Salutations brothers, and sisters!
I'm not sure where to begin telling you about the difficulties imposed on me by my family's strong atheistic beliefs, so I'll tell you briefly about how my faith has been shaken out of me through (esp) my step-father's negative comments, and my mother's generally negative points of view: I was a firm believer before I was into my teenage years. I truly had the love of Jesus in my heart, and loved him with everything I had but my step-father verbally abused me so severely one night that I had to turn to his mother for some support. His words struck me to the core: "Religion is for weak-minded people" (maybe the worst of it, for me at least). He belittled me, my faith, and my intelligence. I grew apart from the Lord, and would eventually turn to strong atheist writings, and even toward Satanism, in my quest for spiritual fulfillment - obviously there was none to be found there - as I'm with the Lord at this point in my life, once again.
Recently, I was opening myself up to Jesus, and trying to turn my life around, yet again. My mother would reject me for the smallest portions of the Christian inside me. I would avoid any mention of Him, and it hurt. I wanted to be open, however, and decided that I would just part ways with a simple "God bless you," at the end of one of our phone conversations, and that disgusted her. She said "Oh, no! Don't!" Then we would get into a sort of debate over my faith, what I believe in, and her views of it. Basically, she was raised in a Catholic family, and says that it was "forced down 'their' throats," referring to her other siblings. And that she also doesn't believe in it, that it is wrong, and expressed her concern, and even "fear" that I was, or had been, brainwashed - that she was worried about me.
I was so filled with shame, and reminded of my upbringing, that I decided to turn my back on my faith, and more sadly, Jesus - yet again! I bought another strong atheist book, by Richard Dawkins - I still have it but don't recall the title (it isn't important enough to me to source that right now), but basically immersed myself in my selfish, and worldly pursuits, and returned to abusing drugs, and more recently, after I had ceased taking a certain substance (due to reasons outside of my genuine control), returned to drinking regularly. Yes, I'm a recovering addict and alcoholic. Another sign that my upbringing wasn't healthy (I was actually exposed to drugs and alcohol from a young age, and throughout my life, and dealt with the rejection I was so often subjected with drugs and alcohol). Enough of that, for now. I'm clean and sober at the moment, and that means a lot to me, so does the Lord.
So, I've found a new church (the last one I was recently involved with proved difficult), and my faith is becoming increasingly sound, but it isn't unshakable -yet. At least not impervious to my mother's judgement. My heart has much anguish, and fear, hatred, etc, and so the room I have for Jesus is limited by this. I asked Him last night to help me be rid of these things - so that I could love Him more completely, as I once had a pure heart which was devoted to Him. So I ask of you, whether I'm right to avoid expressing my (again) new-found faith with my mother - at least until I'm strong enough to withstand her negative opinions of it, and of my character, person, etc. Or whether I'm doing a disservice to God, in that selfish act, by the avoidance of sharing my faith in Jesus. I now wonder whether I should just prepare myself for almost complete rejection from the singular person I depend on for total love and respect, or whether I'm showing disrespect to God, by not sharing Him with her. He comes first, but my mother is to be honored. I get so confused with this sort of thing, because I'm a flexible thinker - due to being on the Autism Spectrum. People, and social situations such as this are quite difficult to me, and I feel I can't look at this issue objectively, because there is that past trauma which influences me unconsciously. I will work on this issue once I've posted, but any reply will be welcomed kindly.
Thank you in advance, for your time.
I'm not sure where to begin telling you about the difficulties imposed on me by my family's strong atheistic beliefs, so I'll tell you briefly about how my faith has been shaken out of me through (esp) my step-father's negative comments, and my mother's generally negative points of view: I was a firm believer before I was into my teenage years. I truly had the love of Jesus in my heart, and loved him with everything I had but my step-father verbally abused me so severely one night that I had to turn to his mother for some support. His words struck me to the core: "Religion is for weak-minded people" (maybe the worst of it, for me at least). He belittled me, my faith, and my intelligence. I grew apart from the Lord, and would eventually turn to strong atheist writings, and even toward Satanism, in my quest for spiritual fulfillment - obviously there was none to be found there - as I'm with the Lord at this point in my life, once again.
Recently, I was opening myself up to Jesus, and trying to turn my life around, yet again. My mother would reject me for the smallest portions of the Christian inside me. I would avoid any mention of Him, and it hurt. I wanted to be open, however, and decided that I would just part ways with a simple "God bless you," at the end of one of our phone conversations, and that disgusted her. She said "Oh, no! Don't!" Then we would get into a sort of debate over my faith, what I believe in, and her views of it. Basically, she was raised in a Catholic family, and says that it was "forced down 'their' throats," referring to her other siblings. And that she also doesn't believe in it, that it is wrong, and expressed her concern, and even "fear" that I was, or had been, brainwashed - that she was worried about me.
I was so filled with shame, and reminded of my upbringing, that I decided to turn my back on my faith, and more sadly, Jesus - yet again! I bought another strong atheist book, by Richard Dawkins - I still have it but don't recall the title (it isn't important enough to me to source that right now), but basically immersed myself in my selfish, and worldly pursuits, and returned to abusing drugs, and more recently, after I had ceased taking a certain substance (due to reasons outside of my genuine control), returned to drinking regularly. Yes, I'm a recovering addict and alcoholic. Another sign that my upbringing wasn't healthy (I was actually exposed to drugs and alcohol from a young age, and throughout my life, and dealt with the rejection I was so often subjected with drugs and alcohol). Enough of that, for now. I'm clean and sober at the moment, and that means a lot to me, so does the Lord.
So, I've found a new church (the last one I was recently involved with proved difficult), and my faith is becoming increasingly sound, but it isn't unshakable -yet. At least not impervious to my mother's judgement. My heart has much anguish, and fear, hatred, etc, and so the room I have for Jesus is limited by this. I asked Him last night to help me be rid of these things - so that I could love Him more completely, as I once had a pure heart which was devoted to Him. So I ask of you, whether I'm right to avoid expressing my (again) new-found faith with my mother - at least until I'm strong enough to withstand her negative opinions of it, and of my character, person, etc. Or whether I'm doing a disservice to God, in that selfish act, by the avoidance of sharing my faith in Jesus. I now wonder whether I should just prepare myself for almost complete rejection from the singular person I depend on for total love and respect, or whether I'm showing disrespect to God, by not sharing Him with her. He comes first, but my mother is to be honored. I get so confused with this sort of thing, because I'm a flexible thinker - due to being on the Autism Spectrum. People, and social situations such as this are quite difficult to me, and I feel I can't look at this issue objectively, because there is that past trauma which influences me unconsciously. I will work on this issue once I've posted, but any reply will be welcomed kindly.
Thank you in advance, for your time.
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) So i need all the help i can get when i try and help others 
