Do you believe in "Divine Intervention"?

Not in this day and age. Immigration reform hasn't happened yet.
(Sorry. Couldn't help myself.)

Seriously, though, I said in my original post that I had lost my faith, but I grew up active in the church and remained active well into adulthood.

You can quote scripture until hell freezes over and it wouldn't help me. I've heard them all, studied them all and I understand them as we'll as you do.

My point is that you can't change the heart of a non-believer by quoting a source that he doesn't believe in.

 

I don't mind answering at all, but it's such a long story. I'd have to write an essay on the subject. Let's try doing it in outline format:

1. I grew up in a strict Church of Christ family.
2. I married my high school sweetheart.
3. High school sweetheart leaves me for someone else. I'm devastated to the point of being suicidal. In fact, I tried three times.
4. My Navy career stalls. I'm in a tail-spin, so I get out of the Navy at the end of my first enlistment.
5. Less than 6 months after my divorce my "devout Christian" parents and my hometown preacher decide I need to marry a good Christian girl.
6. They introduce me to a hometown girl.
7. Even though I'm still devastated, I marry the girl even though I didn't really love her. Huge mistake, I know, but my mind is just not right at this point in my life.
8. I re-enlisted in the Navy.
9. Life married to this woman is hell. Constant fights. Bickering. I can't do anything right. Life is miserable, but I put on a good show for 16 years.
10. 16 years and three children later, I meet someone who I was born to be with.
11. I divorce my wife and marry the woman I met. My father has died at this point in time.
12. My Christian sister tells me I'm not welcome in her house. My Christian mother tells me she wishes I'd been brought home in a "body bag".
13. I'm finished with the Church.

I guess that about sums it up. In the Church I was raised in, what I did can't be forgiven unless I leave my current wife and live single the rest of my life. I'll be perfectly honest with you and everyone else on the internet who happens to stumble across this: I'll face hell fire before I'll leave this woman. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me. She is such a pure, gentle soul and she's a perfect match for me. She completes me.

I want to go back, but my entire family says I can't.

Do you know how it feels to see a post asking for prayers when you feel that you can't oblige because God won't hear your prayers? Never once have I responded to a "Prayers needed" thread with the common response "sent". I don't pray. Not because I don't want to, but because I was taught from a young age that he won't hear them coming from me in my current situation.

Well, there you go and now you know.

 

I just realized that that isn't true. I'm sorry to back-track, but my brother (the 6' 7", 300+ pound one from earlier in this thread) is a Church of Christ preacher who is a lot more progressive than you would think. He keeps telling me that what we were taught growing up isn't right and that I could "come back" if I wanted to.

I suppose that statement should be changed to "Almost my entire family....".

 

You have no idea how badly I want to go back, but I'm just not sure that I am allowed to. Like I said, my brother tells me that I can come back, but the way I understand it is that to return to the "fold", as it were, you have to be repentant. To be repentant is to be sorry for what you've done and turn away from it, and I would never turn away from this woman.

Now maybe you have a better understanding of what I meant when I said in my first post that I had either lost my faith or "thrown it away".

 

To be honest, I don't care about what denominations think. I would only be interested in what God thinks. There are so many different denominations, interpretations and beliefs out there that I'm not sure there is a REAL Church left. Real Christians? Yes, but a real Church? I'm not so sure.

 

There aren't many people left in the world like you, then.

 

Dude, who are you trying to communicate with? Me? If so, I really appreciate it, but you're wasting your time. I KNOW what the "Word of God" says regarding my situation.