CounselingChristians

Q: I could really use some prayers and also advice. My husband and I have been married for 20 years. We are 49 (him) and 48 (me). He might be on the autism perspective but not sure if that affects any of this. We struggled with infertility and went through treatments, but I was never able to bring a baby to term. We ended up adopting 3 teenager girls (sisters) through foster care, and to be completely honest, it has been a nightmare. The girls are now 21, 19 and 16. The only one we have a good relationship with is the 16 year old and we are completely estranged from the 19 year old. My husband has always struggled with depression and feeling like he is not close to anyone. I have tried for years to connect with him, but he says he never feels like I try, that I am cold, unemotional, etc. I don't feel like I am, but I am a reserved person. Maybe he is right and I don't show emotions enough, but this is not something that I have ever heard from anyone else in my life. We have no...

Q: I am 34 years old man, born and raised most of my life as an ultra-Orthodox Jew and about seven months ago I was blessed and born again and baptized into the Lord. AndI left the ultra-Orthodox community I was living in in New Jersey and moved to Dallas, Texas so that I could grow more in my Christian faith and grow with Jesus. As an ultra-Orthodox Jew, I had a well-paid, well-paying job that I could both live on and send to my children who live in Israel. As soon as I came to faith, I had to quit my job, which I happily did and moved to Dallas without any other job. Today, after six months, I still haven't been able to find a good job in Dallas for all sorts of reasons, and the main reason is that as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, I don't even have a high school diploma. And I've reached a point where I'm just giving up and I'm going to go back to my friends from the Haredi community next week to help me look for a job with them, but that will mean that I'll have to,...

Q:  I am struggling with sin and could use some advice.  When you sin throughout the day with whatever it may be,  Lust, pride etc, there are sins I commit every day.  I feel so guilty and beat myself up mentally.  I am trying to stop but it's not that easy.  How does one move past these sins in the way God wants us too.  Does he want me to feel guilty and disappointed in myself? A: We grow in righteousness day by day as believers who pick up their cross and follow Him. We kill, conquer and have Victory over sins so we become more holy and become more like Christ.  When we read and study Scripture, and gain deeper understandings at Sunday School, Church Bible study offerings, and by our pastor sermons, it helps us grow in sanctification and maturity in the faith.  We know God has forgiven all our sins in Jesus, by His work (in his perfect life, being our propitiation on the cross, dying in our place, and raising from the dead, [showing God ac...

Q:  I am a new Christian, I wasn’t raised in the church so this is all fairly new to me. I gave my heart to Christ in last year, and then got baptized a month later. I am currently reading through Luke for the first time & I just got to chapter 16 verse 18: “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and everyone who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.” I am 30 years old, I am divorced, with no children. I got divorced before I became a Christian and I definitely had no idea that remarrying would actually be considered adultery?! Well, I am currently living with my boyfriend who is not a believer but is very supportive of my faith. We got together and moved in together before I became a Christian and before I “knew better.” I was literally an atheist before, so this whole faith journey genuinely came out of nowhere and kinda shocked everyone. God really does work in mysterious ways! 😀 He is a decent man, and I pray ...

Q: have a neighbor who’s become more like family over the last year and a half. She is disabled. And in her 60’s. She’s had it rough, & you can tell. Very hard to get along with and rough around the edges. We’ve had our disputes and gotten over them rather quickly. No biggie. But I am beginning to get very frustrated with her. I'm not sure if it's her attitude or mine, or both.  She is a chain smoker, and sends me to the store nearly every night to buy her coke and 5 packs of cigarettes. Her alternator is currently out in her vehicle, so she depends on us to get things for her. My husband gets up at 4 am and leaves with our only vehicle and does not return home until nearly 8 pm every night. It gets extremely hectic when I have to rush out of the door the second he gets home & tend to her every need. She asked him to fix her alternator and he could not do it because he had to work two weekends in a row because of the snow storm and holidays (he’s a truck driver). She in...

A few days ago I turned 84 years old.  I became a Christian when I was in college at the age of 19, so that means I’ve been a Christian about 65 years. I’ve seen a lot in that time span.  When I woke up this morning (much earlier than I would have liked) I began to think about all the Christian parents I have known during those 65 years who were vastly disappointed in the way their children turned out. I’m not talking about half-hearted Christian parents, but devoted Christian parents who took their parenting very seriously. Naturally, the question that arose in my mind was why. Why did all those good intentions fail so utterly? In several cases I was so close to those parents that I was greatly distressed at what happened.  The next thing that came to my mind was all the serious young Christian parents that are now setting out in their parenting career. Some of these are my grandchildren. Will they come to the same grief with their children? Why does this tragedy get rep...

Sensitive church subject. My husband and I have left the church where we are members. We found a new church and are pursuing membership. In our transfer of membership letter, we stated that health and distance were related. We also included that if they wish to talk to us we would be willing. We didn't think the old church would since we were gone for months and no one contacted us. However, to our surprise they did want to meet and discuss.  One of the reasons we left besides the reasons given is because we don't believe the pastor is qualified to be a pastor. To our knowledge, he doesn't have any disqualifying issues personally but it's his wife. He took an extended sabbatical to work on his "marriage" After returning his wife posted a photo to Instagram that was inappropriate. She had her arm around a "naked" street performer with a guitar in front of his genitalia, while giving a thumbs-up. Before his sabbatical, she was rarely in church. Th...

Dating & headed towards Marriage with a Black Hebrew Israelite. My boyfriend (soon to be husband) is a black Hebrew Israelite. And I am a Christian he is great, but there are a few things that are just wrong in his views. He believes in having multiple wives, he believes that adultery is only when you sleep with a married woman but not when sleeping with your “wives”. So he goes out every Saturday after his bible teaching, and then goes around the streets to get girls numbers, and goes to bars to drink with his fellow church members to meet girls. I believe what he believes in is false doctrine.  We do go over the Bible often together. I’ve shown him every verse in the Bible about becoming one flesh and how one husband should have his own wife etc…. He believes because God allowed Solomon to have multiple wives (and yes I explained to him how that turned his heart away from God) but he goes against that verse to say how God gave a law to how to handle multiple wives which make...