Lots of good posts. One thing that we all missed so far is that everyone makes mistakes, takes the wrong road. Why? Because we have to decide that God is something good that we want in our lives. It is not an order ‘Love God’ or even a request. God tries to show us love and hopes we respond in kind.
To put it another way, say you are born with a million dollars in your bank account and are allowed to spend from birth. You most likely will have little appreciation of money. Now take someone who had to live a great deal on potatoes, beans, and greens because there was no money. They can most likely make the most of every cent they get their hands on.
Teenage years are hard but this is a question you can study all of your life, it is that deep, which is why they have other forums (e.g. great debates).
While there are people who calculate sins, I beleive current Christian practice in at least the Anglican and Catholic churches is that what is most important is your attitude, not your particular sins. Your sins are a reflection of the direction you are going. Killing someone shows a great separation from ‘love’ and requires more work but many soldiers have come back from war and returned to love to rectify. (Yes, I am a pacifist.) Doing an evil deed not only shows the direction you are going but also pulls you in that direction, partially at least because you are thinking about ‘non-love’.
Therefore, it is important to think about good things and to try to avoid intentionally doing things which might cause problems later. Emotions are not entirely controllable. It is better to allow them to pass through. People forgive your being angry much more easily than if you burn down their home. In other words, that you don’t feel love for your parents is no great problem. Acting on that feeling can create serious problems.
Granted your parents may not be doing the right things in your opinion, but they are most likely doing the best they can at that point in their lives. But look at it this way. They are showing you mistakes people can make in raising children and interacting with others. So make a list of the things you would do better and try to start now. If they say things that hurt you, say ‘thank you’ for the lesson because now you know when you say something wrong, how the other person feels. When you feel hurt, say ‘I am going to try to make others feel good (so they don’t feel this way).’ As you give, so shall you receive. Yes, you are going to hurt many people in your life, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes intention (perhaps because you are looking elsewhere else like the soldiers in Iraq now. They do not want to kill anyone but they feel by hurting one person, they can make 3 or 10, or 100 people feel better.), but these mistakes are simply a chance to learn, to consciously reinforce the rule in your life that you want to make people feel good. With time, the good you do for others will return to you.
To love God is to do the best you can for everyone, not perfection, not a warm cuddly feeling, not a sense of awe, and not a pious performance in church. If you are doing the best you can (and that does not mean giving all your money away and joining the Franciscans or some other order, it means in your present circumstances with your actual capabilities. You also need to do nice things for yourself since you are as much a worthwhile part of the world as everyone else), then you ARE loving God. With time, hopefully, that love will grow. If you consciously think about it, it is almost certain to do so.
By the way, God loves you as are. There is a nice question, who does God love more, Mary or Satan? The answer is that he loves both equally and wishes both al the best in life. Just Satan is currently rejecting those good things while Mary is accepting them. Until Augustine, many Christians like Origen beleived that everyone would go to heaven, even Satan, just some would get there sooner than others.
Good luck in your life’s search.
Strange you should say that. It was at 50 that I began to enjoy life. But you don’t need to wait that long. Today is fine to begin to enjoy life.
God is love, and He loves you no matter who you are, or what you do. God would never harm you. Don’t worry about all that talk of hell, as you grow older you will sort it out. Just try being yourself as much as you can, it is more important for you to love yourself, as God does, than to worry about what others think.
This is not a perfect world, it is ok for you to be yourself. What Arturas said about reincarnation is true, we just keep working on learning to love until we get it right. There is no time table. Love comes from within, because you are love. Don’t really have to try to win anything because you have already won everything. Learn all you can about things that interests you. Look for the positive side of people, it is there. Once you stop being critical of yourself you will automatically stop being critical of others.
You are fine, ok, God loves you and holds you safe and secure for all eternity. You are created in His perfection, you can not lose, because you have already won.
Love
Leroy
Littlekitty666
What’s with the “666”? Do you know what it signifies?
And welcome to the SDMB. 
As you, have seen, there are some nice folks here.
Peace,
mangeorge
Oh, sweetheart! My heart aches for you; you’re the same age as my daughter, and every day reminds me once again how difficult the teen years are. Believe me, there are few adults who would ever go back!
I want to give you some comfort and hope to ease your pain a little. First, regarding your parents; remember, the commandment actually states that you must honor your parents, meaning to display the proper respect for their position and authority. Love is not commanded by God. Please, take a few deep breaths, spend some quiet prayer time, and let God speak directly to you.
