I'd like advice from someone who at least believes in God, whether you're a Christian or not. I don't want someone saying "oh well you shouldn't believe anyway, be a buddhist" or "well god isn't real so why does it matter" and etc etc. This is my belief, and this is my problem, and I need real advice from people who have similar views as me. Even if you have a different religion you've lost faith in at some point, come at me with your advice.

I guess I should tell you all what led up to this first. Me and my boyfriend have been having some problems. Every time my trust is built up again, something happens in a few months to break it down once more. Bad things keep happening.

Now we both believe in God and pray, but I've stopped praying. I'm scared to.

I feel as if every time I pray, the opposite of what I pray for happens. So because this has kept happening over and over again, I just can't get myself to pray anymore. I think that if I pray for something good, the opposite will happen. And I feel bad because I'm blaming God a little bit. Why did he let these things happen? Are these supposed to be tests? Why would he do something like this to me?

I know that praying doesn't fix everything, it's a two-way street. I have to put in effort for him to put in effort. But if I'm putting in effort and these things keep happening, how is prayer even helping? How is God helping? It doesn't seem to me like he's putting in any effort to help my problems. So even when I start to pray, I just can't finish. I don't see the point any more, and I get that fear inside of me that praying is just going to ruin things instead of make them better.

Two points. The first is that even Mother Theresa had crises of faith over the duration of her life. You're not alone.

As for praying and outcomes, I think the issue in my own life has been that I keep putting what I think I want and what is best for me above God's plan. He's got that bigger picture, knows the end result thing going on and I don't. As a comparison, it's a child's perspective versus their parents' perspective on the world. We as cosmic kids get frustrated and really down because how we wanted things to work out didn't, but the adults know how things need to happen (like yo sorry you have to go through that difficult experience to become a stronger person). Sometimes we say we're going to give something to God but then we get up and take it right back and therein lies the issue. Or we'll ask for His will, but then we'll start imagining how we'd like it to work out so when we see signs that it's not going in our made up direction we think He isn't listening when, in reality, we're just spinning out on something we made up ourselves instead of what's actually His will. And maybe we keep moving in the wrong direction when He's given us all indications that we need to change our course and our situation.

Anyway. Maybe the point isn't to have to problem go away but for us to work through the problem and come out the other side. It's hard to trust when we don't know where something is going and all we see is the dark. I try to get myself to where, when things feel like they're going wrong, to say "ok, thank you for whatever outcome this is supposed to have. Help me to be able to keep feeling thankful because I know I don't see the big idea here. Also, You're going to have to drag me through this one." I ask for strength and peace in the tough situations, and I try to leave it there and just keep moving forward.

I'm an atheist, but my fiance is not and experienced something similar, so here's what he has to say;

I believe in god and Jesus, despite knowing that there's no way to know if he exists or not, because it is comforting for me to believe. That's my only real reason that stands up to logic for why I believe. However a year or so ago, bad things happened to me and I sinned a bit. I became so terrified of hell, it was paralyzing. God was no longer comforting me, so I no longer had a reason to believe. During this time period, I found it best to temporarily suspend my belief in God while I dealt with life. Later on, when my life felt more steady, I reverted to believing and praying again. I think its absolutely fine and even healthy to stop believing temporarily if it isn'y helping you; in my case it actually saved my faith. Had I not stopped believing for a while, I would have been so resentful and frustrated with god I don't think I'd have started believing again.

thanks for that, it helped.

I agree with everything said, and I'd like to add that God's timeline isn't our own. He has something absolutely amazing planned for you, but it has to happen in His time. He's preparing you for something so much bigger, and I know first-hand how frustrating it can be when you just want things to work out NOW. You don't have to keep praying if you're afraid. Try meditation. Turn to your favorite piece of Scripture and just read it. The hardest thing in the world is to hold faith in something that you can't see, hear, or feel, especially when so many are speaking out against it, telling you it doesn't exist.

I've been through some hell in life, and I know deep in my heart that I wouldn't have survived it without God. He didn't make all of my problems magically go away, though. In the midst of a crippling depression and a lot of family crap, I found a way to keep putting one foot in front of the other, not knowing where I was going. I just trusted God to guide me where I needed to go. It took almost three years before I started to feel better, and almost five years before I could really see what God was getting me ready for. Now I look back, and it all makes sense. I am the person I am today because of the hell I had to go through to get here.