O'GodHowGreatThouArt
Puritan Board Sophomore
Good evening guys.
My apologies if this is in the wrong forum, but there's a few issues touch on in this post that could qualify for several other forums on this board, so I felt this one would be most appropriate. If the moderators/administrators deem otherwise, they are more than welcomed to move it and I ask that they accept my apologies for the misplacement should this be deemed necessary.
First off, the family. Ever since I truly stepped into salvation during my stay at a mental hospital, I had been having an ongoing battle with my parents and my brother regarding all sorts of religious issues. Two of the bigger ones are outlined below:
1) Music: Prior to conversion, I had been a devoted Theistic Satanist for about 1 1/2 years. I do not wish to get involved into a debate or attempt to go into detail with this area, but for those who want to know my views were like, imagine if Gods' role and Satans' roles religiously were to be swapped. I realize this is blasphemy. However, I do not hold to this belief anymore, but I wanted to basically give an outline of what my thoughts were towards these two beings at the time.
During this period, I had become involved in some of the worst Satanic music anyone of this forum could possibly imagine. Basically to such a point that most Elders/Pastors on this forum would cry out for the monstrosities to be vanquished. Because of this, my family had developed a very one-sided view of the genre, and assumed that, like most genres, that was all to find.
Fast forward about 4 months (this was prior to true salvation; I was a false convert at the time). In the desire to please my parents, I went looking for Metal that would glorify God, but not for His glory, rather for the pleasing of my parents. I found it through a forum called Firestream (R.I.P), which was a major Godsend. While I still had my issues with secular/blasphemous metal, at least I had an alternative to go to if needed.
While the parents accepted this music, their view on the genre did not break. I've got CDs in my room as we speak that are some of the most God glorifying bands one could imagine, yet in their views, they were nothing different from the bands I used to listen to.
2) We step into December 2006. I had been suffering from depression for 3 years at that point, had dabbled with self-mutilation, and had attempted suicide six prior times. Below is a testimony of those days. The cause for the desire and drive for Him, yet opened the door to another Hell at home. God originally led me to write this out for someone on another Christian music forum as a testimony to a newly-converted Satanist on that forum, so I apologize in advance if there's anything that doesn't appear to apply here. This was written shortly before Christmas 2009.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About three and a half years ago, God put a chink in my armor in a Hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona, where I, while in full devotion to Satanism, did an odd thing. I took my finger and drew a cross on my body, the way that Catholics do. Seemed like nothing...
6 months later, He detonated a bomb on my life.
I found myself in a mental institution after my seventh suicide attempt in 3 years. The third anniversary of that day is Tuesday, 12/22, and I'll never forget this time period. There, he ripped me open....
piece....
by....
piece.....
It was four days and five nights of some of the most agonizing pain a human being could ever endure. I would've rather been tortured physically during that time. But He was molding me, changing me, shaping me. I did not have a bible, as it was a banned item at that institution, but I did not need it. He counseled me, He showed Himself to me, He gave me all I needed to know about the Gospel.
I got into the hospital at 11pm....we had to be up at 6am. They did not let me sleep in. When it was time to get up to shower and take vitals, I walked out of my bedroom, and met a person coming out. He said hello, then stopped. Took a closer at me, and then I saw it.
The look on his face....
It's as if he saw, for the first time in his life, a person that had been truly decimated.
That's exactly what I was. I got no sleep over those 7 hours, I spent the entire night weeping, calling out for God, pleading. What can I do to stop this? I knew that if I walked out of this hospital untreated, I may not be alive in another year. I was scared, I was terrified.
He didn't answer in that way, but He did in another.
Here's something you need to understand. In a place like that, therapists have dealt with people that have had problems run so deep they have had to practically pull teeth to get someone to utter one word. There was a girl in there during the time that was just like that. The first two days, you would've thought she was mute. Not a sound came out.
I had no desire to talk, I had no desire to go back to that life. I wanted out of it, and I was not in a talking mood because I feared that I would end up back in that life.
God made me talk, he made me relive it. He made look at it, not from a perspective of a person who wanted their way, but from a person who was absolutely broken. First thing I had to do was write my life story. As I wrote, I kept hearing Him ask me the same question over and over again, "Is this the life you want?".
As my stay continued, I started seeing things from a different view, things that I did. I was sick to my stomach. I went to bed the next night asking myself: what kind of person would do these things? These horrible things? These despicable things? I didn't have to look far for the answer: it was the person asking the question.