Matthew 11:28
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Secondly, if your brother is sincere in trying to be friends, he would be a great help, being close by and available. Having some one else on your side would help immensely in dealing with your parents.
Third, please find a local church, if you’re not attending one now, with a solid youth group. You probably know some kids at school who might be a good source. Perhaps a bible study group at school? The idea is to seek not only immediate support and strength, but spiritual support to ease this time of transition.
Fourth, last and most importantly, you sound like a wonderful young woman. You’ll find that SDMB can be of value if you’re looking for entertainment. It certainly isn’t, strictly speaking, a Christian message board. I know of at least two if you’re interested. You can e-mail me for the sites. Whatever you do, please look for support from those people who are interested in doing what is best for you, okay? Be strong, and take care.
Dear LittleKitty666,
I know why you suffer problems with God. God is afraid of you because you are not afraid of the number 666. Unless you do what God–and by this I mean your Bible, your pastor, and your parents–wants you to do, God won’t love you anymore! God only loves people who are afraid of him and who do what he tells them to do. This is because God is a spooky creature from another dimension who feeds on fear. He can’t survive without it. Isn’t that awful? Luckily, you don’t need God’s love. I love you, and I always will. Why? Because at one time, long ago, we were so very close together that we were one and the same. Some people call this “genesis,” some people call it “the big bang,” some people call it other things. But the name doesn’t matter. Right now I can feel that we are coming back together through this message board. We two, substatique and LittleKitty666 (or whatever our real names are) are so clever that we planned this meeting right from the start, when we were one and the same. We planned it so that we could remember how close we used to be, and how nice it is that we have explored the world and found new things in our lifetimes. Even though it’s been a long time since then, I still love you and I won’t tell you to drown your sorrows in a history book that’s mostly wrong (I mean the Bible). I’m not interested in knowing where you live, or even talking to you again, so there’s no need to worry that my love for you is perverse or evil. But I want you to know that I love you when you’re happy and I love you when you’re sad. Sometimes it is best to be sad because then you learn what it’s like. Imagine if you didn’t know what it was like to be sad! Sometimes it’s best if your parents make you feel awful. Imagine what it would be like if you had never experienced that! You would be a totally different person, and would you really want to be a different person? There might be some things about people you would like to have, but would you be willing to give up all the things you have now? It’s OK when people don’t like you. And it’s OK if you choose to not like them in return. And it’s even OK if you decide to like them anyway. That’s what Jesus did: he loved everyone, even if they hated him. Lots of other religious people do that too, not just Christians. I know that sometimes nobody can say anything that will make you happy, and at those times it might be best if you found a place to be by yourself and just be sad. I hope you can be happy a lot of the time, because it is a lot nicer, but I also hope you can be sad some of the time because otherwise you would get bored with being happy! But most importantly, don’t worry about God. You are very important to him, but he doesn’t need to be important to you. You are way better than God because you can get by without him just fine. If you like God, and you want to keep being his buddy, then that’s fine too. Whenever you want to be his friend, he’ll be there for you. You can spend years and years hating and ignoring God, and then one day, you can be his friend again. Just like that! Easier than snapping your fingers! God is kind of a sucker. I’m sorry for talking so much, but I was so glad to see you again that I got excited and had to say everything that came to mind. I hope some of it makes sense to you, and maybe some of it will even help you. There might be people who don’t like what I said, but that’s OK. Even if they don’t understand me, and if they don’t understand you, that’s OK. They all want to help you because they love you, just like I do. That’s all anyone really wants to do, is love and help anyone they can. If it looks like somebody is doing something to hurt, it’s just because there is a misunderstanding. This is probably the only time we’ll ever meet until the universe collapses and we become one and the same again, so I wish you well in your future life and everything you do.
Love,
substatique 
About the number “666”, I am fully aware of what it means…But my friend was here with me, and she made my username
FYI-I do not, in any way, like the devil!
Hey, this post was really interesting to me because I’m also 15 and I have similar problems. My family’s not Christian but I am, and at boarding school my faith really increased, but I’ve been spending some time in my sister’s college dorm over this spring break and it’s so obvious to me why I had problems when I lived with my family. I really do depend on church and the support of other Christians to help me solve problems I have and to see how God works in people’s lives. Youth conferences (what do you call them, actually?) are amazing too - I went to my first one a couple months ago and I left feeling great and just KNOWING that God was real and I should spread the word.
