What is My Relationship with God?

I was asked by my counselor to answer the following questions; What is my relationship with God? Is it the way I want it? Why or why not?

Here is my reply.

​I suppose if I were to talk about my relationship with God then I would have to tell you how it got the way it did from the beginning. I was born to a catholic family in the south. I suppose that might be kind of an oxymoron and in a town that was run by baptists it was.I was fortunate enough to attend catholic school and we attended mass every Monday and Friday as a class along with mass on Saturdays with my family. I began my mornings with prayers just as I had been taught at school. When I was old enough I became an alter boy and greatly cherished my service to the church. I quickly became a favorite alter boy of the bishop over our diocese. When I was in eighth grade I left the catholic school I attended due to financial stress on the family. I no longer attended mass three times a week. In the years that followed I began to lose all contact I had with the catholic church. That carried on throughout high school but I found myself attending mass once again while I was in boot camp. After boot camp I lost touch with my spirituality aside from one year where I attended midnight mass. After my time in the service I began attending a non-denominational Christian church. Slowly I began to lose faith in my catholic upbringing all together. I began to understand, on my own terms, that the sacraments I had been studying and preparing myself for in the catholic faith couldn't get me into heaven. I realized that if I wanted to get to heaven all I had to do was accept Christ as my savior. Moving out to California in the early part of 2000 may have been the best thing for my spirituality. The church my wife attended as a young woman quickly became our home church and over the next several years, my spirituality and the closeness I felt with my Savior grew and grew. I began studying the bible in earnest. I offered up my service to the church, first as an usher, and then later as a teacher in the children's ministries. I found myself praying morning and night. I listened to the Word on the radio while I was at work. I preoccupied my mind with thoughts of my Savior. In 2003 I felt a calling on my life into ministry and then into chaplaincy in the Navy. I talked with my pastor and shared my desire to enter the ministry. He was pleased and offered to help me find a bible college to attend as long as I did the things I needed to on my part. Now for reasons unknown to me, I procrastinated. I made no effort what so ever to find my high school transcripts, request my G.I. bill, or follow up with my pastor to see what schools were available to me. Spiritually, at the time I was still close in the relationship with my Lord. My family and I continued to attend church regularly, I had stopped being an usher at the church to focus more time in the children’s ministry. My wife and I began a weekly bible study group for the kids at the apartment complex we were living in. For most of the kids this was the only church they attended. We continued the home bible study group for the kids for several months until the interest of the children fizzled out due to pressures from their parents. Slowly, however, the amount of time my family and I would attend church began to dwindle. We stopped working in the children’s ministry, missed a weekend at church here and there. The weekends gradually became months. Then months became a year. I stopped praying like I did and only prayed out of fear of losing all connections I had with God. There are several days this past year where I did not pray at all. I don’t really see it as God left me, more like I left God. When I finally admitted to myself that I am an alcoholic I asked God to help me. I suppose this is how I ended up at HVRC. I feel guilty, spiritually. I know only God can help me overcome this disease that I now know I have, but I feel as if I have let Him down. So many opportunities were placed before me in the past and I allowed my problem with alcohol get in the way of the man I believe He wants me to be. I hope I can overcome this feeling of guilt that I have. As I am writing this, I hope that this aloneness I feel in my spirituality is part of His greater plan.