I had gotten into Demon Hunter a week before, heard the song "Not Ready To Die", two, maybe three times. The afternoon of day one, God told me to get two sheets of paper. I got them, and He told me to start writing what He says. So I wrote, 5 minutes later, He told me to look at it.
That song....started playing in my head. I broke down. I silently weeped. I was thankful that I was the only one in that room. That was one of two break-through moments. The second would occur two days later.
December 25th: Christmas. Depressing day. I saw my immediate family for one hour during lunch. I kept asking why I couldn't get out that day, as did others, a couple of whom came in later than I did. They said I wasn't ready to leave yet. God said something different, "I'm not done with you in this facility yet."
3pm. Shift change. In came a person, older woman, mid to late 50s, who looked like Christmas threw up all over her. I had never seen such a joyful person in my life. She brought so much hope, so much joy, to an otherwise depressing and sorrow place. We continued the day as normal, and we got back into our bedroom area after the last group session for some TV time. I felt horrible, so I retired to my room for the evening.
I got dressed for bed, I got under the covers, and I laid there, unable to sleep, silently calling for Him, asking how I can be right with Him.
I heard a knock at the door. I said "come in". It was that woman. We did some small talk about the lunch break, asking if any family came to see me, etc. She looked at me for a moment, as if she was looking into my soul, and she asked, "Why are you so troubled?" Before I could answer, I heard two words spoken to my soul: "Spill everything." So I did. She was with me an hour while I poured everything out to her. The last three years condensed into one tearful, stuttering, and sometimes non-understandable rant.
After I spoke, She said the following: "Have faith. Everything will rectify itself. Things for you are going to change. You will soon experience joy of which you could not possibly comprehend. Joy that nothing on this planet can give to you. The love of a Being that you cannot begin to imagine, love of which cannot compare to that of your friends, family, siblings, or your parents."
She went to the door, turned around, smiled, said "Merry Christmas", and went out the door. I never saw her again.
When that door was shut, I heard a booming voice tear into my soul. "O' YOU OF LITTLE FAITH, WHY DO YOU DOUBT? DID I NOT DO THE IMPOSSIBLE? DID I NOT GIVE YOU A WAY TO GET THAT WHICH THE WORLD CAN NOT GIVE YOU? THE HOPE GIVEN TO YOU BY MY SACRIFICE OF MY ONLY BEGOTTEN SON? THAT I GAVE UP FOR YOU, MY CHILD? REPENT! AND BELIEVE! THE GOSPEL!"
I shattered into a million pieces with those words. There came another three hours of no sleep where I cried out to God, repented of every transgression that I could remember, and I kept calling out "I believe! I believe!". Sleep finally robbed me for the next five hours.
December 26th: my eyes flew open. I got 5 hours of sleep, possibly less, but something was different. I wasn't depressed, I wasn't down. I was so full of joy, so hopeful. I could not keep my mind off the Father. It's like I took two bottles of NyQuil and Redbull and drank it all down. I had a high that of which even the drug addicts in the same ward as me could not obtain. Even the counselors noticed something different. I wasn't the same person that walked in at 11pm 5 day ago.
Pickup time was 4pm, and I had such an excitement for it that one of the counselors said that I was going to get restrained if I didn't calm down. But how could I?
THE
FATHER
RANSOMED
ME!
THE
FATHER
SAVED
ME!
MY
SINS
WERE
GONE!
When I deserved nothing but Hell. I was a wretch in His eyes, worthy of nothing except to be flattened by His wrath.
I can't pay Him back. I'm not even going to try. I'm going to live the rest of my life for Him. Because after what He has done, He is worthy of praise, and He is worthy of worship. He is worthy of my All.
Ask and it will be given, my Lord.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I sought truth when I got out of that hospital, the full Truth, and nothing but the Truth. Two people, who ended up becoming some of my best friends (along with a third person I met through them), introduced me to Reformation theology, and showed me from scripture the biblical gospel. Where to find it, what it says, all sorts of things.
Unfortunately this led to more problems with my family. They're not the type of people who abide by the following philosophy: "Sometimes, the truth hurts". If the truth hurts, they'd rather not hear it, and they'll tear down anyone who tells them it anyway (as I experienced first-hand when I attempted to present the Gospel to them. Once via e-mail to my mom, and then to my entire family. They pretty much turned on me because of that.) They're what modern day evangelists would deem "carnal Christians".
