I can't feel Heavenly Fathers love


me1600
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This is really sad. I am thinking of converting. But I come from a very dysfunctional family. Alcoholism. etc. The minute I turned my life to Christ I was married to a great man and had a baby. I am so happy. Then it was time to find the right church.

As my quest continued I felt compelled to go to LDS Church and feel I have found my home. Talk about breaking the patterns of dysfunctional family and building an eternal one!

here is my problem. When the speakers talk of our Heavenly Father and of Jesus and the love they have for us, they were so moved they wept. I thought "I can't feel it. I don't know what it feels like to feel love from my family. From my father"

what do I do? I feel it may be a block in my moving forward.

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Me,

have you tried Al-anon? It is a support group for adult children of alcoholics to deal with emotional issues that you may not have dealt with.

You can go to your bishop and get help through LDS social services with counselling.

Some bishops wrongly believe that just listening to you and encouraging you is enough...and too often it is not. (Bishops are human too.) You may have to insist (persistantly) on counselling services.

To get to the root of the problem is that you learned to "block/ignore" many things going on around you while growing up...and built up an emotional wall; may be even to the point of emotional numbness. That emotional wall kept you from being hurt, but it also keeps you from experiencing many positive things.

It is through emotional experince that Heavenly Father speaks to me and you.

The hard thing will be deconstructing your emotional wall/barrier. You might, and many often do, feel repressed anger, pain, outrage, crying, etc as you tear down your emotional wall, but its the only way to fully experience Heavenly Fathers Full Love...and it will make other relationship that are functional even more meaningful.

When you are not using so much emotional effort hiding from or repressing past memories, you have more capacity for serving God and loving your family and fellow humans.

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Me,

have you tried Al-anon? It is a support group for adult children of alcoholics to deal with emotional issues that you may not have dealt with.

You can go to your bishop and get help through LDS social services with counselling.

Some bishops wrongly believe that just listening to you and encouraging you is enough...and too often it is not. (Bishops are human too.) You may have to insist (persistantly) on counselling services.

To get to the root of the problem is that you learned to "block/ignore" many things going on around you while growing up...and built up an emotional wall; may be even to the point of emotional numbness. That emotional wall kept you from being hurt, but it also keeps you from experiencing many positive things.

It is through emotional experince that Heavenly Father speaks to me and you.

The hard thing will be deconstructing your emotional wall/barrier. You might, and many often do, feel repressed anger, pain, outrage, crying, etc as you tear down your emotional wall, but its the only way to fully experience Heavenly Fathers Full Love...and it will make other relationship that are functional even more meaningful.

When you are not using so much emotional effort hiding from or repressing past memories, you have more capacity for serving God and loving your family and fellow humans.

I can definitely relate to having difficulties expressing emotions and what not. Guys in general seem to have a harder time than women in expressing themselves. I have honestly met very few guys if any that have had as much difficulty with expressing emotions as I have but I know why I have difficulty with it. I would say what you described is much of how I felt. I am doing a lot better with it now but never took counseling for it. I don't know if I'd be comfortable enough doing that. I don't know if that prevents you from feeling the holy ghost or not. Maybe. I never felt anything but I suppose that could be why. It's a lot easier for me to feel emotions now but still have a long ways to go. Still, I like your advice.

Edited by Mute
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This is really sad. I am thinking of converting. But I come from a very dysfunctional family. Alcoholism. etc. The minute I turned my life to Christ I was married to a great man and had a baby. I am so happy. Then it was time to find the right church.

As my quest continued I felt compelled to go to LDS Church and feel I have found my home. Talk about breaking the patterns of dysfunctional family and building an eternal one!

here is my problem. When the speakers talk of our Heavenly Father and of Jesus and the love they have for us, they were so moved they wept. I thought "I can't feel it. I don't know what it feels like to feel love from my family. From my father"

what do I do? I feel it may be a block in my moving forward.

I believe I know exactly what you're talking about. For whatever it's worth, here is my take on the matter.

I believe that feeling God's love for us is a spiritual gift. Not all spiritual gifts are given to all of us; feeling God's love for me in a personal sense is not one of my spiritual gifts. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love me individually; on the contrary, I'm sure he does. I just don't feel it.

But I see his love for me in my life. I see his hand moving in my life, and from that, I know he loves me. I see it in my relationship with my wife and my children, with my situation regarding employment and housing, my interactions with my wonderful ward members, and a hundred other ways. It's not the same as feeling God's love in a personal way, but in some ways it's probably much better. I do feel my wife's love for me; isn't that much the same as God's love for me? Isn't that at least as important and immediate for my life?

So my advice is: Don't worry about not "feeling" God's love for you. You know he loves you, so just recognize his hand in your life and go on enjoying the blessings he has given you, secure in the knowledge (if not the feeling) of God's love.

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I believe I know exactly what you're talking about. For whatever it's worth, here is my take on the matter.

I believe that feeling God's love for us is a spiritual gift. Not all spiritual gifts are given to all of us; feeling God's love for me in a personal sense is not one of my spiritual gifts. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love me individually; on the contrary, I'm sure he does. I just don't feel it.

