LVV
12-27-01, 06:10 AM
Dear Friends,
Christmas was not joyous in the holiday sense of the word here...not even a wish for a Merry Christmas or a card....and so endeth my pity party....it was joyous for the reason for the season in my heart, but it was hard to stay buoyant...
As I had no money, I made a stocking for my fiance' and filled it with my treasures...things I have had for so so long that meant so much to me....as a way of sharing myself and what is mine with him.....one of those things was a very small bible/prayer book that I got when I was 6 years old when I made my First Holy Communion. That book is so worn and tattered and has followed me to all ends of the earth....he refused it....said he couldn't accept it....but he accepted the other things in it like the pen I got when I graduated from medical school...and the most treasured picture I have of my children.....and I made a handwritten book of my favorite poems....
Later last night, we got into a rather philosophical discussion about religion.....it is so apparent to me he is being attacked and struggling with his faith....while not blasphemous, he does believe in Jesus but has serious doubts about the bible and what it espouses...he came after me with a vengeance about my Catholicsm as I went to convent school and am a practicing Catholic....however, as it has been since I was a teenager, I don't accept some of the dogma and doctrines of the Catholic church for which I can find no biblical concordance....the Church has been good to me for fellowship, peaceful place to worship, and I've found parishes that weren't the typical idea of Catholic churches in that they had an evanglical bent and welcomed all regardless of faith or belief....
In any event, he got very angry with me because I was sharing with him some of Bishop Short's wise, wise words.....yet, he could not find a concrete answer that didn't border on the completely non-spiritual and lean totally toward science....I would call him a humanist but a believer.....he gets mad at me when I tell him that I am leaning on my faith and I know that what is God's will is going to be....whatever it is.....he gets angry because he knows I'm praying for a reconciliation yet his anger about faith and spirituality seem misplaced....
Good heavens if he were reading this, he would have my head on a platter.....he is very quick to anger, was abused as a child and is the child of one alcoholic and one deserter....his stepmother nearly killed him with a gun when he was 16....he has a very dysfunctional family and is so against organized religion because as a child, he went to a church one Sunday and was asked to leave because he had not bathed (they had no hot water) and his clothes were worn and somewhat dirty.....since then, and the fact that his father left the family for another woman on Christmas morning when he was 6, he's been through a lot....add to that the fact he was born with club feet as a result of his mother's drinking during pregnancy and he had had 50 surgeries by the time he was 5 years old.....he died twice clinically during two of the surgeries and has some recollections of what we call near death experiences....
We have been together for 2 years, and he is 10 years younger than I.....I, on one hand have 3 doctorates yet am jobless (thanks to the moratorium on work visas in this country even though I'm in a critical need profession), was raised in a very wealthy family, and am Dutch.....he is the complete antithesis of me as a person, but when it works we complement each other beautifully in every way....
The fault lies with me....I lied and hurt him a number of times to hide my own pain and shame of my past, and rather than be honest, he gave me chance after chance each time he discovered something new....not that anything he found out was earth-shattering in retrospect, but just the fact that he opened himself to me completely and I didn't return the unconditional love as I have now discxovered is the way to love....
I AM going to salvage my career....I AM going to regain his trust...I AM going to live in the Word and not the world, but I'm at a loss as to how to help John....
I know that bearing the brunt of some of his anger is part of the repentence process, but I wish and hope and pray that I didn't feel like my prayers fell on deaf ears when I pray that God touches his heart and turns on that light!
I continue to struggle daily, but every time I have a "moment" I just think of my faith and know He will heal me in time....
Please pray for John and for me....
And send advice!
LVV
Christmas was not joyous in the holiday sense of the word here...not even a wish for a Merry Christmas or a card....and so endeth my pity party....it was joyous for the reason for the season in my heart, but it was hard to stay buoyant...
As I had no money, I made a stocking for my fiance' and filled it with my treasures...things I have had for so so long that meant so much to me....as a way of sharing myself and what is mine with him.....one of those things was a very small bible/prayer book that I got when I was 6 years old when I made my First Holy Communion. That book is so worn and tattered and has followed me to all ends of the earth....he refused it....said he couldn't accept it....but he accepted the other things in it like the pen I got when I graduated from medical school...and the most treasured picture I have of my children.....and I made a handwritten book of my favorite poems....
Later last night, we got into a rather philosophical discussion about religion.....it is so apparent to me he is being attacked and struggling with his faith....while not blasphemous, he does believe in Jesus but has serious doubts about the bible and what it espouses...he came after me with a vengeance about my Catholicsm as I went to convent school and am a practicing Catholic....however, as it has been since I was a teenager, I don't accept some of the dogma and doctrines of the Catholic church for which I can find no biblical concordance....the Church has been good to me for fellowship, peaceful place to worship, and I've found parishes that weren't the typical idea of Catholic churches in that they had an evanglical bent and welcomed all regardless of faith or belief....
In any event, he got very angry with me because I was sharing with him some of Bishop Short's wise, wise words.....yet, he could not find a concrete answer that didn't border on the completely non-spiritual and lean totally toward science....I would call him a humanist but a believer.....he gets mad at me when I tell him that I am leaning on my faith and I know that what is God's will is going to be....whatever it is.....he gets angry because he knows I'm praying for a reconciliation yet his anger about faith and spirituality seem misplaced....
Good heavens if he were reading this, he would have my head on a platter.....he is very quick to anger, was abused as a child and is the child of one alcoholic and one deserter....his stepmother nearly killed him with a gun when he was 16....he has a very dysfunctional family and is so against organized religion because as a child, he went to a church one Sunday and was asked to leave because he had not bathed (they had no hot water) and his clothes were worn and somewhat dirty.....since then, and the fact that his father left the family for another woman on Christmas morning when he was 6, he's been through a lot....add to that the fact he was born with club feet as a result of his mother's drinking during pregnancy and he had had 50 surgeries by the time he was 5 years old.....he died twice clinically during two of the surgeries and has some recollections of what we call near death experiences....
We have been together for 2 years, and he is 10 years younger than I.....I, on one hand have 3 doctorates yet am jobless (thanks to the moratorium on work visas in this country even though I'm in a critical need profession), was raised in a very wealthy family, and am Dutch.....he is the complete antithesis of me as a person, but when it works we complement each other beautifully in every way....
The fault lies with me....I lied and hurt him a number of times to hide my own pain and shame of my past, and rather than be honest, he gave me chance after chance each time he discovered something new....not that anything he found out was earth-shattering in retrospect, but just the fact that he opened himself to me completely and I didn't return the unconditional love as I have now discxovered is the way to love....
I AM going to salvage my career....I AM going to regain his trust...I AM going to live in the Word and not the world, but I'm at a loss as to how to help John....
I know that bearing the brunt of some of his anger is part of the repentence process, but I wish and hope and pray that I didn't feel like my prayers fell on deaf ears when I pray that God touches his heart and turns on that light!
I continue to struggle daily, but every time I have a "moment" I just think of my faith and know He will heal me in time....
Please pray for John and for me....
And send advice!
LVV