Great is Thy Faithfulness...Lam 3:23

The past few weeks have been extremely stressful for me. I've been in the process of moving and for me it truly is a process. I didn't even have anything packed, but I felt that it was time for me to move. I had been putting it off ever since spring. I dreaded the whole process and knew that once I moved, I would be faced with having to decide whether or not to let my brother live with me or to continue to drive even a further distance now to pick him up for the weekends. I refuse to leave him at my cousins all the time with no way to come up to Otsego to where his church and church friends are. They are my friends too, but particularly I want him to be able to socialize with them because they are so good for him. Without them, I expect he would withdraw from life and go back to a life of isolation and drinking, whereas with them, he interacts, socializes, gets "out of himself" and even enjoys life at times.

Eventually, the goal is to get him connected with community mental health to get help for his emotional and mental deficits and to help him become more independent. But, to do so, he has to move here and in with me until he can also get the financial help he would need to be on his own. For the past three years he has been living at my cousins in a room in their shop and he has been able to work with my cousin to help pay for his room and board. If he comes to live with me, he will end up with a fairly significant amount of time with nothing to do, which is not good for him. Trying to figure out how and what to do has caused me great distress in the past few weeks.

I have asked God, "What do I need to do"? But I haven't heard or seen an answer yet. Last night I had become so agitated and angry that I could hardly function. I felt desperate for an answer and didn't feel like one was forthcoming. I finally calmed down, but this is a "hot" topic for me. I feel great concern that I could destroy both of our lives and I have no desire to do that. On the other hand, I don't feel like I can sit here and do nothing. I start a new job in one week and I will be driving even further to work every day and there's no way I can make the trip to pick him up, another 100 miles roundtrip, after driving 40 miles home from work. So, I feel the need to make a decision and yet I don't feel capable of making the decision yet. I don't feel like I have all the facts.

So, where does this leave me? Pretty much the in the same place that I have been for several weeks now, ever since I started moving. So, where does the phrase "Great is Thy Faithfulness" come in? Even though I was experiencing significant distress last night and I don't feel like I have an answer yet today, I recognize that God is faithful! He will help me and my brother make it through this time of difficult and very possibly imperfect decisions no matter what I decide. And in that realization, I can have confidence and hope for the future. I'm not alone in this. Great is (His) faithfulness and it's a faithfulness I can trust!