Complainatations 3:24

Post Dave life is not fun.  I'm not a serious person, but life is seriously just yuck right now.  I feel like this terrible thing happened to me, and the kids, so I think that, at the very least, everything else should run smoothly.    I guess I thought that I would automatically be enrolled in some sort of "Angelic Protection Program," where I would get protected from the junk of life for at least a couple months.  I feel like the garbage disposal should just work. I feel like all three cars that I own should be running smoothly or selling smoothly. I feel like everyone in this family shouldn't be getting back to back colds for the 6th time in a row.  I feel like I shouldn't have to call Comcast every other day just for my TV to work. I feel like I shouldn't be getting bills that I don't owe.  I feel like there shouldn't be 50 people that need to see Dave's death certificate.  I feel like justice should be easy to come by, I feel like survivor benefits should just be paid and the list goes on.  Was life always this hard or am I the little guy on the playground getting kicked while I'm down?  A mix of both, perhaps.  Usually, I would have handed Dave the extra junky stuff to deal with and he'd do it willingly, but now it's me.  Fortunately, I have a lot of help, but even that isn't easy.  I am not bad at receiving help, but I just hate feeling like I need SO much help and for such an indefinite amount of time.  I guess that is why the Bible talks about how people should help the widows and the orphans, because He knew that we just can't do it on our own.

Sidebar - whenever I think of how I have no choice, but to take the help that people are offering, I think of how my old roommate, Shannon, and I used to hang out with these army guys.  Girls were always doing things for them, like cooking them dinner, sewing lose buttons back on their clothes, letting them borrow their cars, etc. . . . Shannon and I never really did any of that stuff (of course, we weren't the ones that ended up dating them either).  Anyway, we would always say, "some people are givers, some people are takers.  We can't help it - we were just made to be takers."  It was a joke then, but now I really wish it wasn't so true for me.  I feel like I've been made to be a "taker" over the past 3 years.  I do not like that.

But, how can I do all the things that I always did, all the things Dave did, plus all the stuff you have to do when your spouse dies? Most importantly, how do I play and connect with my kids, when I have three times as many tasks to get done?  It's overwhelming, to say the least.  I have to do all of that with less sleep and less emotional control.  I have yet to deliver one death certificate without crying, which is fine, but it makes for some long days, when my emotions have decided that each task requires tears. Oh, and I will say that it seems like every person I have to show the death certificate to, whether it is at our banks or AT&T, or anywhere,  it is always some young twenty something year old guy who awkwardly reacts to my tears, but then is just so sweet in their awkwardness.

While some of this post feels a little light, there is big frustration looming, but mostly it's small nagging things that are getting me down.  I feel like every other day, I'm going, "Really, God?  Now this?  . . . .  Seriously?"  There was no wavering in my trust in the days surrounding Dave's death.  Even though I still question what in the world is God thinking taking Dave, I also was so certain of his presence around me.  I could see his hand and protection in various ways as I have written in previous posts.  Now, with each new blow, I am questioning more and more, why God doesn't seem to be coming to my rescue?  I guess I can't fully say that, but some nights, after a hard day, I am seriously going, "God really?"  "Why?"  "Help a sister out, here!"

Someone mentioned the other day that my posts resembled the Psalms in a way.  Specifically, she said they resemble the Psalms, because I cry out about these these crummy things that are happening, but finish them with, "BUT GOD is still working." Well, I don't feel like writing a psalm.  I don't feel like saying . . .  BUT GOD is doing this, whatever this is?  I feel like writing more a lament.  I just want to whine and complain and wonder why life has to be like this.  I kind of want to insert some of my own complaints into Lamentations.  

vs. 2:11 - My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within;
my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed,
and now I have to go to Probate Court to try and get an undisclosed amount of money, 
which probably equals eleven dollars.  Really?

vs. 3:7-8 - He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
he has weighed me down with chains.
Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.
Even though I bought a new van, the first time I went to turn the key,
The battery was dead and my parents had to come and rescue me. Really?  

vs. 3:16-17 -He has broken my teeth with gravel;
he has trampled me in the dust.
I have been deprived of peace;
I have forgotten what prosperity is.
I'm getting ANOTHER cold, 
even though I just recovered from one two days ago.
  

The author of Lamentations obviously has a leg up in his poeticism, but our themes are the same . . . suffering.  I don't know.  Maybe mine are more like complaints.  I have a lot of complaints, that I can surely fill my own book and call it, "Complainatations." Honestly though,  after reading Lamentations, I really do feel a touch better.  How relieved I am that I can complain and lament to God about His perceived absence, without Him actually taking leave.  I'm still mad, though.