This drive has caused things to become difficult. I had endured much persecution from them (often times, it was discipline crossing the line. Other times it was my brother threatening me for coming to his defense and telling him the truth to the questions he's asked). They had made the task for me getting to a church difficult by refusing to lend any assistance to the matter (and probably wouldn't let me go to it because they labeled that Church "cultic" and have said more than once that the next stop for any elders from their church coming on their property would be a jail house cell). This is Christ Reformed Church they are referencing. They're also people who would rather want me to have a good life with a family, a well paying job, a nice house, cars, fine health, insurance, etc (For the record, they don't know the Prosperity Gospel or the Word of Faith Movement exists, and would probably get confused if you ask them if they knew who people like Meyer, Hinn, Osteen, etc. were).
They accept that I'm going to ministry, but they will probably not like the plans that are being made by the Lord's direction. See my thread in the Education/Seminary Forum for details on that calling.
The second major issue would be myself, because of the various issues above (especially the second), it has become very difficult to remain focused on God. I continue to relish holiness and hate unholiness, however, there are times where the stress from them has become so great that I would dabble into sin as an escape. One example would be p0rnography. For years I had been an addict. Just in the last year or so, God has began breaking down the addiction behind the sin. At this point, it is a stress-induced issue rather than an addiction like it once was.
In relation, I have a very difficult time maintaining a steady bible study schedule (though I will admit half of my issue is that I'm not sure how to do a Bible study or where to even start) as well as a consistent prayer life. Between school and worries, it tends to be forgotten at times.
As such, here are my main questions:
1) How should I confront all of the issues regarding my family?
2) What are some things I can do to help turn my life even more towards the glory of God?
3) Regarding school, how should one go about dealing with it both physically, emotionally, and spiritually? College can be a great source of stress, and God is preparing me for some of the toughest roads I've ever been on regarding education (and once the train starts rolling next semester, it's not stopping for about ten years). So things like stress and time management tips, study habits tips, etc., things that could be of use in both undergraduate school and seminary.
4) How does one do a bible study, and how can time be allotted for it?
5) How can I make my prayer time as effective as possible?
I apologize for any confusion/errors/broadness, tends to occur when one is up at five past one in the morning. Feel free to post those concerns below and I'll attempt to clarify them.
My apologies if this is in the wrong forum, but there's a few issues touch on in this post that could qualify for several other forums on this board, so I felt this one would be most appropriate. If the moderators/administrators deem otherwise, they are more than welcomed to move it and I ask that they accept my apologies for the misplacement should this be deemed necessary.
First off, the family. Ever since I truly stepped into salvation during my stay at a mental hospital, I had been having an ongoing battle with my parents and my brother regarding all sorts of religious issues. Two of the bigger ones are outlined below:
1) Music: Prior to conversion, I had been a devoted Theistic Satanist for about 1 1/2 years. I do not wish to get involved into a debate or attempt to go into detail with this area, but for those who want to know my views were like, imagine if Gods' role and Satans' roles religiously were to be swapped. I realize this is blasphemy. However, I do not hold to this belief anymore, but I wanted to basically give an outline of what my thoughts were towards these two beings at the time.
During this period, I had become involved in some of the worst Satanic music anyone of this forum could possibly imagine. Basically to such a point that most Elders/Pastors on this forum would cry out for the monstrosities to be vanquished. Because of this, my family had developed a very one-sided view of the genre, and assumed that, like most genres, that was all to find.
Fast forward about 4 months (this was prior to true salvation; I was a false convert at the time). In the desire to please my parents, I went looking for Metal that would glorify God, but not for His glory, rather for the pleasing of my parents. I found it through a forum called Firestream (R.I.P), which was a major Godsend. While I still had my issues with secular/blasphemous metal, at least I had an alternative to go to if needed.
While the parents accepted this music, their view on the genre did not break. I've got CDs in my room as we speak that are some of the most God glorifying bands one could imagine, yet in their views, they were nothing different from the bands I used to listen to.
2) We step into December 2006. I had been suffering from depression for 3 years at that point, had dabbled with self-mutilation, and had attempted suicide six prior times. Below is a testimony of those days. The cause for the desire and drive for Him, yet opened the door to another Hell at home. God originally led me to write this out for someone on another Christian music forum as a testimony to a newly-converted Satanist on that forum, so I apologize in advance if there's anything that doesn't appear to apply here. This was written shortly before Christmas 2009.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About three and a half years ago, God put a chink in my armor in a Hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona, where I, while in full devotion to Satanism, did an odd thing. I took my finger and drew a cross on my body, the way that Catholics do. Seemed like nothing...
