PLEASE HEAR ME OUT.

What am I even doing?

I don’t know. I keep telling myself I’m fine. I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. But I’m not. My chest is tight and my head won’t stop. I’m tired of acting like this is simple. It isn’t.

I heard from a sermon: don’t ask God like a beggar. Don’t say “God help me.” Begging is not allowed for a believer. If you ask like that, you don’t understand who you are in Christ—that’s what they said. So now every time I want to say “help me,” I freeze. I swallow it. I edit my own prayer in my head because I don’t want to be that believer who still begs.

But the Bible says to ask. Seek. Knock. So which one is it? If I ask, I’m wrong. If I don’t ask, I’m also wrong. I don’t know what prayer is anymore. I don’t know what authority means. People say proclaim truth, speak the word, take your place. Okay, but when I open my mouth all I have is “God, I don’t know what I’m doing.” And that sentence sounds like begging, so I shut it down. I hate this loop.

My prayers are short and stiff. I thank Him for life I didn’t ask for. I ask for mercy for sins—past and future—for thoughts and moods and anything that looks like weakness. I pray for protection for me and the people I love so nothing terrible happens. Then I close fast. I don’t stay. I don’t tell Him the real stuff. I treat feelings like trash I should hide. I show up, say the safe lines, leave.

I don’t know if I love Him. That’s the part that scares me, but I’m not only scared—I’m confused and unsure and worried. Do I even want to love Him, or do I just want to escape punishment? If I don’t love Him, I go to hell. So do I really get to choose? If I force myself, is that love or fear? I keep telling myself “don’t think about it, don’t go deep, thinking this much means you don’t have faith,” and I try to push it away. I tell myself these are worldly desires and doubts, and I should choke them before they grow. But they keep coming back. I’m not fine.

I compare myself to people who look close to God. They sound certain. They say God told them things. They look covered, protected, favored. I feel outside. Like He watches me from a distance. Like I’m a problem He’s tired of explaining.

I keep circling this other thing: people suffer and I think I’m the cause. Not because I did something direct, just this heavy sense like suffering runs through me and spills onto others. Inherited damage. I know it sounds crazy but it sticks to my skin and I can’t wash it off. When something goes wrong around me, the first thought is “it’s because of me.”

Then I swing to the other side: God loves me, that’s why I’m alive. God loves me, that’s why I have a loving family. I tell myself that to breathe. But then the next thought hits hard—if He took it away, is it still love? If everything good disappeared, is it still love? And the moment I ask that, I feel dirty, ungrateful, like I just insulted Him. I hate that I even think it, but it’s there.

I was taught “you are perfect and whole in Christ.” Sometimes I repeat it like medicine. But then I look at people who are drowning and I think, why me, why am I told I’m whole while they bleed. Is it blasphemy to even ask that? Is it pride? Is it blindness? I don’t know what to do with the gap between what I’m told about favor and what I see in real life.

I avoid talking to God about my personal feelings. I keep telling myself, those are not important, those are messy, just obey. Only obedience matters. If I’m obedient, I’ll be safe. If I’m not, I’ll be rejected. So I stuff everything into a corner and call it faith. It isn’t faith. It’s hiding.

My sexuality sits in the middle of all this. I’m bisexual. I lean toward guys. I don’t feel romantic attraction to girls. I keep trying to rename it, ignore it, bury it, throw it away. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, it shouldn’t matter, I should kill it before it ruins my life, before it ruins my future, before it ruins any children I might have. I don’t talk to any pastor because I already hear the lines in my head: after all this teaching, you should know better… you’re giving the devil a voice… where is your faith. So I stay quiet and carry it alone. I hate the silence but I’m afraid of the answers.

I mostly see God as Creator and Judge. Big. Holy. Untouchable. I don’t know how to run to Him like Father. I don’t even know if I want to. I want the safety, yes, the covering, the sense that I won’t be thrown away. But love—real love—I don’t know if I have it. I don’t know if I can learn it. I don’t know if I’ll fake it forever and hope He doesn’t notice.

I keep telling myself I’m fine. I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. But I’m not. I’m not sleeping well. I’m crushing my chest with my own rules. I censor my prayers because of that sermon. I second-guess every word: is this begging, is this disobedience, is this weakness, is this faith. I walk into prayer already guilty and walk out empty.

I don’t bring Him the parts that burn. I don’t say I’m lonely. I don’t say I’m angry. I don’t say I’m tired of being the careful believer with the correct sentences. I don’t say I’m scared to choose anything because every choice feels like hell is waiting.

I know this sounds like a mess. It is a mess. I wish someone would tell me I’m not crazy. I wish someone would say I’m not beyond hope. I wish I could believe God isn’t only looking at me with anger. Right now I can’t feel it. Right now I just feel heavy and unsure and worried. Not entirely scared, just stuck.

Last night I cried because I finally reached my breaking point. I cried because of everything happening to me right now—my personal life, the lack of progress, the way I’ve been unserious and fearful, and even the church with all its division and demolition.

How have I been able to hold this in for so long? Nothing is wrong with me. These aren’t real problems. They don’t matter. They never did. People are suffering, dying, starving—and I’m here with a blind trust issue. So it’s not a problem, right?

The moment I write things like this, it just screams: you’re sinning. God has brought me out of darkness, and yet I still cling to it. Sometimes I even feel convicted about holding onto guilt and fear, because it feels safer to hate myself than to love Him and sacrifice myself. I already know what He wants. I just don’t know if I can give it.

Instead of talking to God honestly about how I feel, I try to handle it myself. I masturbate, killing the spirit that could give me resolve, because guilt feels better to hold onto. It’s like saying: if I resolve this, I won’t be happy. Will I really be happy?

I feel so messed up right now. I can’t think straight. I keep feeling like I should stop writing this, just ignore everything, and live blindly.

I cried last night because I don’t know what I’m doing—how to live my life. I’m unsure about everything.

I cried because I’m tired of wanting to be saved, yet knowing that being saved means giving up everything. I cried because I don’t have it all figured out. I cried because I don’t fit the role I’ve been given. I cried because I’m not good enough.

I cried because it felt good to finally admit how I’ve been feeling all this while. Crying made it more real than it has ever been.

And still, if you read this with a clear mind, it looks like I just want to have a problem. Like I’m forcing myself to hold on to guilt—because it feels good to have guilt. Maybe I am.

But I can’t hold onto guilt and uncertainty forever. I’ll drown.

I matter. I know I do. I just feel like I need time to figure it out. My feelings right now shouldn’t be valid. So I’ll just obey and cover up.

I still don’t know if I’ll talk to God about this. Yesterday I ran to masturbation because it was easier to sin than to talk to Him.

I don’t have the answer now. I’m not depressed—I’m just unsure. And it’s because I don’t know. I fear not knowing. If I did know, would I obey? Do I even have a choice? It doesn’t feel like a choice. It’s either I do it—or hell.

If any pastor or Christian sees this, they’ll probably just say: this is a faithless believer talking. Someone who wants guilt because it feels good. Or they’ll say it’s a demon, and I need deliverance, and I shouldn’t speak fear. Maybe that’s what I’ll do.

Who knows what awaits me? I can’t even say “God help me” anymore—because I was told it’s begging. But if I could, I would have said it.