Friday, July 10, 2009

Cheri and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Let's just summarize the day this way. My mom broke her patella (knee cap) in a fall yesterday (actually 2 days ago. I just looked at the clock) while she was with me, but we didn't know it at first because she could walk, so did not take her immediately to the hospital and went home instead. My dad and I got into a control contest and ended up yelling at each other. Not my best moment or his either.

In addition my car needs major work and we're deciding what we can actually afford to do: repair it for more than its worth, buy a used car with just as many miles and pay twice the repair cost of my car, buy a more recent used car with less miles and double that price, or buy a new car and double it again. We may even choose to drop to one car since I'm the only one holding down a job in this economy. My husband was forced to take early retirement.

Meanwhile, we're getting estimates and putting together a game plan for just about gutting our finished basement to get rid of the mold and fixing the water problem with permaseal. The smell downstairs is awful.

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I'm aware that I'm going to once again have to deal with issues that go back more than half a century and that I have no doubt have contributed to my eating disorder. I have some real unresolved anger issues I need to work through.

The good news is, I'm going through all this without overeating. I may actually be feeling and reacting more viscerally than usual because I'm not numbing the feelings with food. I haven't been this hopping mad in a long time.

It could be worse. My sister lost her job yesterday, and her husband has run out of unemployment from his job loss. They still have three young children at home.

So where is God in all this? I remember when I was going through a divorce and I would hear well-meaning people say "God doesn't give you more than you can handle." First of all, I don't believe God is the source of the evil things that happen in this world. Secondly, I know I didn't handle all the crap that went on at that time. I couldn't even fathom it all. But I never felt so loved and cared for or had such a sense of trust that I would be provided for--and I was. I tell people that I've changed that horrible saying to, "God doesn't allow more to happen to you than what he can handle." Because I didn't handle that bad time at all. He did.

One thing I know I did at that time was to totally let go and let God. I didn't have the mental, psychological, or financial resources to deal with anything. I had all I could do to put one foot in front of the other. God took care of everything.

And maybe that's where I need to be right now. I do believe in doing the footwork and letting God take care of the results. But lately I haven't even known what footwork I should be doing, especially with the basement and the car. We've been hit with one expense after the other and increasingly less income to pay for them.

So, although I'm not going to stop doing the footwork, I am going to really have to let go and let God. I need to totally trust him with the results.

I need to thank him everyday for the food on my table (and my newfound ability to not stuff myself with it), for the roof over my head (even though it leaks), for the clothes on my back (even though they're starting to fall off me) and the shoes on my feet (which other than my flip-flops are pretty much reduced to a black pair of tennis shoes which look really funny with my summer capris.)

God is good all the time.

All the time God is good.