Are you listening?

I am simply at the end of my rope, dangling by a thread and unsure of what I will fall into. I am in so much pain, my doctor won't help, my husband doesn't get it, my kids well... are kids. I don't know what to do. I contacted a lawyer who told me that in order to get disability I need to quit my job. I can't quit my job because it would hurt my family. I can't keep working because I am in so much pain and nothing is working!! I have had a kenalog shot, a round of prednisone and I am taking the last of the pain medication I had on hand that was prescribed for my back. The doctor will not give me any pain management and I am self medicating at night with OTC sleeping pills, ibuprofen 800 mg, and the pain pill just to sleep. I keep praying for something to happen and yet it doesn't change, please please pray for me. I hate to ask others to intercede for me but I don't know what else to do.

birth

I have been thinking a lot lately about how miraculous our lives really are. I mean out of tiny cells and some miracle dust from God grows a tiny little human. This human is so small at first that we can't really see them without a little help from ultrasound. As a parent my job has been to protect this human and nurture them, help them to become autonomous, to make decisions (hopefully good ones) but to stand firm in those decisions. We do all this while the child is growing, testing limits, trying on new characters, scaring us to death and trying to remain a "baby" as long as possible. I live in a house full of teens and pre-teens and yes they are all females. These girls are my life, they are a cumulative effort of years of parenting, worrying, praying, and teaching. They are not an extension of me but they are constantly ex-tending me, stretching me to grow and change, to adapt. They are all truly beautiful human beings, each one with their own gifts to share with the world. They have been a little unit for quite a long time, the Thomas girls. They actually do not function so well when one is away at camp or spending a summer some where else. They need to all be together because there is a balance between them and when one is away the balance is well not in balance. The time has come when the balance has to be rebalanced because Echo, my oldest is leaving home. I was afraid to tell the other girls because of the "over" drama that has been occurring at my house for the past few weeks but they managed to keep it together. Some girls were happy and some were sad but all of them realized that the unit would never been the same again, the end was here.