from my life as He chooses the most "loving" way to scourge, inflict, and give me the poisoned cup. I am fine if I lost my health, house, job, career, reputation, money, stability, etc. But I don't know if I could handle losing a child as a consequence of following him, or losing my wife.

It is possible that He would not require anything like that of me, period. It's also possible that He wouldn't require anything like that of me until He built me up enough to bear it (a la Chris Williams who lost his pregnant wife and two children in a drunk driving accident). And it's also possible that something like that will happen regardless of my choice to choose God, and that I could be shooting myself in the foot by not following Him now in order to prepare for such an event.

Regardless of the unknown future, the mysteries of God, and how unknowable His mind is, if I am not willing to give up everything for Him now, I don't know if my mind would change in the future. I am still studying and pondering about this. I am very glad that God is communicating with me very clearly about the gravity of the situation, and the magnitude of the decision I'm making now, because if I choose to go all in, then I'm going to go all in and I'm sure God will have all sorts of delightful ways to break my heart and bring me into the depths of sorrow as He purifies my soul. Lord knows I need a lot of purification after the kind of life I've lived!

Regarding my baby... that moment at 4AM was just the straw that broke the camel's back. After she went back to sleep and I went back to sleep, when I woke up I was back to normal. I do believe that God knows best. But that doesn't mean that He hasn't hurt my feelings. As I'm sure many of you have, I have endured many terrible and damaging things in my walk with God, and I know for a fact that many of those things can correlate directly to my belief in God. Having a beautiful baby girl and not getting enough sleep is not one of those horrible and damaging events in my life, but the situation felt like a nice little middle finger from God, that's all.

[CV75]

14 minutes ago, Chum said:

Regarding the relationship between God and his children, the most telling example I know was provided to me by sister Eliza G.

She and her husband Steve had a profoundly developmentally disabled daughter. Katy was extremely difficult; she was often destructive and lashed out regularly. 
After months of ceaseless exhaustion, Eliza had a night out while Steve watched Katy. He settled Katy down for the night so he can study & prep. Shortly thereafter, there's a pungent odor.  Katy has painted her room in feces, corner to corner.

Steve gets Katy cleaned up. He gets her room cleaned up.  He gets her down and goes back to study.  After a bit, it's the same odor, the same cause and the same cleanup. This repeats twice more. Eliza gets home well after midnight and Steve is practically numb.  And while this night was tougher than most, it wasn't an outlier. 

Steve and Eliza had been trying for years to get Katy placed in a group home but they didn't have the resources to pay for it out of pocket. The state had some assistance available (back then) but there was a lot of need and the waiting lists were long.

That night, Eliza led their prayer and she'd had enough. She knew she was a good wife and mother and daughter of God. Because she was. She made it clear to the Lord that she and Steve had fulfilled their roles and that now was the time for the Lord to step in. She delivered this to the Lord as unwavering statement of fact.

I believe Eliza was exercising authority as a wife and mother and that her certain clarity came from that. That's my personal take.

Regardless, with zero advance warning, social services visited their home at 8am the following morning. Placement for Katy followed soon afterward. 

So there's that story. 

Late in life I noticed some things.  There's what God responds to.  There's my obedience to teachings.  I found they're not overlapping like I thought they would. 

My personal take is threefold: 1) Eliza demonstrated the juncture where faith becomes knowledge and spoke accordingly with both; 2) we may call this moral authority but that means different things to different people so I prefer to call it revelation or testimony, where in 1 Nephi 10:22, Nephi in reference to his testimony said, "the Holy Ghost giveth authority that I should speak these things, and deny them not."

[JVW]

20 hours ago, Okrahomer said:

The Lesson

Yes, my fretting, frowning child,

I could cross the room to you more easily.

But I’ve already learned to walk,

So I make you come to me.

Let go now — there! You see?

Oh, remember this simple lesson, child.

And when in later years you cry out

With tight fists and tears —

“Oh, help me, God — please.” —

Just listen and you’ll hear a silent voice:

“I would, child, I would.

But it’s you, not I,

who needs to try Godhood.”

—The Lesson, by Carol Lynn Pearson, in her book of poetry entitled “Beginnings”

I thought you might like this. I copy and pasted this poem and sent it to my wife asking her, "What do you think of this poem". Her response was "That's crap", "Makes me want to punch her".

