I recall learning about the collapse of the illustrious Roman Empire around 476 AD, as the history books teach, the empire's expansive real estate had outgrown it's military strength and capacity to protect its borders.  Barbarian enemies launched attacks on every front, from all directions at the same time. Disfunctional incompetent leadership and civil wars within  added to the growing chaos, which simply could not sustain Romes golden age of glory.  

Our family feels like it's sloshing through a season of threatening collapse that reminds me of the ancient maps of rome's boarders imploding 

in Daniel Chapter 2, Nebuchanezzar's dream of a statue paints a prophetic picture of empires rising and falling, one golden age after another, but each glorious kingdom coming to an end, as the ROCk cut not by human hands strikes the iron and clay feet of the statue - the part that reprisents Rome - strikes it like a wrecking ball swinging from a great crane demolishing a decaying building