I have felt very similar feelings over the last 13 years.....& especially the last 3. But with these experiences, I have learned a lot about prayer & life in general.

I too lost my wonderful aerospace engineer career.....we were talking about a very large $$$$ income 13 years ago. Not only did I loose the career, but it was my identity....who I was. In engineering, once you are out of the technical.....it is long gone so quickly, there is almost no recovery. Everyone kept telling me that I was not my career, but when you have put everything into that....how can you not think that way. Besides that, when you live in a high $$$$ life style, it isn't that easy to stop the expenses that are there. Huge blows especially when the workmans comp case went against me, basically telling me it was my fault that I lost my career & the company didn't have to take any responsibility for my condition even though I knew it was all their fault. Then came the medical bills & the hospitalizations....then the constant migraines & more medical bills. The marriage had always been a problem even though I have a wonderful, kind, caring husband...that wasn't all I needed in a marriage....I needed a partner that I could count on in the hard times, not someone who was only good at spending money.....needed someone responsible.

Luckily, one thing wasn't a blow in that I qualified for disability immediately, so always had some income coming in even though it was way so little for the bills. Then came a huge blow in that my husband lost his engineering career..partly burnout.....but mostly attitude finally caught up with him. Attitude kept being a problem & even though I totally understand the loss of identity, I was telling him the same thing he told me (but that was different).

Then just about 4 years ago, my Mother was Dx'ed with cancer. Major blow....but she had ignored the lump for we don't know how long....she said a few months....dr told me had to have been years to get a tumor the size of my fist with the type of cancer it was. There are only 3000 cases of vulvar cancer per year in the US.....(odds are better of winning the lottery, but it was the cancer she ended up with). She told me that she was praying & had all the church & her friends praying for her. She knew God had given her this wonderful (jerk) Dr to save her life. Dying from this cancer wasn't even a possibility in her mind. As her condition went downhill, she refused to see it happening & refused to have help come into her house when she couldn't even get into bed by herself anymore. I was trying to do the right things, but blow after blow & without the truthful help from the socialworkers & others in the hospital, the worst possible blow came when I wasn't informed of her hospital discharge & a neighbor & friend of her boyfriend & his daughter came in to do the home care nursing. (Long story over 5 days that I have posted about quite a bit). Over those 5 days this horrible person abused my Mother, ID theft, burglary, & then an OD while I was right there in the house. Besides that, she had also called the police (anonomously) telling them that I was abusing my Mother. How many blows can one person take......they always said that God doesn't give us more than we can handle....but give me a break.

Right before my Mothers condition was worsening, my mare was having a foal....that ended up going wonderfully (I had lost 4 previous foals....so that wasn't a blow) but because I was outside on foal watch, I was effected horribly with an asthma attack by the smoke from a local forest fire & landed in the hospital for 10 days....some were due to an allergic reaction to one of the meds I was given. Then my foal got a leg injury that required my caring for it 2 times a day everyday.....so I was already exhausted before everything else hit.

When my Mother was OD'ed, I got her into the hospital & because I feared what that lady might do to me after I reported her to adult protective services & to the police, I couldn't leave my mothers hospital bed side without someone being with me. By the time my Mother was discharged, I knew she didn't have much more time, but no one else was telling me that....not even the Dr's.....I told her this time she had to go into a care place because her own house couldn't handle her condition (the toilet was overflowing). I got her settled just before Christmas in the nursing home close to my own home. At that point I was so exhausted & stressed, I lost so much weight, I was sick myself. My GP was nice enough to put me into the hospital to get some care but that turned into needing IV nurtition because I had lost so much weight. I was home for a few days, taking care of getting the hospice care set up for my Mother, but had agreed to go back into the hospital myself.

My mother continually was asking me when she was going to get better, & that night before going back into the hospital, I took her hands & told her that God was going to answer her prayers only when she let go. Telling her not to fight the unknown & that God wanted her to be with him & my Father who was waiting for her. The next morning, I got a call in the hospital that my Mother had died about 2 hours after I left. I was thinking how horrible & what a blow it was for me to be stuck in the hospital during this time....how was I going to make all the arrangements & plan a funeral from the hospital, but afterwards, I realized that I had so much support there.....my GP had a psychologist come in everyday to help me through everything I was going through....including the trauma with the home care person. I was weak from the stress & not eating but I was safe in the hospital.

Things looked bad in my life & was dealing with PTSD after the trauma I went through.....but as of this last April, when I went back to Kentucky to look for a farm to buy with my inheritence, everything turned.....the blows which were constant, went away, & from that point, even the blows end up turning into something good. You can read my posts about my Kentucky adventures....& see just how life with nothing but blows can get turned around into being a life of constant blessings.

It is possible....& it is true....God doesn't give us more than we can handle. Sometimes it actually comes to our breaking point before it turns around, but it does turn around. Sometimes we have to take steps towards the turn around, but even those steps are guided. I have been so blessed over the last 4 months & I can see that it isn't me that is making it happen. I am a great planner & designer, but with even my best planning & designing, I couldn't have created this wonderful life for myself.....but I did have to be here & aware enough to work with what I am being given.

I know it seems like the blows just won't stop coming, but there will be the day when everything turns around & when it does, it seems like the good is so wonderful after going through so much bad.....sometimes we appreciate the good that much more when we have had so many blows in our lives.

Your time will come.....keep the faith even when it seems impossible,
Debbie