Do you know what's hard? Life, that's what.

I have been getting bombarded lately and it stinks. I keep attending 40 days of prayer, but I am just not into it. I am an action person, and want to be out visiting people, or doing more than staying at the church for a prescribed hour each night. There are people we should go see, that seems more effective.
And I don’t feel like it is doing much for me. I know I could be worse off. But all this financial stuff is just weighing me down. Dad calls and is ready to file bankruptcy. We are attempting to pay off his American Express card that we used a few years back when Kim broke her back. We paid him $5,000 earlier in 2008 to pay off another debt, which kind of hurt us. He has money, but he does not know how to deal with it. He plays the lottery daily, and says that now he has quit. He is dating, and the woman sounds reasonable. But he doesn’t seem to get it. When all this “what we owe him” talk came up, it drove a wedge between Michelle (my sister) and I and we have not talked since September of last year. I wish I could be free of the debt, but there are really no options out there. I have contacted debt management places, but have heard nothing back. I pray, but get no answers. I keep hoping for that surprise check to show up, but it doesn’t.
So what do we do? On top of everything else, not the junior senator’s wife has another surgery coming up soon. I worry about that. A young girl in our church tried to take her own life the other night, and I worry about her, her parents, and her brother and sister. Another girl grieves for the family that has abandoned her, and the family she wishes she were a part of. A woman in the church fights cancer, another the loss of a loved one (actually two women grieve for lost husbands), a young man struggles with seizures, another with hearing loss. A young man struggles with alcoholism, and another, and another. One man is trying to quit smoking, and another questions his worth. I have a son in college, so there are more worries. I am not alone. If I did not have Jesus in my life, it would be such a waste.
And what do I do? I worry too much, complain too much, and cry out…too much. But I don’t pray enough, care enough, or love enough to help everyone else with their problems. And I want to…see a young couple find jobs, see a dear friend come back to church, see an adopted mom start to set examples for the two young girls that need her so bad, see my pastor happy again…
It is all too much to ask for? Isn’t there a stimulus package for pain, for hurt, something to help me in my uncomfortableness besides pizza and sugar? Because right now…I am longing for a little more.
Not the Junior Senator from Illinois