Also, I don’t reject people when they show signs of annoyance at me, but I spazz like crazy and have serious insecurity problems - have they stopped liking me? etc. My sister gave me advice on this one, which was wonderfully simple yet I’d never considered it: stop doing whatever annoys that person! Or if you can’t figure out what it is, just fade a little into the background as a safety measure (like, be a little more low-key)… people do forget little annoyances quickly if they don’t continue.
Hmm. I have no idea how helpful any of this was (especially as I wonder how much right I have to give advice, being your peer), and I know a lot of people have said really useful things already, but I guess I felt a need to say this for my sake as well.
I don’t have much to add except to again repeat that you are not alone in your feelings. I think **rumraisin ** got it right on in saying
“*NONE of us are what we should be. Every day we all fail in many ways. But you know, in God, we have complete forgiveness” *
If God forgives us we should forgive ourselves too - though I find that isn’t an easy thing to do. Hang in there and re-read some of these posts if you need to - It’s great to see so much support here.
DREAMER!
Good to see you again.
Post more often.
love, vanilla
That’s cool, Littlekitty666. It doesn’t bother me a bit. I take everything in the bible with a grain of salt. You can use whatever name you like, but some people are going to make assumptions based on what they see.
Just trying to be helpful. It’s the grampa in me, I guess.
Thanks for all the advice and encouragement!
Do you go to Hell for other religions? Most religions are Jesus/God based. If you belived more into that, would God still see it as worshiping him, or would he condemn you to Hell for it?
God does not condemn anyone to hell. Nearly all religions have a good place and a bad place to go after death. It is a reflection of the duality of the world we lived in. But God is not to be feared. God loves you and wants you to love yourself as He does. Just focus on the positive things like love and keep learning. Don’t worry about hell, and don’t let others scare you with it.
You are a loved child of God, He does not harm His children ever. You are guaranteed eternal life in His love. Just accept yourself as He does and live your life as best you can.
Up until a couple weeks ago I had a friend who seems a lot like you. She is facing many of the same problems, also. She had totally given up on God, because she thought she had sinned too much. I tried to tell her that God would always welcome her back, but she still did not believe it. I hope she thinks about what she decides about this matter, and you also. God will always welcome you back. I don’t know a lot about her home situation, but she had a brother also, who she didn’t get along with very well. She had told me before that she was going to try to smooth things out, but always it ended up that it wasn’t a good time, or the right circumstances. If I would have been in her shoes, I would have reconciled the differences as soon as I could. Family members should always try to be there for other, as are friends should. Speaking of friends, you say you have had people start hating you for no reason? Sometimes that can happen. Has happened to me before. But before you just dismiss it as just a complete turn-around with no reason, you may want to ask the person why they did this. The friend that I mentioned above and I had our friendship end abruptly, which was mostly my fault. I sent her some letters, explaining why I felt this was necessary (the reasons were rather complicated, but the main idea was that it was my problem, I just couldn’t handle what was going on) but I know she still feels that there was no good reason. I feel horrible for breaking up that friendship, especially because she had been my friend for so long, but what I did I felt was needed to be done considering the circumstances (ie, i was telling almost everything she had confided in me to another person. Really, I couldn’t deal with what she was telling me.) But since what was happening was going to bring the friendship to an end anyway, I felt that it was necessary to end it. Long story, short moral: things may not be as they seem with this. Ask them what happened. I hope this helps you.
There is truth in most religions, something the Bible even admits (Unto EVERY person is given light, to those who accept it, more shall be given, from those who reject it shall be taken away-I don’t have the words exactly right. If you have a concordance, then it should not be too hard to find). The difference is how it is presented. Christianity is not the most popular religion. Reincarnation religions are the most popular (have the most followers). They do not beleive in a permanent hell, only in temporary punishment or correction (so the person learns how to act-my personal view). But each religion has its own plusses and minusses. For example, Christians are often worried about getting it right and getting it right now before it is too late. Thus they are watching themselves and others for the right way to go and can become judgemental (The group writing here sems remarkably well balanced, I must say). Reincarnationists have the opposite problem, i.e. I can always reform later so lets have a good timie right now. Reincarnation works for me simply because I feel a need to push myself too much in Christianity, so I am always failing. Now I don’t feel pushed.
So you should pick a religion according to what you need. You might check out a recent Cecil column on the Devil (perhaps someone else can give her the link as I still have not figured out navigation very well and have to get to work and I mean now.)
