The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I am slowly losing my ability to trust, not just in mankind, but in faith also. Nothing has gone right for anyone in my family for several months. My son can't find a job, is living out of town, and losing everything he has. A step- son is living with his grandparents and slowly losing touch with reality, he is 14 years old, and never really comes around to see his dad. My mother died in September and I have yet to truly come to grip with that. The price of food and gas just keeps going up and up and up, and I have to ask what God is thinking. With the child support we pay, and the price of everything else, we are slowly losing our life because it costs so much to drive anywhere, I can survive in my own home, but it hurts so much to see your child losing what little he has because he can't find a job, and is too stubborn to come home until he has lost it all, and knowing that opening up your home to him is the only way you can help him, because there isn't any money left to help him out financially. I tell myself to leave it in God's hands, but after 4 1/2 months of not having a job and not finding one, is this God's plan for my son, to continue letting him lose every ounce of self-respect and life that he has. He doesn't smile anymore, he doesn't laugh any more, his girlfriend says he is borderline depressed, but can't afford to go to the doctor for an anti-depressant, he is losing his faith also, more so than I am. She works but barely makes enough to pay their rent and electricty, let alone any extra bills they might have. Anymore, I try not to think about anything, because I see nothing good in anyone that I care abouts situations, so I just do nothing, cause I don't know what to do, so people prayer for my son to find a job before he totally gives up.
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Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will take care of itself, only be concerned with the day you are living, today.
"Nothing has gone right for anyone in my family for several months." Nothing? Are they healthy?
It sounds like it may be helpful to write a grateful list. Do you have a roof over your head and food to eat? Many are homeless and starving.
I've watched my grown children struggle countless times. It's life. They learn, they grow, life continues and they survive. God isn't letting your son lose self respect. That is something no one can take, along with dignity, determination and hope. Those are things that have to be given up freely.
Nor do I think God is thinking at all about food or gas prices. We were given free will. People cause and allow it to happen, just as they do countless injustices.
Life will bring us what we focus on. If all we see is gloom and doom, we can only see and get more of the same because we see nothing else. If we choose to LOOK for the good things and make note of them, then that is our reality.
Christy
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If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
I am glad you came to let it out.That is a first step in the healing process.
Venting is vital to health.
You sound frustrated and discouraged,both very real emotions.Can tell you from experience, our kids are like our hearts walking around outside our bodies!
Christy made good points. However we validate how you feel,and your right to voice it.
Gratitude lists are powerful. When you get feeling better, it helps to write what that feels like.Then later when ya feel crummy read it to renew.
Just because others have it worse,does not make your pain any less real. What I do when I feel ok I go to this one shop who sells thrift things but also sells BEAUTIFUL things that artisans make from other countries.Bought at a very fair price then sold here,then the money goes right back to them.
They make the coolest stuff from old pop cans,I mean like tiny little people made into a pin or earrings.
They make cool jewelry out of the glass on the road!
Anyway I love to shop there when I have money as it helps someone else. Plus I reuse the thrift things.
Unsure I remember a time,well more than one,that my kids were tottering. I told them both,I have faith in you. Have seen you diligently going on and becoming stronger,making things ok.
They have always kept going.
Maybe that would help to keep positive and encourage.Nothing stays the same.
Oh my precious new friend. Many arrive to this program and meetings having lost faith in trust, lacking hope. Know that this too shall pass. Everything has a purpose and reason, even those things we may never fully understand. Keep your heart and mind in prayer. Take advantage of your tools in this program, the slogans, the daily literature, the meetings, the phone calls to sponsor.
Something that helped me tremendously was to instead of take inventory of all that has gone differently than I had hoped or planned for...to instead count my list of blessings.
Whenever I felt like my HP (God) had forsaken me, it wasn't him who had moved but me. He is always there. Keep coming back, you are worth it.
Debilyn, I am so glad that you noticed it was just a vent to get everything off my shoulders, and that my main concern is for my son and his situation. He and his girlfriend have really tried to keep things going for them, she has worked 2 jobs and tried to finish getting her degree in middle school teaching at the same time that he has been without a job. Basically she has been killing herself the last 4 months or so, and he is driving himself nuts without having a job to go to, and daily is feeling less and less like a man, and we all know what can happen to a man without a job and their emotional state of mind.
I know that God has nothing to do with the price of gas or food, but still, I have to wonder what he is thinking about it, not that he is doing it, very badly worded in the original post. I know how lucky I am that my husband and I both have a job to go to at this point in time, that what we make covers our bills, barely anymore, but it does. We have as much as our health as we have let ourselves have with smoking, cholestrol and poor circulation, and heart attack, and epilepsy to boot. We do ok in the health department. But my son and his girlfriend are sick alot because of stress and such, and neither of them can afford a doctor, and financially we help them out the best that we can, $50 here and there. Charity starts at home, but when there is so little to be charitable with, it gets depressing.
I think that people read too much of the wrong thing into the original post, but then I didn't chose the right words either. I have been in MIP for too many years to not know the things that I need to do to help me see the situation in a better light, and I think that my main concern was just asking people to prayer for my son, that God gets him thru this without too much damage to his mindframe. I have been there before, and I know how damaging that can be to a persons self-esteem and self-respect, to be without funds, to be without a job, to have responsibilities that you can't take care of financially, and after a while, that will bring even the most stable person and most laid back person to be a mind boggled human.
So basically, I was just asking people to pray for my son in his time of need, because he is losing his faith in humans and faith itself, and I, by feeling for him and watching what he is going thru, knowing what can happen, ain't doing so good on keeping the faith up for him.
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Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will take care of itself, only be concerned with the day you are living, today.