[ZealouslyStriving]

46 minutes ago, JVW said:

Shut up.

Edit:

That is literally the only comment I made in this thread simply pointing out that the Psalmist wrestled with the same questions, and that is your response??

Edited August 22, 2025 by ZealouslyStriving

[Tacenda]

26 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Edit:

That is literally the only comment I made in this thread simply pointing out that the Psalmist wrestled with the same questions, and that is your response??

Maybe, just maybe, he mean't like the expression when you're excited about something or mystified I don't know but sort of like this: 

• Meaning:

  .

  In slang, "shut up" is sometimes used to express amazement or disbelief at something someone has said.

[ZealouslyStriving]

1 minute ago, Tacenda said:

Maybe, just maybe, he mean't like the expression when you're excited about something or mystified I don't know but sort of like this: 

• Meaning:

  .

  In slang, "shut up" is sometimes used to express amazement or disbelief at something someone has said.

Maybe

[teddyaware]

On 8/21/2025 at 2:58 PM, JVW said:

Hi everyone. I haven't been around lately because I was getting to distracted from working and had the network admin block the site from my work computer. Anyways ... onto the discussion topic.

Several nights ago I was woken by my crying 6 month old at 4 AM. My wife had a migraine and I really wanted to get her back to sleep quickly because of how exhausted I was. Nothing I was trying was working so I said a sincere prayer asking God to just help her fall back to sleep. His response was, "No". His response kind of broke me a little. I got really angry with God because I rarely ask Him for anything and I've recently decided to start a path to return to the temple as I strive to get a good relationship with Him again.

As I've reflected on my walk with God, it's ups and downs since I met Him in my early twenties, I've come to realize something. The more effort I make to get close to God, the more mean He is to me. I was reminded of this verse in the Book of Mormon (Mosiah 3:19), "...willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to INFLICT upon him..."

I decided to express my anger to God and study the scriptures to see if He'd communicate anything to me, and He did. Right after the garden suffering, when Jesus is being arrested ... John 18:11, "Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Jesus was sinless, blameless, compassionate, and loving. And God gave Him a cup filled to the brim with the most potent poison. Talk about being mean! If I am trying to follow Jesus, of course I should be expected to drink a similar cup, with poison tailored for me.

So here is my question. Do I really want to walk the path of Christianity if God is going to treat me like this if I intentionally choose to follow Him? What are the pro's and con's? I know that life will involve suffering whether or not I choose to follow Jesus, but why would I want to experience additional God-given suffering when I could just ignore God and deal with regular stuff instead? Hopefully this post makes sense and I look forward to learning from y'all about this topic.

From a scriptural point of view, the answer to your question is so basic and fundamental to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and God’s plan of salvation, that asking others to answer a question that you could very easily answer yourself, with minimal effort, causes me to think that your question is actually a thinly disguised act of mockery of the sacred. If you can’t get the answer to your question by humbly pondering the sacred suffering and atoning sorrows of the now glorified and enthroned Jesus Christ, the chitchat answers you’ll get on this board aren’t going to even come close to helping you solve your conundrum.

[let’s roll]

On 8/21/2025 at 1:33 PM, JVW said:

The crying baby story was the context. I don't have any issues currently with my crying baby or being woken up in the middle of the night. It was just that one particular moment for some reason. I don't want to talk about crying babies in this thread. My thread wasn't entitle "Crying Babies" it was called "God is Mean". I want to hear from you about that.

God is love.

 I don’t always get what I want.  And I have plenty of experience getting things I didn’t ask for and don’t believe I’m ready for.  Nevertheless, when I’ve been humble enough to ask for Divine love, wasn’t too angry and too proud to receive it, and tried to lift, comfort and point to Him those around me who were similarly struggling, suffering and confused, I’ve felt that love and have been able to ask Him to abide with, and enlighten me, as I work through my troubled spirit and circumstances.

Edited August 22, 2025 by let’s roll

[Calm]

5 hours ago, JVW said:

I thought you might like this. I copy and pasted this poem and sent it to my wife asking her, "What do you think of this poem". Her response was "That's crap", "Makes me want to punch her".