Good luck
Got the job out on the nick of time (I work at home).
The cite is Straight Dope Staff Report: What’s the deal with angels?
URL: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mangels.html
That will answer some of your questions about hell. Sorry, haven’t figured out how to keep the hyperlink and haven’t figured out how to use vB language either. Oh, maybe next weekend. Back to work now.
literatelady, sorry to hear about your friend and I hop everything works out!
As for everyone, thanks for the advice and help. I feel better about the situation and I thank you all!
LittleKitty666, believe me, I know where you’re coming from. I’m a Christian, and I try to keep the commandments, including the one which says, “Honor your father and mother.” On the other hand, when I was a teenager, while they did the best they could, they were, I’m afraid, emotionally abusive, and it left scars. I hate typing this, because I do love them, but, I’m afraid, it happened.
One of the things I find most reassuring in Christianity is that we are forgiven, no matter how many times we screw up. When I was your age, I thought I’d betrayed my best friend when she had a nervous breakdown and I couldn’t prevent it. It took me years to forgive myself for being, basically, a 14 year old kid. God, however, I do believe did forgive me, and forgives me still. Actually, I suspect He’s a bit amused as well as a bit pained when I beat myself up for being only human.
As to people of other religions, two of the closest people in the world to me not only aren’t Christian; they’re Wiccans. What’s worse, in some people’s eyes, is that they used to be Fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. I know these two people, and love them dearly. I’ve seen the way they act, how they relate to the universe and how and what they worship. If God would turn two such wonderful people away because they lost their faith (they went through an Atheist patch), then found another one, in the words of my curmudgeon of a father, “He ain’t worth worshipping!”
Others will disagree with me, and quite fervently, if things go the way they have in the past, and I am a renegade Christian, but that is what I believe.
Dreamer, I’ll echo Vanilla and say it’s good to see you around!
LittleKitty666, my e-mail address is in my profile, and you can e-mail me any time. You’re not the first teenager I’ve taken under my wing, and I’ve still got some room left.
Take care,
CJ
Good to see both of you too **(((Vanilla - cjhoworth)))
**
I’ve been around, just been quiet lately.
Oh, I had my troubles with my parents when I was a teenager. Most Americans do and that phenomenon has been reported from time immemorial but US society, which has changed so much every year during the last 50, has really fueled it. There are two reasons. One is that the extended family has broken down. This not only means that you do not have other people within the family to take you under your wing so that you are not utterly dependent on your parents. (That’s an aweful big responsibility as you will hopefully find out for yourself one day). What do I mean? For example, my neice and nephew were having trouble learning English (surprise, surprise). In the US, there are few solutions, either the parents get nasty (like mine did) or they hire special help (they did that as well.) But I found a different way to teach them and the one who started first is now getting top marks in the subject without a lot of pain. Best of all, the solution cost the parents virtually nothing: no money, just some time to listen to the stories that the boy had read (which encouraged him to understand them). Am I a genius? No. I was just able to offer an alternative solution the parents wouldn’t have thought of on their own. They do the same for me as well.
Having extended family also gives you other people to watch up close. This is most noticeable with infants. How many infants have you handled? How many years have you spent playing and living with an infant? A hundred years ago, there was an infant in some friend’s house at any given time, if not in your own, so you learned what to do by osmosis. You saw people make mistake after mistake and the world did not end. In modern US society, even being too tall is a ‘mistake’, let alone too fat, lame, having a gap in your teeth, etc. Countless girls are starving themselves because they have to be perfect. And they often expect a perfect husband. Not all societies worship perfection that way.
The second thing is that what a child learns today is not what a child learned 20+ years ago wghen the parents were in school. How one interacts with one’s peers is different. So how are the parents supposed to help? (Yes, honesty is still in vogue but what you listen to, what you do together, etc has changed.)
I came to Lithuania in 1995 when Western culture still had not made big inroads so I got a chance to see what society was like 60 years ago in the US. I am still amazed walking down the street. You see everyone: young, old, very old, healthy, super healthy, overweight, lame, talking to themselves, etc. (but all leading a normal life). That’s why I did not mention anything about the need to ‘love your parents’ right now, just not to hurt them intentionally. When you get older, you’ll have more experience through which to view them and the threat of being hurt again will have faded or disappeared and it is much easier to forgive and love. By not having done anything to hurt them, there will be no problems to devoping a relationship later. Better later than never after all.
Good luck.