6 months later, He detonated a bomb on my life.
I found myself in a mental institution after my seventh suicide attempt in 3 years. The third anniversary of that day is Tuesday, 12/22, and I'll never forget this time period. There, he ripped me open....
piece....
by....
piece.....
It was four days and five nights of some of the most agonizing pain a human being could ever endure. I would've rather been tortured physically during that time. But He was molding me, changing me, shaping me. I did not have a bible, as it was a banned item at that institution, but I did not need it. He counseled me, He showed Himself to me, He gave me all I needed to know about the Gospel.
I got into the hospital at 11pm....we had to be up at 6am. They did not let me sleep in. When it was time to get up to shower and take vitals, I walked out of my bedroom, and met a person coming out. He said hello, then stopped. Took a closer at me, and then I saw it.
The look on his face....
It's as if he saw, for the first time in his life, a person that had been truly decimated.
That's exactly what I was. I got no sleep over those 7 hours, I spent the entire night weeping, calling out for God, pleading. What can I do to stop this? I knew that if I walked out of this hospital untreated, I may not be alive in another year. I was scared, I was terrified.
He didn't answer in that way, but He did in another.
Here's something you need to understand. In a place like that, therapists have dealt with people that have had problems run so deep they have had to practically pull teeth to get someone to utter one word. There was a girl in there during the time that was just like that. The first two days, you would've thought she was mute. Not a sound came out.
I had no desire to talk, I had no desire to go back to that life. I wanted out of it, and I was not in a talking mood because I feared that I would end up back in that life.
God made me talk, he made me relive it. He made look at it, not from a perspective of a person who wanted their way, but from a person who was absolutely broken. First thing I had to do was write my life story. As I wrote, I kept hearing Him ask me the same question over and over again, "Is this the life you want?".
As my stay continued, I started seeing things from a different view, things that I did. I was sick to my stomach. I went to bed the next night asking myself: what kind of person would do these things? These horrible things? These despicable things? I didn't have to look far for the answer: it was the person asking the question.
I had gotten into Demon Hunter a week before, heard the song "Not Ready To Die", two, maybe three times. The afternoon of day one, God told me to get two sheets of paper. I got them, and He told me to start writing what He says. So I wrote, 5 minutes later, He told me to look at it.
That song....started playing in my head. I broke down. I silently weeped. I was thankful that I was the only one in that room. That was one of two break-through moments. The second would occur two days later.
December 25th: Christmas. Depressing day. I saw my immediate family for one hour during lunch. I kept asking why I couldn't get out that day, as did others, a couple of whom came in later than I did. They said I wasn't ready to leave yet. God said something different, "I'm not done with you in this facility yet."
3pm. Shift change. In came a person, older woman, mid to late 50s, who looked like Christmas threw up all over her. I had never seen such a joyful person in my life. She brought so much hope, so much joy, to an otherwise depressing and sorrow place. We continued the day as normal, and we got back into our bedroom area after the last group session for some TV time. I felt horrible, so I retired to my room for the evening.
I got dressed for bed, I got under the covers, and I laid there, unable to sleep, silently calling for Him, asking how I can be right with Him.
I heard a knock at the door. I said "come in". It was that woman. We did some small talk about the lunch break, asking if any family came to see me, etc. She looked at me for a moment, as if she was looking into my soul, and she asked, "Why are you so troubled?" Before I could answer, I heard two words spoken to my soul: "Spill everything." So I did. She was with me an hour while I poured everything out to her. The last three years condensed into one tearful, stuttering, and sometimes non-understandable rant.
After I spoke, She said the following: "Have faith. Everything will rectify itself. Things for you are going to change. You will soon experience joy of which you could not possibly comprehend. Joy that nothing on this planet can give to you. The love of a Being that you cannot begin to imagine, love of which cannot compare to that of your friends, family, siblings, or your parents."
She went to the door, turned around, smiled, said "Merry Christmas", and went out the door. I never saw her again.
When that door was shut, I heard a booming voice tear into my soul. "O' YOU OF LITTLE FAITH, WHY DO YOU DOUBT? DID I NOT DO THE IMPOSSIBLE? DID I NOT GIVE YOU A WAY TO GET THAT WHICH THE WORLD CAN NOT GIVE YOU? THE HOPE GIVEN TO YOU BY MY SACRIFICE OF MY ONLY BEGOTTEN SON? THAT I GAVE UP FOR YOU, MY CHILD? REPENT! AND BELIEVE! THE GOSPEL!"
