Faith Dilemma - Trying to Be Rational

 
As far as I can see there are three logical possibilities for resolving my faith dilemma.  At some point I would love to flesh each of these out - what makes one seem more like the "right" choice than any of the others.  For now I will just list them:

1. I can believe that Christianity is true/correct, but I need to find new ways to think about or interact with it.  What I'm doing now is not working.  It's making me crazy.
2. I can believe that there is a God, but the Christian "version" is not the "correct" one.  This opens up a world of possibilities that I'm too exhausted right now to even really consider.
3. I can believe that the "spiritual world" is a fabrication of the human mind and I don't need to concern myself with it at all.  This option seems simplest but it presents some challenges in relating to important people in my life.

 I'm running on empty right now and I often think that this is a bad time for me to try to figure out what I believe about the entire universe and everything beyond.  But this is just the time when I would like to have a belief system that offers me some kind of solace or encouragement or strength.  Instead, what I find is a bunch of crazy-making questions that I obsess about.  I feel that if I could just resolve them the hurt would go away.  But sometimes I wonder if the pain is driving the questions and if I just got rid of that I would start thinking about all of this in a different way.  Sometimes I think I should just go back to my psychiatrist and say that counseling is great but would she please just give me some drugs!?!  Because I'm sick of feeling this way and they would almost certainly help at least a little.

But these questions of mine are not really new to me.  Some I've been struggling with since childhood and some have come to the forefront since I got sick about a decade ago.  Certainly my spiritual walk has always mirrored my emotional life - full of turmoil and pain.  It seems impossible for me right now to figure out the chicken/egg relationship between the two aspects of my awareness.  It seems to me that my faith offers and even promises a level of peace and joy that I have never been able to attain.  Maybe it's my own sense of personal failure that's driving me to question the whole framework.  Anyhow, I question the value of a faith that I can only grasp if my serotonin levels are high enough.

So for now I will carry on.  Reading, writing, thinking, talking.  For some reason spilling my guts on the internet so you curious, concerned and hopefully compassionate fellow journeyers can follow along and possibly participate.