But I see his love for me in my life. I see his hand moving in my life, and from that, I know he loves me. I see it in my relationship with my wife and my children, with my situation regarding employment and housing, my interactions with my wonderful ward members, and a hundred other ways. It's not the same as feeling God's love in a personal way, but in some ways it's probably much better. I do feel my wife's love for me; isn't that much the same as God's love for me? Isn't that at least as important and immediate for my life?

So my advice is: Don't worry about not "feeling" God's love for you. You know he loves you, so just recognize his hand in your life and go on enjoying the blessings he has given you, secure in the knowledge (if not the feeling) of God's love.

Vort, you said "I feel my WIFE'S love for me" and your pic is female...It does not add up.

I am often saddened by many church members that say they cannot feel heavenly father's love. In my humble opinion it is not a "gift of the spirit", but is part of "The Light of Chirst" that speaks to all men, women and children.

On many occasions during gospel discussions inside and outside the church I have said, "The TURTH will SET you FREE...BUT, ONLY IF you allow it [truth] to!"

Moroni 10:3-5...and you may know the truth of ALL things. It does not say of some things, but of this and not that, it says ALL THINGS. If you think that you cannot know such things, then that is exactly what you will get...you will not know that thing because you do not have the faith that you are capable to know such things.

But again from the parable of the sower, not that the seed was not good but they did immediately cast it out. If you desire to know but are not willing to accept the witness or are living your life in a way, both physically and/or emotionally, that is not ready to recieve such a witness, then the seed sprouts up then withers because it is spiritually rocky soil.

The parable of the sower, applies as much to members of the church as those who are not.

In my own experience, the closer I get to the spirit, the more I am in awe of the love of our heavenly father. Looking back at where I had been in the past and the weakness and "spiritual immaturity" then possesed, how did heavenly father ever reveal such precious truths to me at that time! Heavenly father knew that if He revealed this truth to me, then I would do my best to live up to what was revealed...and as I lived up to what was already revealed, Heavenly Father, yet revealed more precious truths! Is this not Heavenly Father showing and sharing his love?

When younger, I would sometimes complained that HF was revealing too much, too quickly...it felt like I was barely keeping up. Heavenly father would give me a breather for a short while. Then, after a while, I would miss that "spiritual burning" and be ready for the challenge.

So, long story short, if you want to feel heavenly father's love you must want and desire to feel it, believe you can "feel the love", be willing to "accept the love", make changes to your life emotional and physically to "live up to the love"...and when you finally feel the love and living up to the love...be ready to accept "the greater love and knowlege" that heavenly father will pour out on you; AND REPEAT THE PROCESS...want and desire to feel it, believe you can "feel the love", be willing to "accept the love", make changes to your life emotional and physically to "live up to the love"...and when you finally feel the love and living up to the love...be ready to accept "the greater love and knowlege"...repeat.

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Vort, you said "I feel my WIFE'S love for me" and your pic is female...It does not add up.

For a long time, I used this as my avatar:

Posted Image

Unfortunately, people really didn't respond very well to it. Rameumptom in particular didn't like it, and people in general were just, well, sort of hostile. Not everyone, but many. I decided I needed to upgrade my image, so I Googled "doe-eyed beauty" or something of the sort and found my current avatar. Amazingly, people responded to me much better from then on.

No kidding.

My avatar represents my own spiritual quest and naivete. It's not misleading. If people think I'm a beautiful nubile young woman instead of a fat middle-aged man, hey, that's not my problem.

I am often saddened by many church members that say they cannot feel heavenly father's love. In my humble opinion it is not a "gift of the spirit", but is part of "The Light of Chirst" that speaks to all men, women and children.

So if I understand you correctly, you are saying that those of us who do not actively feel God's love for us are failing to feel that love because of our own wickedness.

I grant that you may be right, but I also admit I'm not going to worry too much about it.

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That's sad.

But, if it means anything, I can assure you that heavenly father loves you. I know that he loves ME, and if he can love a faithless sinner like me he must love you. Now, just because he loves us doesn't mean he is always going to protect us from pain. I think your troubled past may be at the root of this absence you feel. The problem of why God allows suffering has never been solved to my satisfaction by any theologian that I have read but what I can tell you is that even though God does not always deliver us from evil, he is always bearing it with us and if we turn to him, he consoles us.

You might consider reading Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross. Having gone through my own dark night I now feel much closer to God than I did before the experience.

Edited by Origen
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Guest LiterateParakeet

me1600, I can really relate to your post, as I come from a dysfunctional family as well...alcoholism, and worse.

I don't have any advice since I am working through similar issues myself and am still looking for the answers. I do NOT believe it is due to anything YOU have done wrong. I think the family life you have come from is definately the main factor. So what I have decided to do in my own life (I suppose you could call this advice) is to stay the course...keep praying, attending church, reading scriptures...and hope for the 'clouds to part' and allow me/you to feel the Light and Love of Father and Christ.

Vort...now that I know your avatar is NOT you, all I can say is "phew". I've always found it a little creepy. LOL! I am also glad that you are a man...your posts make so much more sense to me now... Carry on, LOL!

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