Lol, that’s my reaction to such poems too. It feels emotionally manipulative to me…Personal taste, I know there are people who don’t experience it that way. 
 

Footprints in the Sand is like listening to fingernails on the chalkboard for me.  I prefer Buttprints in the Sand.

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Lol, that’s my reaction to such poems too. It feels emotionally manipulative to me…Personal taste, I know there are people who don’t experience it that way. 
 

Footprints in the Sand is like listening to fingernails on the chalkboard for me.  I prefer Buttprints in the Sand.

 

[Okrahomer]

6 hours ago, JVW said:

I thought you might like this. I copy and pasted this poem and sent it to my wife asking her, "What do you think of this poem". Her response was "That's crap", "Makes me want to punch her".

I get it.  Apologies for triggering.

[manol]

In the context of this thread I can only speak for myself... I've “been there” to some extent, and survived. But I cannot begin to truly understand the complete context of what another person is going through. So this will be just a few observations about myself; whether there will be any utility for someone else, I don't know:

I have observed that dwelling on grievances never brings me happiness, and it doesn't matter how big or small they are, nor how “justified” they are. They offer me nothing I really want.

I have observed that the lens I look through changes what I see. And I have observed that I have the ability to significantly alter that lens by deliberate, focused, sustained, and yet inevitably imperfect effort to align my thoughts with the highest that I know of.

Elder Uchtdorf put it this way: “Jesus taught, ‘Seek, and ye shall find.’ I believe this simple phrase is not only a spiritual promise; it is a statement of fact. If we seek reasons to be angry, to doubt, to be bitter or alone, we will find them too. However, if we seek joy—if we look for reasons to rejoice and to happily follow the Savior, we will find them. We rarely find something we are not looking for.”

To those of you who have expressed the pain in your heart in this thread, and to those of you who haven't, with all my heart I wish you that peace which surpasses all understanding. And I do so with confidence, although I don't know what the timeline will be nor what your road looks like.

 

Edited August 24, 2025 by manol

[JVW]

On 8/22/2025 at 6:49 PM, ZealouslyStriving said:

Edit:

That is literally the only comment I made in this thread simply pointing out that the Psalmist wrestled with the same questions, and that is your response??

The correct response here would have been, "No, you shut up!" I didn't mean anything by it. I like you and your posts. Have a good day brother.

[JVW]

On 8/23/2025 at 1:34 AM, Okrahomer said:

I get it.  Apologies for triggering.

No apology necessary. I guess my wife isn't one for poetry. Her response made me chuckle a little. I thought your poem was nice.

[JVW]

On 8/22/2025 at 7:38 PM, let’s roll said:

God is love.

 I don’t always get what I want.  And I have plenty of experience getting things I didn’t ask for and don’t believe I’m ready for.  Nevertheless, when I’ve been humble enough to ask for Divine love, wasn’t too angry and too proud to receive it, and tried to lift, comfort and point to Him those around me who were similarly struggling, suffering and confused, I’ve felt that love and have been able to ask Him to abide with, and enlighten me, as I work through my troubled spirit and circumstances.

God is love. That is the one thing I do know about His character. And now I'm learning that being mean can be the most loving thing to do sometimes, because God does it. In fact, I was just reading this morning in the Book of Mormon, God is speaking here in 3rd Nephi 9 (pick a verse at random from the chapter), "And behold, that great city Jacobugath, ... have I caused to be burned with fire because of their sins and their wickedness, ... therefore I did cause them to be burned, to destroy them from before my face ..." That's kind of mean. I mean, if I did that to a city I'd be going to prison, just saying... But God is love, and destroying that city was the most loving thing God could do to that city at that time.

To be clear, I am not making a joke here, or light of the situation. I believe everything that I wrote in this response. The more studying I'm doing, the more verses I am becoming aware of that indicate how mean God can be. It is not a difficult position to defend. And yet, I -know- that God is love. More surely than I know that I am currently alive and not dreaming. More surely than I know that God is the God of Israel.  So the only way I can reconcile this behavior is either: Being mean can be the most loving thing that God can do at certain times OR the scriptures are lying and God is never mean and I need to find a different religion and holy text to study.

