Need prayers, please....

[SHinOK]

Hi, all....Just throwing out a prayer request for my brother and his wife. This is something I posted on the addiction board earlier this morning. It explains some of what's happening with him:

I'm really, really worried about my brother, who lives out-of-state and is dealing with some huge emotional issues, plus a cancer diagnosis in his family (his MIL). He is SO depressed and is cracking under the pressure of his life (also has a very high-stress job), and I am seriously worried about his state of mind. He cried on the phone to me Monday night (VERY unlike him--he's always the "strong" one), and I just lost control--went running to food to "anesthetize" myself. If you're a praying person, PLEASE say a prayer for him and his wife. She is an agnostic/atheist (changes with the wind!), and she's brow-beaten him until he has just about given up on his own faith. I'm trying to rekindle that fire in him and get him to unload his pressures on God instead of holding them in, but she thinks anything that smacks of 'religion' is weak and stupid and useless, and she makes her points VERY loudly and adamantly (she's a lawyer....imagine that!). I'm worried sick about him and covet your prayers... He keeps his mouth shut just to keep her quiet, but it's eating him alive.

Thanks for letting me spill that...I'm sitting here crying while I'm typing, and it's been the first time I've actually CRIED over this. Maybe it's a good thing to have a safe place to let it out. I've written him a letter (six pages!) and even confessed to him that about my food addiction (he's an alcoholic--has been sober for 16+ years), and I want him to understand that he's not the only one with control issues. I hope he can find his way back and not break under the pressure he's enduring.

THANKS....

[USMCmom]

I am so sorry your brother is going through this. Wishing and praying for the best. Please keep in touch.

[RobinB]

sorry to hear that.

[dimepiece1]

I am sorry that he is dealing with these things. It will get better.

[Kacjac]

This is so sad, I read what you've wrote about your SIL before, I just can't imagine, what your DB must be going through.... and you too!

[SHinOK]

Thanks, everybody. Yeah, Kacjac, this is an ongoing thing, and we just feel really helpless. Her influence on my bro is SO very strong, and instead of him bringing her around to his way of thinking/believing, she has, unfortunately, gotten him to thinking that God has given up on him.

He will probably get my letter today. In it, I just poured out my heart to him and begged him to lay all his problems and fears on the Lord--and to NOT worry about what SIL says. He is so emotionally fragile and wounded, and I know that this is his only way to recovery. He may just have to put up with her rants to get his own sanity back, but he's got to do it.

I've just never seen a more stubborn or opinionated person than my SIL. She comes from a family with NO faith background, and they are incredibly dysfunctional and chaotic. And now, it seems that my brother has been sucked into that way of living, too.

Thanks so much for remembering us in prayer....I'll let you know when/if I hear from him.

[gettingstrength]