Feelings of Helplessness

Have you ever had a moment where you felt completely helpless and just had no words or really know how to explain things? You know you have exhausted every avenue that you can possibly think of and now things just remain in God's hands. Yesterday, I felt that way yet again and have not been able to get past that feeling since. I have just had this feeling of helplessness that I have not been able to shake since and am beginning to feel overwhelmed by it all and having no control over things.

I took Richard to counseling and began reading a new book called "Heaven is for real" It is a book about a minister's son who almost dies due to a ruptured appendix. There are instances throughout the book where I connect with them on so many levels. They sit back and watch their son almost die and find themselves angry with God and feeling helpless and I sat there brought back to the moments when Hugh and I stood by George's bedside and watched helpless as medical staff tried to bring our son back to life. Fortunately for the family their circumstances were different thank ours and their son's life was saved, unlike ours. They talk about the constant struggles they came into and how their bills had piled up to over $23,000 and felt overwhelmed and had no idea what to do.

Hugh and I are struggling with that very thing right now. We are facing loosing our home and just have been so helpless as we have watched things around us crash down one thing at a time. The minister said how they were both constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop and that is how Hugh and I both feel every single day. Hugh and I don't need that much money to save our house but we are not too far from that right now and each month that number keeps going up. He says how looking at that number just made him think about how it was just impossible to come up with and they might as well needed a million dollars because they were no closer to that number than they were the $23,000 and ironically I just said that to Hugh the other day! We are not allowed to have savings in order to keep the kids medical insurance and we have just been hit with one thing after another.

Each night I pray to God for the answer to it all and today I am no closer and feel more helpless with it all than ever before. Fortunate for this family, friends, family, and other church members came to answer their prayers out of the blue by sending them money and they came up with the money they needed almost to the very penny. I was so happy for them but felt an ache in my heart wishing that we were so lucky but not so. Hugh and I have had two plans in the works hoping that one of them would pan out and this week both fell through leaving us feeling even more lost and helpless. There is no one or nothing we can go to or do at this point other than rely on our faith because we have exhausted all our avenues and have just been exhausted by every part of it.

I know people mean well but they will offer words of wisdom or ideas that are just not feasible. People will suggest jobs that are out of reach or that just don't come to fruition. Hugh is working crazy hours and overtime for menial pay and doing all he can. I am left to care for the kids, the house, and try to work through the pain I have daily due to my own medical problems. Emails come with more jobs to apply for and I am left to try and find time in the day between searing pain and crying children to attempt to find a way to send out another resume for Hugh or to fill out an online application that can take almost two hours to do since these companies don't just accept resumes and basically ask for your first born child! No one really understands any of this since they have not been through any of it. None of this even adds in the stress and chaos that just comes from having to constantly try and overcome these life obstacles. Often times the only thing that does help me through is reading an inspirational book like the one I am reading now or actually through the charity work I can do like making a meal for someone or donating items we no longer need. In some way I know that I am doing God's work and what I can to still give even though we are in a bad place right now.

All that said, what was it that really made it hard? Yesterday after Richard's session, he told me he had something he needed to talk about regarding the house. He was going to wait and didn't know exactly how to say any of it but I prompted him to open up to me just as he had been able to do with his counselor. I had to get gas in the van and we were sitting in front of a pump while the van was being filled when he told me how afraid he was that we were going to loose our house and have no where to go. He was afraid that one day he would come home to a police officer kicking us out of the only home he knew and had grown up in.

My heart just sank as I had no words to tell my son. We talked about the loss of his brother and how it felt so unfair to loose him and than to also face loosing our home. It was bitter sweet to Richard just as it is for Hugh and I. We are all full of mixed emotions and want to stay here but then again don't. The pain of the reminders that the house brings about with George dying here is just unexplainable. We can rearrange the rooms but nothing will ever shake the reminders of me doing CPR on my counter or watching the police officer preform CPR with George laying motionless on my living room floor. It is like there is a permanent white etching like you see in a crime scene on the floor where he was lying that we cannot remove although it is only in our heads. Richard also now HATES school since that is the place that he associates with George's death and he cannot get rid of the intrusive thoughts and feelings he has during a school day. On the other hand there are happy memories here too that are hard to leave but no matter the case having no answers or not knowing where things are going is the hardest part.

I could not answer anything for Richard except that we have tried everything we could possibly do. Hugh goes for mediation on Wednesday and I am hoping they will see him alone since I will have just had surgery. I go in Tuesday to have my gal bladder removed in hopes to get rid of some of the pain I work through every day. Feeling overwhelmed by it all, I just started crying and not knowing what to tell my son. I told him that these are the times our faith is tested and that I know I have done everything and it was just now in God's hands to do what he will. He asked me if there was anything he could do and how he wished he was older so he could get a job and help out. That of course even made it worse and my heart broke and yet in the same token swelled with great pride knowing that Hugh and I had raised him right. The hard part is to not be able to take away his worry or help him through it when I don't know what to do other than talk about it and be there for one another emotionally during our individual rough patches.

I told Richard to just pray about it all since right now that is all we can do. It is so hard to do that and to keep it all together but it surely makes me appreciate the small things like the laughter of the kids or Gabrielle's smiles and coos. I try to keep it all in perspective while I pray to God that something good will finally happen to us and we will get our own miracle. Most of all I just pray that he will ease my son's worries and be there for him when I cannot be. Others can judge and say we should have or could have done this or that but they did not walk our shoes and we have done the best we can possibly do. For now I just have to take solace in the fact that we know that and that we cannot change the past no matter how much we may want to. We have to keep pushing forward and put our faith in God that something good will happen. Please keep us all in your prayers as we each struggle through these feelings of helplessness.