It seems to be falling all apart...

I am struggling these days. I try to do what it right, what is best, what is helpful, what is caring. But I don't understand. I ask for guidance and I pray. But I don't seem to be able to hear, or understand what I am supposed to be doing, and things just feel worse and worse. I am close to quitting, and I shut down a little more each day.

I have a friend that I am sure will ask:"Where's God in all of this?" because it would seem that I am taking things into my own hands once again. And I just don't know. The divorce related court trials rage on. Last week my son was dragged into the middle of it. The judge called it a tragedy for him. To me it was just awful. My mother's condition got an initial diagnosis last week, and the prognosis is uncertain at this time. But it's not good. My brother has decided that he and his wife cannot help. This is making my sister, who gave up all to be here to help, angry. This is impacting me and upsetting me on a number of levels. I want to do what's best for everyone, I agree that my older brother should be doing more, but I don't know how to communicate that effectively... he hung up on me yesterday...

my prayer life is a shambles, I don't know what to say anymore. I don't get an effective quiet time anymore because mom is up and out before I can even get the day to start. Work is not going so hot because my concentration stinks...

The only place I seem to be able to whine anymore is here... and I can't even communicate my thoughts clearly here right now... I think I need to do something different...

--- bye empty space...

Calvery arrives...

Hi Empty Space,
My sister got here yesterday. She will be staying here indefinitely. She will be helping me with things related to mom. She got a major dose of things as soon as she arrived. Mom talked her ear off for an hour strait about going back home. Mom has convinced herself that she would be going home when my sister arrived.

I am glad that my sister is here, but I am concerned about 2 things. First is that I might out of relief for her being here, dump too much off on her.... Second is that she will get burnt out so quick that she will regret being here...

Mom got sick again last night, but at this time, she is not willing to go willingly to the Dr... I think we are going to have to take her anyway. I'm going to try.

I'm very glad to have my sister here. It will be a huge help, just to have someone see what is going on with mom, and be supportive of the things that need to be done...

bye...
-me

When I don't know...

In all the times that I just don't know, I do know that I want to be following Jesus, that I want to be seeking God, that I want to be listening for His voice in the noise in my head, that I want to be on the look out for the little things that He does in my view to reassure me that He has not left me alone in these times that I just don't know. There are times that I just don't know why things are the way they are. I don't know if the day will ever feel light hand happy again. I don't know if I will ever see my son and laugh with him again. I don't know if I will feel like I'm doing anything worth wile again. These last few days I have been really struggling. Many times over the last few years it has been hard to understand why things are as they are. I have struggled with God hating me. I have struggled with God not liking me. Most recently I have been struggling with God just not caring one way or the other.

Maybe a more accurate way to state that is that for the last few days I hoped that God didn't care because then the feeling of His absence would be justified.... I remember David asking in Psalms... "How long"... He asks How long will he be persecuted, How long will God leave his soul in anguish, How long will God hide His face, How long must I wrestle with my thoughts... This last one has been me recently... I wrestle with many thoughts right now...

When the life I had been living fell completely to pieces in 05, I felt as though God was there, and in very real ways carried me through that time. But as that process has dragged on year after year now, I don't know... If I search in one way, I ask... what is the lesson that I am just not getting that keeps me stuck in this quagmire. If I search in another, I ask... What am I being prepared to do? And will I be able to face it? Or will I give up and not be willing to go where God might want to send me? I don't know why the divorce is going the long drawn out way that it is going... I may never know. Or I may already know, and just not like the answer...

Then last year... What do I say about last year... I thought finally the things from the past life would be settled, and I could start looking to what might be coming in the future... Then on my birthday, it all changed again. Not only did things in the divorce not get settled, I ended up with an additional load to deal with... The new old life was over and another life started... This time I had been forced into a position of leading my fathers family. When dad died, part of me went too.... I have really struggled with why did God take Dad and leave Mom here like this... I don't know... But I do know that God had put me in a place that I would be able to help mom, and I'm trying... though, I don't know what to do some days... I don't know what to say to ease her mind... I don't know what to do that would make her happy in her world... And I don't know how to make her happy in my world either...

I do know that I am not praying enough... I need to stop trying to do the right thing on my own power... I keep thinking if I do the right thing then God will be in it, and that's simply not the case. I need to do the hard thing... I need to listen for the voice that I often can't hear. I need to sit quiet, and let God make the way clear. When I have done this in the past few years, things have not gone any better from an over all look at the picture, but I have had peace and known without a doubt that things were as they should be... Right now I don't know that things are as they should be, because I may be in the way.... or not... but If I will seek God I will know one way or the other... and I won't be sitting here anymore going "I don't know..."

When I don't know, it is the alarm... I am not where I should be in my relationship with God. It's not a quick fix either... I have been wandering on and off the path for a few years.. I'd rather be on the path, though I just don't seem too good at staying there yet...

good night empty space... thanks for listening.
()me

Good Friday...

I'm always torn about the Easter season...

It's sad that Jesus had to go through the things that He had to suffer for our benefit. It's sad that people just can't seem to do the relationship thing very well. We aren't so good at relationships with each other, and worse at maintaining the relationship with God that we were created for. We are so bad at this that God had to give His only son to pay the cost of our sin, to suffer the separation from His Father, and bear on his shoulders all the ugly sins of my life...

It's great that God chose a plan to redeem me rather than leave me, or chose to uncreate the world (if you know what I mean...). So this season also brings me joy in that I know I'm LOVED by my God enough that He would do what ever it cost to give me the chance for this relationship with Him. He won't force it on me, but He will not abandon me either...