[JVW]

On 8/22/2025 at 7:20 PM, teddyaware said:

From a scriptural point of view, the answer to your question is so basic and fundamental to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and God’s plan of salvation, that asking others to answer a question that you could very easily answer yourself, with minimal effort, causes me to think that your question is actually a thinly disguised act of mockery of the sacred. If you can’t get the answer to your question by humbly pondering the sacred suffering and atoning sorrows of the now glorified and enthroned Jesus Christ, the chitchat answers you’ll get on this board aren’t going to even come close to helping you solve your conundrum.

Respectfully, you can be a real prick sometimes.

Did you ever consider that maybe I'm an idiot and the way that I learn best is by trying to communicate with others what's on my mind and in my heart? When I have a problem I like to go to others for advice, and when I started to have this wrestle a few weeks ago and started wondering, "Who can I talk to about this? Where could I find the best advice on what to study, or how I could improve my perspective on this issue?" A little message board I hadn't visited in 6 months popped up in my memory.

Maybe the question can be easily answered with minimal effort ... by you. If it was that easy for me I wouldn't have spent hours starting this thread and engaging with people in it. Talk about a lot of wasted effort!

If the answer is so easy, then perhaps you would care to enlighten me? I may be a lot of things, but I don't believe that I've ever treated lightly the opinions shared by others on this message board. I understand there are some things that only God can reveal to me, in my heart. And I'm working on communicating with Him right now. Chatting with the board is just to help me maintain my sanity, gain greater understanding, and aid in my focus on the problem, until God decides to speak with me about it. Typically I expect a resolution to an issue of this magnitude in around 2 years. But I'm honestly feeling like I will be getting an answer within the next 1-4 weeks if I continue to put in the effort to find it. Please bear with me in the meantime, brother.

[ZealouslyStriving]

18 minutes ago, JVW said:

The correct response here would have been, "No, you shut up!" I didn't mean anything by it. I like you and your posts. Have a good day brother.

🫣 My bad. Written communication is super fun sometimes!

You have a good day also.

[JVW]

On 8/23/2025 at 4:03 PM, manol said:

In the context of this thread I can only speak for myself... I've “been there” to some extent, and survived. But I cannot begin to truly understand the complete context of what another person is going through. So this will be just a few observations about myself; whether there will be any utility for someone else, I don't know:

I have observed that dwelling on grievances never brings me happiness, and it doesn't matter how big or small they are, nor how “justified” they are. They offer me nothing I really want.

I have observed that the lens I look through changes what I see. And I have observed that I have the ability to significantly alter that lens by deliberate, focused, sustained, and yet inevitably imperfect effort to align my thoughts with the highest that I know of.

Elder Uchtdorf put it this way: “Jesus taught, ‘Seek, and ye shall find.’ I believe this simple phrase is not only a spiritual promise; it is a statement of fact. If we seek reasons to be angry, to doubt, to be bitter or alone, we will find them too. However, if we seek joy—if we look for reasons to rejoice and to happily follow the Savior, we will find them. We rarely find something we are not looking for.”

To those of you who have expressed the pain in your heart in this thread, and to those of you who haven't, with all my heart I wish you that peace which surpasses all understanding. And I do so with confidence, although I don't know what the timeline will be nor what your road looks like.

 

In the last 12 step meeting I attended (this past Saturday) we read from the book about betrayal trauma. What the spouse of an addict goes through, how they emotionally respond, signs that indicate they are experiencing trauma from the betrayal of their addicted spouse. But a funny thing happened while we were reading about it. Everything we were reading I identified with! Even though I'm the addict, I found myself identifying more with the one who was betrayed than the betrayer. It was so strange. As I reflected on why that may be, of course I thought about the times when I felt like God stabbed me in the back. (I now know that He wasn't betraying me, He was pruning me. But getting cut down to a stump hurts like the ****ens, and I do still feel some trauma from that.) But I also realized that in my youth and childhood that my parents betrayed me in very serious ways, and while they never drank or did drugs, I can see how each of them were addicted to different, serious things that impacted me and my siblings growing up.

In any event, right now I am not going through any serious trials. My life is really good. I have a healthy, happy family. A good job. A good church. Some pets. Some friends. I am just worried about what God might do if I decide to commit fully to Him.

One of my favorite General Conference talks of all time is "The Divine Gift of Gratitude" by Thomas S. Monson. Here's a brief quote from the talk.
 

