If God's in Controll, Why is My Life Like This?

An F5 tornado + a 5000 piece puzzle = ONE BIG MESS!

Oh, and the tornado is stuck - spinning, spinning it's destructive winds through my home and heart.

All when I've begun a journey of emotional/spiritual healing.

The teaching director for Community Bible Study on Monday night gave me some insight on how Satan works in the lives of believers; "Satan can't refute the message, so he incapacitates the messanger."

That is truley true. Our faith is firm. But, throw illness, pain, financial pressure, depression, family conflicts, etc... into our lives, and it's all we can do to make it from opening our eyes in the morning to crawling into bed at night without being committed to the psych ward. If we feel horrible, are tired and sick, how can we serve? We can't. We don't.

About a month ago, my sister-in-law called from Texas telling us she was on her way. Not to visit, but to move in. She has extreme mental illness issues. I can't really share much more beyond that about her b/c the internet is so public, but this has been a very difficult transition for me. John is used to it. She's lived with him in the past.

As the days drag on, I feel more and more hopeless. I feel alone. My needs and concerns are tossed aside under the umbrella of not being understanding or even being selfish. Is wanting MY bathroom to myself too much to ask? Is asking her to use the one downstairs cruel?

This situation has me tied up in knots. It's not helping me in my journey toward health and healing, and it's certainly not helping my attitude. I try really hard to be kind, but sometimes I want to scream. Our house is very small. My privacy is gone.

Is Satan using this to further squelch my creativity in writing? To make me too tired, too sick, too sore from chronic muscle pain that I can't serve Him? Is God really in contoll? Does He notice what's going on here? Not only do I have to care for a baby, buy now I have to care for a person with needs beyond my understanding. Frankly I'm scared.

God, are you there?? Hellooooo! You seem to answer other people's prayers and provide for their needs (like in choir last night, a man who has 3 hours of commuting to and from work each day prayed for a 4WD truck w/ a CD player and he got it!!)

I have to believe God is in control, even though my life doesn't look like He is. I have to trust He'll provide sister-in-law a full time job. She is very functional (I did research on her illnesses and an thankful she's so functional!). I have to trust he'll provide the money we need to feed and care for another adult. I have to trust he'll provide the money to pay off the collection agency the remaining 1K of the elbow injury of last year, and that He'll provide the money we need to go on a mission trip to Latvia this summer that He's calling us to go on despite all of this!

I don't know about you, but this faith thing is so hard. I want to curl into a ball in the middle of my doggy smelling living room carpet and throw a "NOT FAIR" tantrum.

Funny that we're studying 2nd Corinthians in Community Bible Study. The theme of that book is: We can go to the father of mercies and the God of all Comfort.

Maybe I need to stop typing and get on my knees.