Happy Easter, the tomb is EMPTY!!! I'm redeemed.
-me

Thinking about prayer...

Hi empty space...
I have some time here while mom gets her hair done, so I thought I would write..

Last night my small group had a discussion on prayer. We watched Rob Bell's video Open. It was a good video on prayer.

Questions like : Why are we willing to talk to our friends in a honest way when we don't get "real" with God too often? If God is going to do what God is going to do, why pray?

There were other question too, but these were the ones that I really had to stop and think about. I know that God sometimes says no, or not now, to my prayers so questions about that were not real brain twisters for me...

But why do I have a hard time being totally "real" with God? This is one that I struggled with a long time. I am making good progress on this in recent weeks... like the last two. There are bits and pieces of my life that I have not been willing to be real with God about until now. I am giving up on that and being totally open with Him.... It is making a difference and feels very good.

If God knows all and is God why do I have to pray? I find it funny sometimes that I pray for people, and call God's attention to stuff, that I act like he knows nothing about.... Then when I stop and try to pray that about me, I start to think, God knows this already... In the discussion on the previous topic, someone made a good observation. That talking open and honestly with God is a way of working through things like talking to a counselor. And I observed the times in the Exodus that Moses talked to God about doing something or another, and at one point talked God out of destroying the nation. Today while I was driving around this thing came to mind again, and I wondered if maybe God said the things He said to get Moses to say the things and take ownership like he did... hmmm.... I need to go read all that again and think more about it... But the point is that talking to God about things is a way of gaining an understanding of those things for me, as well as seeking God's assistance in those situations.

I'm feeling pretty good with my life these days... not that things have improved much, but last week when I came to the acceptance that this is where I am to be, and what I'm to be doing at this time, it helped A LOT... It was amazing that as I got to that point, relief started to appear. My sister is going to move here for an unspecified amount of time to help me with caring for mom. And in the other major matter of my life, things also have not changed but I do know that I will be ok with God, even if I am struggling with, and in, the situation...

long pause goes here... mom's hair was done and I didn't get back to this until the next morning...

Last night I started to wonder about something else related to prayer... something I see in the Exodus as well... If I am feeling distressed it is so easy to talk to God about it, even in the times that I am not honest about what is going on, its easy to complain to Him... But when I am feeling ok, will it be as easy to be focused on God, and be looking for reminders of Him, keep seeking Him?!?!? I hope to learn from Israel on this one. It's just as important to stay connected to God in the good times, though much easier to be distracted. But the bible is loaded with examples of failure being brought on, by getting too comfortable in the good times, getting lazy about time with God, feeling like I can handle things now... David, Solomon, Uzziah (sp?), the nation of Israel... This is something I'm going to be talking to God about starting now, I want my life to be His in both times that are good as well as the times that are hard.

Ok... I want to close this for now, and go do my time with God...

Be well empty space...
--me

I spent lots of time thinking today...

I was working away writing code and listening to Rob Bell's sermon from 3/9/08 at Mars Hill... He was talking about something Paul wrote in Philippians. He was struggling with the idea that it would be nice to go (die), but that if he was going to stay, that would be ok too. Rob talked about how disjointed that sentence was in the original Greek, and how it was likely that Paul was really struggling with the circumstances of his life then, but that he knew that he believed that God was out there somewhere, and that Jesus had come to redeem things and save us... [Can you imagine how Paul would have felt without the knowledge of God and His Love... I can... ] Rob went on to give some other examples of how the convictions of a person can keep them grounded in a time where they are really struggling with the circumstances of life and what they are going through... He gave the one that has sustained me in the deepest dark nights... Jesus in the garden the night He was arrested... I have read that so many times these last few years, and known that I was not to the point of sweating drops of blood, but that I understand how that could physically happen... I am well back from that point right now, but I have been where Paul was.

The load right now is heavy... over 3 years since the life I had ended, and I'm still going through court trials... My mom is living with me because dad died last year, and she cannot remember things anymore... To go home would be great, but my circumstances are not like Paul's and that does not seem near. To stay will be joy (at times) and hard, but I'm not here alone... I have friends. I have family. I have my convictions that I know God is there and Jesus has saved me, and these convictions of my soul keep turning me back to look for God on the dark nights when I can't see anything else... I have purpose here, at this time.

I stopped praying for relief a while ago... because I just could not stand the silence... but others have prayed, and God has responded... My sister is going to leave her home and job for a time and come to live with me here to help. I look forward to the help.

I came to a realization about my life this morning in my Qt.. I pray a lot for God to guide me into His will. That I want to be doing what He wants me to be doing. And then I figure because it's not all sunshine and flowers... Joy and happiness... that I must not be in His will... when I think the honest truth is that I am right where He wants me to be at this time.... So rather than beat myself up over what I am not doing, I need to be looking for the joy in what I am doing, because it's there if I just accept it...

Bye empty space...
-me

puzzle progress... or the lack there of...

I don't have a new picture of the puzzle tonight... but it has not moved much...

I found a wad of what looks like a puzzle piece... I have a picture that I'll post tomorrow... I don't feel like going to get the camera right now.... So I think Rico has been chewing some pieces... Which will make it a challenge to finish... :-)

Things with mom are hard. She does not mean to be hard to care for. In fact she does not understand why she can't live alone and care for herself. Some days she cannot even remember where she is... I need to journal the process of caring for her...

I have made lots of progress with Rico this month. We now walk mostly without the leash at all. He will for the most part heel right next to me when I walk. He likes the freedom to run at full speed when we are out. We are getting along great. There are still times that he is skittish, but we are getting closer.

---me