Quote

[Regarding the story of Jesus feeding the multitude in Matthew 15] ... Like many of us, the disciples saw only what was lacking. "And Jesus saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven, and a few little fishes. And He ... took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them ...

Notice that the Savior gave thanks for what they had--and a miracle followed. We have all experienced times when our focus is on what we lack rather than on our blessings. Said the Greek philosopher Epictetus, "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."

 

[Rain]

1 hour ago, JVW said:

Respectfully, you can be a real prick sometimes.

Did you ever consider that maybe I'm an idiot and the way that I learn best is by trying to communicate with others what's on my mind and in my heart? When I have a problem I like to go to others for advice, and when I started to have this wrestle a few weeks ago and started wondering, "Who can I talk to about this? Where could I find the best advice on what to study, or how I could improve my perspective on this issue?" A little message board I hadn't visited in 6 months popped up in my memory.

Maybe the question can be easily answered with minimal effort ... by you. If it was that easy for me I wouldn't have spent hours starting this thread and engaging with people in it. Talk about a lot of wasted effort!

If the answer is so easy, then perhaps you would care to enlighten me? I may be a lot of things, but I don't believe that I've ever treated lightly the opinions shared by others on this message board. I understand there are some things that only God can reveal to me, in my heart. And I'm working on communicating with Him right now. Chatting with the board is just to help me maintain my sanity, gain greater understanding, and aid in my focus on the problem, until God decides to speak with me about it. Typically I expect a resolution to an issue of this magnitude in around 2 years. But I'm honestly feeling like I will be getting an answer within the next 1-4 weeks if I continue to put in the effort to find it. Please bear with me in the meantime, brother.

You say things I disgree with sometimes and I always appreciate when I post those disagreements that you listen to what I have to say and try to understand where I'm coming from.  What I have to say may not change your mind and probably rarely does, but at least I know you actually listened.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, JVW said:

n any event, right now I am not going through any serious trials. My life is really good. I have a healthy, happy family. A good job. A good church. Some pets. Some friends. I am just worried about what God might do if I decide to commit fully to Him.

This may relate to your life or be completely off track since I don’t know much about your internal life and only have my own experience and watching others around me with my own biases to use here really….

It can be pretty natural if you have had traumas in your life from what I have seen and studied to always be feeling like there is another crisis just around the corner.  And while it doesn’t impart a great sense of control, some of us still attempt to feel like we have some control by figuring out how to anticipate them by assigning reasons to why we are going to get slammed again.  

My reason for anticipating the next doom to descend is pretty nonsensical, but it still is embedded in my head….my body is out to get me, sabotaging my efforts to live a useful life (too many times something like a tooth getting chipped or vertigo hitting happens just as I feel I have reached some sort of breakthrough).

I am not saying you are wrong about anticipating things will get harder for you if you commit fuller to God.  They may. The scriptures and conference are not exactly full of stories of life getting easier with greater commitment (though sometimes we hear tithing stories that come across that way imo), so your anticipation is reasonable in our belief system (where mine is not).  But they also may not.  Christ said his yoke was easy and that can be translated into life in multiple ways…an actual easier life (I have seen this on occasion), a sense of peace overall so one’s responses are less hard on one’s self (this seems most common), greater insight into how to respond, and probably others I haven’t had the chance to notice yet.  Therefore, you might want to consider maybe your assumption that troubles will come is not inspired by the Spirit, but by old patterns of trauma in your brain.  And even if they do come, you may be able to handle them because you have new ways of looking at life through your working to gain a greater connection with God.  So whether it’s a new way of feeling or a new way of addressing issues, they just may no longer be as traumatic as they could have been.  

Since that is a possibility, maybe spending less of your mental and emotional energy on anticipating troubles to come isn’t the most helpful approach.  Though since you seem to process thought through talking to others, maybe this is your actual intent here…being open about your worries and fears here is your way of processing those emotions so you can put them aside and stop investing resources into them, resources you will then be able to use elsewhere for actually improving your life.

But if that isn’t your intent, maybe thinking about trying that way out, that it could help lighten your burden of worry a bit if you reframed it that way.  