I shattered into a million pieces with those words. There came another three hours of no sleep where I cried out to God, repented of every transgression that I could remember, and I kept calling out "I believe! I believe!". Sleep finally robbed me for the next five hours.
December 26th: my eyes flew open. I got 5 hours of sleep, possibly less, but something was different. I wasn't depressed, I wasn't down. I was so full of joy, so hopeful. I could not keep my mind off the Father. It's like I took two bottles of NyQuil and Redbull and drank it all down. I had a high that of which even the drug addicts in the same ward as me could not obtain. Even the counselors noticed something different. I wasn't the same person that walked in at 11pm 5 day ago.
Pickup time was 4pm, and I had such an excitement for it that one of the counselors said that I was going to get restrained if I didn't calm down. But how could I?
THE
FATHER
RANSOMED
ME!
THE
FATHER
SAVED
ME!
MY
SINS
WERE
GONE!
When I deserved nothing but Hell. I was a wretch in His eyes, worthy of nothing except to be flattened by His wrath.
I can't pay Him back. I'm not even going to try. I'm going to live the rest of my life for Him. Because after what He has done, He is worthy of praise, and He is worthy of worship. He is worthy of my All.
Ask and it will be given, my Lord.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I sought truth when I got out of that hospital, the full Truth, and nothing but the Truth. Two people, who ended up becoming some of my best friends (along with a third person I met through them), introduced me to Reformation theology, and showed me from scripture the biblical gospel. Where to find it, what it says, all sorts of things.
Unfortunately this led to more problems with my family. They're not the type of people who abide by the following philosophy: "Sometimes, the truth hurts". If the truth hurts, they'd rather not hear it, and they'll tear down anyone who tells them it anyway (as I experienced first-hand when I attempted to present the Gospel to them. Once via e-mail to my mom, and then to my entire family. They pretty much turned on me because of that.) They're what modern day evangelists would deem "carnal Christians".
This drive has caused things to become difficult. I had endured much persecution from them (often times, it was discipline crossing the line. Other times it was my brother threatening me for coming to his defense and telling him the truth to the questions he's asked). They had made the task for me getting to a church difficult by refusing to lend any assistance to the matter (and probably wouldn't let me go to it because they labeled that Church "cultic" and have said more than once that the next stop for any elders from their church coming on their property would be a jail house cell). This is Christ Reformed Church they are referencing. They're also people who would rather want me to have a good life with a family, a well paying job, a nice house, cars, fine health, insurance, etc (For the record, they don't know the Prosperity Gospel or the Word of Faith Movement exists, and would probably get confused if you ask them if they knew who people like Meyer, Hinn, Osteen, etc. were).
They accept that I'm going to ministry, but they will probably not like the plans that are being made by the Lord's direction. See my thread in the Education/Seminary Forum for details on that calling.
The second major issue would be myself, because of the various issues above (especially the second), it has become very difficult to remain focused on God. I continue to relish holiness and hate unholiness, however, there are times where the stress from them has become so great that I would dabble into sin as an escape. One example would be p0rnography. For years I had been an addict. Just in the last year or so, God has began breaking down the addiction behind the sin. At this point, it is a stress-induced issue rather than an addiction like it once was.
In relation, I have a very difficult time maintaining a steady bible study schedule (though I will admit half of my issue is that I'm not sure how to do a Bible study or where to even start) as well as a consistent prayer life. Between school and worries, it tends to be forgotten at times.
As such, here are my main questions:
1) How should I confront all of the issues regarding my family?
2) What are some things I can do to help turn my life even more towards the glory of God?
3) Regarding school, how should one go about dealing with it both physically, emotionally, and spiritually? College can be a great source of stress, and God is preparing me for some of the toughest roads I've ever been on regarding education (and once the train starts rolling next semester, it's not stopping for about ten years). So things like stress and time management tips, study habits tips, etc., things that could be of use in both undergraduate school and seminary.
4) How does one do a bible study, and how can time be allotted for it?
5) How can I make my prayer time as effective as possible?
I apologize for any confusion/errors/broadness, tends to occur when one is up at five past one in the morning. Feel free to post those concerns below and I'll attempt to clarify them.
