I'm currently reading Hannah Hurnard's
Hind's Feet on High Places. I think, although it's about a different type of struggle, the truths about God presented in it could be a comfort to you. I'm only half-way through, but I'll tell you a little of it so you can see if you're interested. It's an allegory to our walk with God like John Bunyun's
The Pilgrim's Progress, but I actually like it a lot better. In it the Chief Shepherd's servant Much-Afraid, who's from the family of Fearlings, wants to escape her family and go up to the High Places with the Chief Shepherd. On this journey the Chief Shepherd gives her two very capable guides to help her named Sorrow and Suffering. At first she is very scared of them being her guides, but she learns that without them she would never be able to make the journey and comes to love them for all of the help they give her. And just like in any Christian's walk with God, the path the Chief Shepherd has her on sometimes goes in exactly the opposite direction it ultimately leads to.
Dan wrote:Sometimes I feel like you do, that God is harsh and unloving. But.... well I can't explain it but God being tough on us is one of the most loving things He can do for us. If He didn't do this, would you be questioning yourself now? Would you have the oppurtunity to know yourself better? Every time I get really emotional I can gain some insight into who I am. Maybe you can do the same thing as well.
I whole-heartedly agree. God has plans for our pains. I've been suicidal as well, and I've ruined my tear ducts from all of my intense crying. My experience I'm sure wasn't even close to what yours must be like, but the ways which God works with His Children always follow the same principles. The Bible says that God uses everything in the life of those who love Him for their good. And no matter how difficult that may be to accept sometimes it's always true. We are His Children and He is a Good Father.
On Much-Afraid's journey through a desert she came to a building. In the building, (I'm going to tell this part my own way,) there was a master potter on one floor, who taking a lump of clay would pound out all of the air-pockets, and spinning it on his wheel would shape and mould the clay to his liking by applying varying degrees of pressure, and then place it in a hot kiln to harden into the created form. On the next floor was a metal-worker who would build a hot fire, insert the metal to be moulded into the fire to be softened, and then would pound out with a heavy hammer and a strong arm the form which he desired the metal to take. There were three floors like this, (I remember the details so poorly,) and the message was pretty obvious (and very biblical). God takes us as lumps of clay or chunks of metal and through varying pressures and trials of fire forms us into vessels for His use. This is the only way it can be done.
Cling to the One who gives bread and not stones, (our eyes don't see what God sees,) trust Him according to His Word, and in the end you will see the Master Plan which neccessarily includes Sorrow and Suffering. I'm telling you that God has you in His Hands and feels your pain even more than you do because of His great love for you. He who appears to more than abandon us but throw us to the wolves is your hope, in whom you can and should, and one day will trust. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him," (somewhere in Job.) And while it's brought up, Job would be a good book for you as well! And I'm confidently praying for you too. You
will be fine because God will see you through.
i've lost God. totally, completely. i am at the point where i do not even know if i can get Him back. i was so high on Him and christianity when i wrote my testimony. then i got slapped in the face with guilt and now i can't come back. it is so very strange. all the insight and serenity that He granted is slowly being rubbed off--like i'm a totally different person. i know you guys are going to think i am an absolute psycho, but i really don't care. i don't even know what kind of response i'm looking for. 
