The weight of the world - it's often a lot to bear, isn't it?  It has me down right now, but I have to snap out of it!

Last week I started Beth Moore's Believing God.  I'll admit that I've struggled with some chapters.  It's not that I disagree with what she says or anything - I'm just flat out having a hard time focusing and getting it to all sink in.  Other chapters hit me like a brick though and the light bulb starts going off above my head.  Chapter 3 gives the opportunity to  take on an adventure with God of sorts ... for a period of time that you feel placed on your heart you practice raising your shield of faith each day, increase your personal level of sanctification, and journal "Godstops" that you see evident in your life.  I had my first "Godstop" that very first day and that was definitely exciting.  As a reminder of keeping your "personal sanctification", Beth suggests wearing a blue ribbon or cord around your wrist for the length of time you'll be traveling this journey.  I knew I didn't have any blue ribbon or cord and buying something was out of the question right now for sure.  I went to my jewelry box in hopes that maybe I had something tucked away that I had forgotten about and what did I find the moment I opened the lid ... a blue cloth bracelet that ds1 gave me right before ds2 was born (it says Smile, Jesus Loves You!).  How's that for answering a need?!  I wish I could say I've done well with my particular "personal sanctification", but I have failed miserably each day.  I won't give up though.

Thursday evening we found out that dh's mother is not doing well.  She has colon cancer and apparently it has spread to her liver, stomach, and lungs.  She's been told before that it had spread and then was told no, it had not.  The oncologist she selected is by far not the best she could have seen.  Dh hasn't seen his parents in over 2 years.  They, and the rest of his family, live 650 miles away.  It's always been our burden to have to travel to see them.  Anyway, of course the guilt trip is now being laid on dh for not coming to see them and it's just not fair.  There are so many circumstances that make a trip there extremely difficult at best, but no one wants to hear it or try to understand it (dh's father has a major staph infection and we have to be extremely careful about exposing myself and ds2 to this).  Financially, a trip there is out of the question.  It's a 10 hour drive, one way, in good traffic conditions.  Dh asked that his sisters please make arrangements to bring their mother to a halfway point for us all.  A five hour drive is managable for us.  Do we have the money to make the trip (gas, food, hotel, boarding our dogs in the kennel)? - No.  But, what can we do?  At least that way we could do a 3 day trip and dh would only miss one day of work.  It doesn't sound promising though that his family will comply.  We also found out that another family member (one that is laying a guilt trip on dh) offered use of a condo to dh's sisters and mother (for free).  It's been requested that we come there, but it's a drive that would require dh missing more than one day of work and no one offered anything to us - we'd have to come up with our own accomodations.  It's all so frustrating.  To make matters worse, my own feelings come into play in all of this.  You see, I don't like my mother-in-law.  To be perfectly honest, I have nothing but hatred, anger, and bitterness in my heart for her.  She has hurt me terribly through the years (both before dh and I married and after).  She has shunned my children (her grandchildren).  I hurt for them too (my mother passed away before I even married so dh's mother is their only grandmother).  I've been honest with dh over the years about my feelings for his mother, but I don't know that he really understands the hurt and why I feel the way I do because he's never witnessed what she's done (she's always taken her jabs and spat her hateful words when dh was not around).  I know I need to forgive her and it's so huge that I cannot do it alone.  I've told the Lord I need His help, but sadly I haven't been able to let it go yet. 

I need to cling to "Believing God" right now for so many other reasons as well.  An estimate of our property taxes came in the mail a few days ago and our "rollback" amount is $30 more than we paid last year!  I do believe that our governor and elected officials have gotten our state into a whopper of a mess with the promises they made to dramatically lower property taxes (and at the last minute the plan that had been touted so highly - the plan that would have cut my property taxes in half - didn't go through and another plan passed instead).  Our water system also still isn't working correctly.  Dh has cleaned out the debris, changed the injector, and who knows what else and still we have stinky well water coming out of the faucets.  The hot water is stinky all the time and the cold water is stinky about half the time.  He's done all he knows to do at this point.  Very frustrating.  Then dh came home yesterday telling me he's concerned about his job now.  His employer found out yesterday that he lost 4 huge jobs that were a "sure thing".  Another company came in after the fact and drastically underbid him so the jobs were taken away and given to the other company.  Dh said work is slow and getting slower by the day.  Even though he's more highly qualified than the majority of the other employees, dh would be one of the first to go since he's a new hire.  I surely didn't want this test of faith right now, but that's exactly what it is - a test of faith.  We felt certain that the Lord wanted dh to leave his previous employer and take his current job at the end of June.  If dh still has a job come October, we'll be qualified for (and hopefully the paperwork will get done on time and it will be effective) medical and dental insurance again.  The amount that will be withheld from each paycheck though is enough to make you faint though.  Insurance in Florida is terribly expensive and employers don't seem very good about bearing much of the cost for the employees.  The point of all that is ... we are squeaking by now.  Once the insurance withholding kicks in, the simple fact is that there will not be enough money to pay the bills unless dh gets a lot of overtime.  A test of faith, plain and simple.  Am I scared?  Yes.  Should I be?  No.  I need to get busy Believing God.