You two have been heavy on my mind the last few days. I've been reading your posts and staying up with what's been going on with the two of you. Something that has stood out to me is your faith and a hymn popped into my mind; "His Eye is on the Sparrow." That lead to a story my mother once told me.

She had a young man coming to visit her. The man was a man of God but I'm unsure whether he was ordained or not. He knew his Bible pretty good (but not well enough, I thought). He was unemployed and had a wife and family. He depended on "offerings" the people he visited would give him.

My mother asked him once why he didn't get a job to help support his family. His answer was, "God will provide." I'm not sure if my mom told him what she told me, but what I got was "Yes, God provides, but He doesn't spoon feed us. He makes what we need available to us. It's up to us to get out there and get what we need."

Today, as I waited in the car for my husband to run an errand, I saw a family if sparrows. The parents were teaching them to find food for themselves. There were two babies pecking away at a large piece of bread and there were two babies still hanging on to the fence. Daddy Sparrow would fly down to the bread, eat for himself and then peck some bread to take back to the laggers. He'd feed them when they'd open their mouth and then fly back to the bread. He made a couple of trips, fed his babies, but on one trip to the bread, he stayed. He'd call to the laggers and eventually, they flew down to the bread and hesitatingly, got a few pecks out of it.

He had been teaching his babies how to fend for themselves, how to take care of themselves on their own. I know that my own mother didn't prepare me for life. She did a very poor job of it so I haven't always done well by myself. At first, I learned some coping mechanisms that were pretty rough and primitive. When I realized they weren't working as well as I wanted them to, I got myself to therapy and learned new coping skills. I "pecked" at a few therapists before I found one that suited my needs and she "mothered" me through. She was the one that diagnosed me with Depression and sent me to a psychiatrist to have an anti-depressive prescribed. Prozac worked wonders for a few years, but like any other med, it stopped working. I've had to try quite a few to find one that would work for me. MOST of them increase my blood presure and make my palpitations worse. I've been on more meds than I care to remember, but I finally found one! Someone finally invented one that would suit my needs!

Today, I went to the doctor to have him check me out to see if the new blood pressure med was working. It wasn't. No wonder I've been feeling like crap lately! He increased it and also put me on another med to take care of the Anxiety.

I could have gone on forever condeming myself and my family of origin for passing this illness down to me. But that WAS THEIR PROBLEM. I have problems of my own that I need to take care of on my own. At 60, I don't have parents to take care of me anymore. Not that they would if they were still here! Not that I would allow them to. I'm an adult now. I need to take care of myself. God has "provided" that help, but He didn't "bring" it to me.

I hope that when you read this, you understand that it's meant in all the best ways possible and I've taken the time because I care and because I know there is hope for everyone. I've been where you two are emotionally. Hamstergirl, I can only imagine what it's like to live in constant physical pain. But I know there's help out there for that, too. It just takes time and effort. Yes, I know how almost seemingly impossible than can seem, but it's worth it! YOU are worth it! God has a purpose for you and it's not suffering in agony all the days of your life. I don't know what that purpose is. It's up to you to listen to His voice, to watch for open as well as closed doors and follow...

You are both in my prayers.






<font color=blue>"Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt" --Shakespeare</font color=blue>