What To Do When You Are at the End of Your Rope

Apr 27

Life can be stressful. Circumstances beyond our control can hit us. At those times, we can be overwhelmed with many emotions that say, among other things, “This just isn’t fair.”

You may be familiar with the picture depicting a cat hanging onto the end of a knotted rope with the caption, “Hang in there, baby!” I think that most of us have moments when we relate to that cat. We are hanging onto our emotions for dear life!

Two years before our son, Daniel, was born, Mike had a dream that we were going to have a son. He was our child of promise. But when it was actually time for Daniel to be born, there were so many complications. Nothing was going as planned!

We did everything “right.” I was careful about what I ate, I had regular check-ups, and I prayed for him. Still, I was unprepared for the spiritual warfare that would come surrounding his birth.

First, I was believing to have a normal delivery after having had a cesarean section for our daughter. Instead, I developed an infection in the amniotic fluids that ended up requiring an emergency c-section. I was running a fever and Daniel was in danger.

Second, he was a “blue baby” at birth, meaning he was not properly making blood. I remember noticing him looking bluish, and his foot was turned at a funny angle. We found out later that his body was not creating red blood cells, so he was started on blood transfusions right away.

Third, as I mentioned, his foot was, indeed, at a strange angle and looked crumpled up. He actually had a congenital club-foot, just like my mother. (I am happy to report that none of our six grandchildren have a club-foot though.)

On the first night after his birth, the doctors would only say to me, “He is holding his own.” However, they could not say that he would live. Needless to say, we prayed hard!

Thrown into the mix was the fact that many of the women in our church were having healthy home deliveries. No one came to see me for about five days because I had “failed in faith,” or so it seemed.

The good news was that Daniel had a turnaround and started making red blood cells. However, I still had to leave the hospital without him and go back three times a day to feed him, all the while very sore from the cesarean.

One could definitely say life was tough. But there were still more circumstances that intensified the already difficult situation. Mike had been transferred to Dallas, Texas, from another city, El Paso. Our house was on the market for a year and did not sell after Daniel was born. We had strangers in and out of the house because it was on the market. My mom and Mike’s mom came to help me as we were living in a large, two-story house, and I had just had surgery. They got mad at each other and both left! (They are now in heaven so I feel free to share this part of the story.)

I was taking Daniel to have casts put on his foot to turn it around. I had to soak it off each week as the doctor said he did not want to risk cutting him at such a young age. This process took a long time; Daniel would cry and cry, and I would cry too! To top it off, I was still not feeling well myself. Things looked dark, dark, dark.

Thank God for my one friend who cared for our daughter when the baby was born. She was a trooper. However, we had to wait until Mike would come home on Friday to get food as I could not drive. I almost crawled up and down the stairs to feed her. No one brought food; it felt to me like it was because I had lacked the faith to have a natural delivery. I felt desperately lonely.

One night, I had reached the end of my rope! I cried out to the Lord, “You said that You would not give us more than we can bear, and there is a definite difference of opinion about that right now! I can’t take anymore!”

Later that night, Mike had to leave at 3:00 AM to catch an early flight back to Dallas to work at his job at American Airlines. I begged him not to go, but he had to leave to keep his job. After he left, I said to the Lord, “Lord, don’t lay what I am going to say at anyone’s feet but mine. This is just me speaking. I just don’t believe that You love me! If You loved me, all these bad things would not be happening. I can’t stand this situation anymore!”

After I had bared my soul to God, I went to sleep. There, I had said it! I had been truthful. All the religious wrappings were off.

The next day I was surprised by a knock on the door. When I answered, there was a woman I did not know standing there. She said, “Are you Cindy Jacobs?” I looked at her quizzically and replied, “Yes.” She went on to say that she was the secretary at a church I had visited to go to Bible study.

To my shock, she further explained, “In the middle of the night, the Lord put you on my heart so strongly that I was compelled to find your address and come to your house to tell you this: God really loves you.” I thanked her, and she left. I wish I knew her name as I will be forever grateful to her.

Sad to say, that should have convinced me that God loved me, but it did not fully change my heart. Later on that day, the phone rang. It was a cousin of Mike’s that we had not seen in many years. He was calling to check on me. I don’t know how he knew as we were not in close communication at that time. He said, “Cindy, God loves you.”

That certainly moved my emotional dial closer to feeling loved, but God wasn’t finished yet. The phone rang again later that afternoon. It was the father of a girl I had gone to college with in Phoenix, Arizona. He has never called me before that time. He would have had to find out my number. He said, “Cindy, in the middle of the night, I awakened praying for you. God loves you.”

Oh my! God loves me! When I was at the end of my rope, depressed, and lonely, He knew me and comforted me. What a good, good Father!

Maybe you are at the “end of it.” What do you do?