Tl;dr: How do you minister to someone who feels that way?
It's 4 in the morning as I write this. My husband just came in to tell me he's going on a drive because he feels so frustrated with everything; life always seems to be against him--his whole life. It doesn't matter nor help when I gently remind him to take it to God. His response this morning was "God is the one allowing it." I told him before he left to just be still long enough to listen.
And I get it, it's just hurt on top of hurt.
For example, but not getting too deep into details:
-He became a father at 17, but lost custody of his kids in a nasty divorce (she cheated) 8 years later and hasn't seen them since
-The divorce put him in a tailspin and after a series of bad choices and some events beyond his control, he landed in prison with a felony
-After getting out, he moved in with his grandparents, who thankfully I had the pleasure of making my 2nd chance grandparents. 2-3 years after I came into the picture, his grandma was diagnosed with stomach cancer and died 3 months later. A month after that, we lost his aunt who had been staying with his grandparents as well. And then 8 months after that his grandfather, my husband's hero, fell, hurt his hip, and after a painful downhill journey died last year (almost a year and a couple of weeks after his grandma passed).
-Because of the felony, he hasn't been able to land a job, and hates the only reasons he has been able to contribute financially is because his hero left him a small inheritance
-His parents live out of state and we were only 2 hours away, so we were the ones handling everything regarding his grandparents: with his grandfather, we took turns spending the day with his grandma in her hospice room; we traveled constantly to his grandfather's house to keep him company and make him dinner after she died; we moved him in with us after his hip, we were there every day as he deteriorated before our very eyes; we're taking care of the estate until it's sold
- Our house has a number of issues from bad plumbing, to it flooding one year, to random things just constantly breaking down
-Recently a tree fell on our porch, damaging the roof and we're in the middle of dealing with insurance
-He has gout, chronic migraines, fibromyalgia, ADHD, autism, and depression
And that's just the big stuff, that's not the grating small inconveniences, like projects taking 10 times as long because the statistically impossible fail points all happen, or we want to do something and it's just a series of unfortunate events.
I just don't know how to minister to him. I don't know how to convince him to just be fully dependent on God, regardless of the storm, He is faithful still. He feels like his life isn't evidence of that.
Obviously I've got my own issues, but my favorite mind exercise is timelining. I love tracing the domino effect--bad a, led to good b, to amazing c, to tragic d, but to wonderful e. So when I get waves of depression (I have PMDD), that helps. But his mind doesn't work like that. I've even tried to have him just recognize a few things he's grateful for every day, but the depression can be so overwhelming and blinding that he's either unable to see the blessings or just generally resistant to the idea.
I do pray for him, constantly, but I want to be more of a help...but I don't know how.
Advice?