Life is full of ups and downs naturally for most people, I believe.  Worrying ahead of time may be helpful if you are motivated to prepare for harder times (possible ways to prepare could bebe financially secure as much as possible, don’t let paperwork pile up so you lose track of your situation or have to scramble to find documents, keep up on doctors and dentists’ appointments, prune possessions if needed so you easily keep on top of things on most days and if things go wonky for a bit, it’s relatively easy to get your home back under control when you get a breather), but once you have prepared in reasonable ways, it may be better to step away from anticipation of the negative. This is from an obsessive worrier (me in case it wasn’t obvious) based on decades of observing myself and fellow worriers (it’s a family trait).  Life has gotten easier for me as I have managed to let go of some, though not all, of my habit of worry.  My attempts to anticipate the worse so I am not overwhelmed have backfired by freezing me rather than freeing me as well as made it so I chose work over play and drained joy from my life.  Hopefully it’s not that way for you, but if it sounds familiar maybe accepting worry is wasting some of your life could be helpful in starting a new worldview.

[manol]

7 hours ago, JVW said:

Typically I expect a resolution to an issue of this magnitude in around 2 years. But I'm honestly feeling like I will be getting an answer within the next 1-4 weeks if I continue to put in the effort to find it.

I have found "good news" in the accounts of near-death experiencers.  Here's a YouTube channel with compilations of clips of near-death experiencers, grouped by topic.  You might just scroll down the page at the link and see if anything stands out to you:

NDE Compilations - YouTube

"Could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know more than you would by reading all that was written on the subject." - Joseph Smith

These are folks who gazed into heaven for five minutes, or in some cases, a whole lot longer than that.

 

Edited August 25, 2025 by manol

[JVW]

59 minutes ago, Calm said:

This may relate to your life or be completely off track since I don’t know much about your internal life and only have my own experience and watching others around me with my own biases to use here really….

It can be pretty natural if you have had traumas in your life from what I have seen and studied to always be feeling like there is another crisis just around the corner.  And while it doesn’t impart a great sense of control, some of us still attempt to feel like we have some control by figuring out how to anticipate them by assigning reasons to why we are going to get slammed again.  

My reason for anticipating the next doom to descend is pretty nonsensical, but it still is embedded in my head….my body is out to get me, sabotaging my efforts to live a useful life (too many times something like a tooth getting chipped or vertigo hitting happens just as I feel I have reached some sort of breakthrough).

I am not saying you are wrong about anticipating things will get harder for you if you commit fuller to God.  They may. The scriptures and conference are not exactly full of stories of life getting easier with greater commitment (though sometimes we hear tithing stories that come across that way imo), so your anticipation is reasonable in our belief system (where mine is not).  But they also may not.  Christ said his yoke was easy and that can be translated into life in multiple ways…an actual easier life (I have seen this on occasion), a sense of peace overall so one’s responses are less hard on one’s self (this seems most common), greater insight into how to respond, and probably others I haven’t had the chance to notice yet.  Therefore, you might want to consider maybe your assumption that troubles will come is not inspired by the Spirit, but by old patterns of trauma in your brain.  And even if they do come, you may be able to handle them because you have new ways of looking at life through your working to gain a greater connection with God.  So whether it’s a new way of feeling or a new way of addressing issues, they just may no longer be as traumatic as they could have been.  

Since that is a possibility, maybe spending less of your mental and emotional energy on anticipating troubles to come isn’t the most helpful approach.  Though since you seem to process thought through talking to others, maybe this is your actual intent here…being open about your worries and fears here is your way of processing those emotions so you can put them aside and stop investing resources into them, resources you will then be able to use elsewhere for actually improving your life.

But if that isn’t your intent, maybe thinking about trying that way out, that it could help lighten your burden of worry a bit if you reframed it that way.  

Life is full of ups and downs naturally for most people, I believe.  Worrying ahead of time may be helpful if you are motivated to prepare for harder times (possible ways to prepare could bebe financially secure as much as possible, don’t let paperwork pile up so you lose track of your situation or have to scramble to find documents, keep up on doctors and dentists’ appointments, prune possessions if needed so you easily keep on top of things on most days and if things go wonky for a bit, it’s relatively easy to get your home back under control when you get a breather), but once you have prepared in reasonable ways, it may be better to step away from anticipation of the negative. This is from an obsessive worrier (me in case it wasn’t obvious) based on decades of observing myself and fellow worriers (it’s a family trait).  Life has gotten easier for me as I have managed to let go of some, though not all, of my habit of worry.  My attempts to anticipate the worse so I am not overwhelmed have backfired by freezing me rather than freeing me as well as made it so I chose work over play and drained joy from my life.  Hopefully it’s not that way for you, but if it sounds familiar maybe accepting worry is wasting some of your life could be helpful in starting a new worldview.

