No Advent for Me

I am having a crisis of faith. I feel so guilty - I have had so many blessings this past year and so many miracles.... and yet I can't find any joy in my faith right now. I can't be excited about Christmas - I can't even muster mild happiness at the birth of the Savior. I feel like I'm failing my children. I feel lost.

It turned out that I had/have a kidney stone. By 10am Friday I was throwing up every time I moved the pain was so intense. I spent the afternoon getting a CT scan and seeing my doctor [who was alarmed by the amount of blood I was losing] and was told that I have a stone "high up" in the kidney that will take a while to "work down". Apparently it is a very jagged one that is cutting my kidney to bits as it moves down. They put me on percocet for pain and phenergan to stop my vomiting from the pain, and those two in combination did relieve my pain.

This is one of the only times in my life I have actually requested pain medication - I have a very high pain tolerance [I once did a 30+ hour labor and birth with pitocin so maxed out they were afraid my uterus was going to rupture with no pain meds....]. I've had kidney stones before and not used pain meds - just gritted my old Marine teeth and sucked it up. This time around was excruciating though. Ugh.

So, I'm feeling OK on the narcotics but I'm trying not to take them now and I am being outrageously evil and short tempered when I'm not on them. I'm being mean to my kids and I just feel rotten. I want to just crawl up into a hole and hide for a week and I can't do it, of course.

My poor children are all still sick. The baby is still sick as she can be, the 2yo is still coughing like she's dying even though she finished her antibiotics yesterday, the 4yo sounds like she's getting worse and I'm worried she may be developing a secondary pneumonia infection from the RSV now. My son, the 6yo, still sounds like he should be in the TB ward and my 9yo is actually doing almost 100% better. My husband is worse today and I'm not sure if he may be getting pneumonia.

My 9yo is very sad because we are missing one of her best friends' birthday party today because her dad and I are too ill to take her, and her sisters and brother are too sick to be around other kids. [I would NEVER forgive myself if we gave this horrible RSV to another family and some sweet child ended up in the hospital or worse for Christmas - how hideous would that be?!]

I had to miss work this weekend and got kind of a nasty email from the department secretary about it. Not directed towards me directly [which I could have addressed] but slamming me in the process of praising my coworker who took my class for me. I am worried about my job, I NEED the job, and I have now missed three times in 2.5 months after a perfect attendance record for almost 9 years - and it has ALL been because of things completely out of my control. [I couldn't stop puking from pain or stand up straight to teach Friday night... it was not possible to do. If it HAD been possible, I *would* have done it. I've taught with kidney stones before!]

Oh, and somewhere along the way I've developed pink eye. Just because I needed one more thing. *sigh*

I feel like I have no control over my life and like no matter what choices I make, horrible things will happen. I know this is when I'm supposed to put it all in God's hands, but to be completely honest - I am *terrified*. God has not been gentle with me this year and I'm just plain scared of what is waiting for me around the next corner.

I just feel totally overwhelmed. I feel exhausted. I hurt. I ache. I feel scared for the future. I feel scared for my children. I feel like I'm dropping the ball for them and not being all that they need. I feel hollow, empty, drained, sucked dry.

This is usually my favorite time of year [even in the worst years], but this year I can't even really muster up a single "Merry Christmas" and mean it.