Wanting To Be Hopeful

I began a post yesterday about how hopeful and grateful I was about the beginning of a new year.  Before I was able to finish it, the girls came home from a trip they had taken to visit family, and the night seemed to get away from me.  It's now 3:30 a.m. on January 2, 2012.  I can't sleep because I can't quit coughing and the pain in my feet and legs is awful right now.  When I went to finish up my post, I realized it wasn't what I really wanted to say at all.  So I deleted it and started again.

It's been a long several days.  The Friday before Christmas I started getting sick and as the days wore on I became sicker.  It started with feeling like I had swallowed a hair ball, grew into a horrible respiratory infection, bronchitis and now what seems to be a touch of pneumonia I can't seem to shake.  Darryl added another antibiotic yesterday and called in my third bottle of cough syrup.  I've been instructed to take both antibiotics together, and when the first one has ended have it refilled for another 10 days of treatment.  It bothers me I have to take so many antibiotics, but I know I don't really have a choice.  It seems like the past couple of months I've been sick more days than not.  I've caught every virus going around our community.  It's just been a constant reminder of how weak my immune system really is.  My immunity is comprised from having CIDP and having to take the cellcept lowers it even more.  It's frustrating.  I was asked this past week if I was depressed.  I hadn't really thought about it, but I suppose I am.  Being sick so much lately and my pain level being more intense has just made me tired.  Tired and made me hate CIDP even more.  I was so hopeful just a month ago that a couple of med changes would help my level of pain.  It didn't work though.  Nothing else seems to either.

However, I'm not just depressed over my health.  When I think about 2011, I immediately get this sick feeling in my stomach.  It was a horrible year.  I want to have hope that this year will be better, but honestly, I don't.  Someone I love deeply has been in a path of self destruction for years now, and this past year it came to a head.  It's been so painful to watch.  I desperately want to fix the situation, but I feel so helpless.  Probably because I am.  The reality is I've already done everything I can to help them, and I've actually probably been an enabler at times.  Not intentional, but I believed for weeks they were headed in the right direction.  I allowed them to "pull the wool over my eyes".  I wanted to believe them so much, but I found out that once again I was being lied to and taken advantage of.  It's amazing how they are the one who is headed for complete destruction, yet it's those around them that are devastated.  I am angry, sad and hopeless over the whole situation.  Just when I think they've hit rock bottom, they fall even deeper.  I am so fearful of what is going to happen to them.  What is it really going to take to wake them up?  And what if, just what if, nothing ever does?

I carry them to the foot of the cross and lay them down daily.  Several times a day actually.  I beg the Lord for mercy and wisdom ... for some glimmer of hope.  I worry and I'm anxious.  I'm all of those things I'm not supposed to be, but I love them so much I don't know how not to be.

So, I hold tightly to the promise that the Lord is sovereign as I sit at the foot of the cross where grace and mercy meet.