I think there is a lot of truth to what you say. I would add that it took a long time for me to feel comfortable feeling content. My default state for so many years was to feel miserable, and if I didn't feel that way I felt like something was wrong with me. There is a part of me that is uncomfortable with the way my life is right now because it feels "lukewarm" or "too" comfortable. And that could very well be due to past trauma stuff.

You raise some very good points though. And I will have to think on a lot of this.

Before a few weeks ago I don't think I spent much time thinking about how things could go wrong besides like "large conspiracies trying to screw over the common people" type of stuff that I thought about more for fun than for stress. However, I may have just pushed a lot of my anxieties about the "next bad thing" down into my gut or subconscious. For example, I wasn't stressed when I had my first child, because I thought, and would tell people, "I don't need to worry about raising him right because no matter what I do I will be part of the cause for him seeking therapy in his twenties." Which, while it may or may not be true, doesn't that thinking inherently assume bad things happening? Also, I definitely have recognized that hope is one of my weakest attributes and it's something I've worked on while in my recovery program.

I think that maybe part of my issue with what God could put in my path if I follow Him is that I haven't exactly gotten over the trauma from the past stuff yet. So while I am certainly a different, and much stronger person now; because I haven't fully overcome the past turmoil God has inflicted on me then maybe I'm worried about not being able to handle future stuff.

Oddly enough, I've come to terms that as far as overcoming addiction goes, I have no hope of ever conquering it without God. But I haven't applied that same frame of mind to traumatic events because, perhaps, so far I haven't overcome any of them through God yet.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, JVW said:

There is a part of me that is uncomfortable with the way my life is right now because it feels "lukewarm" or "too" comfortable.

For me accepting comfort translates to ‘I am not trying hard enough’ because even if my parents weren’t workaholics, they verbally taught us using language that impressed me that way.  “First work, then play” got translated to ‘I never had a right to play because there was always work’. I wish I had been better in some ways of learning from what they did rather than what they said, lol.  It has taken me a lot to feel okay with not working whenever I have energy.  A lot of the time it is simply busy work that doesn’t need to be done or can be done by someone else more easily.

My dad also used to say I loved my comfort too much.  At the time neither of us understood it wasn’t comfort, but protection from overstimulation I was doing because of the way my mind and body react.

I have two girls who come over and clean my kitchen and vacuum, etc for me once a week and they are here right now. My sister, who is visiting, is freaking out a little because of guilt of not working whenever she can see others doing it.  The work ethic is deeply embedded in me and my siblings, lol.

Men are that they might have joy. I hope in years to come that becomes my family motto much more than “work first and then play”.

”think that maybe part of my issue with what God could put in my path if I follow Him is that I haven't exactly gotten over the trauma from the past stuff yet. So while I am certainly a different, and much stronger person now; because I haven't fully overcome the past turmoil God has inflicted on me then maybe I'm worried about not being able to handle future stuff”

I think sometimes it can be harder to learn to trust ourselves than to trust God…and we often automatically blame ourselves when things fail and then that pressure pushes us to anger against God (we turn something that’s actually external internal and then back to external, but a different target again all while trying to feel safe).  Maybe if we can learn to accept life as uncontrollable, but we will do what we reasonably can anyway and learn to skip the blame reflex, whether blaming ourselves, others, or God, we could be happier.  I am always looking for causes so as to be able to understand and prevent future problems, but I think I take it too far a lot of the time.

Edited August 25, 2025 by Calm

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, JVW said:

 

I think that maybe part of my issue with what God could put in my path if I follow Him is that I haven't exactly gotten over the trauma from the past stuff yet. So while I am certainly a different, and much stronger person now; because I haven't fully overcome the past turmoil God has inflicted on me then maybe I'm worried about not being able to handle future stuff.

 

I relate to this so much.