“Family Face” Blog #73
What is hidden far back in my family I want to forget?
Why is it somethings are just too painful to forgive?
Who is a person I cannot bring myself to love unconditionally?
So often in our past there has been unexplained hurt and sadness and pain that never
gets resolved. We go through life leaving it alone. We try to forget to remember, but
then at the oddest moments something brings us back, way back.
I remember a time in my life when I had moved out of the family home and I was on my
own living in another state. I came home for Christmas because I also knew my father
was ill. But then again, part of me didn’t want to care. Part of me remembered all the
pain from my childhood and I just wanted to hurry up and get the holidays behind me
and then leave. I lived for the moment. I looked at life for what I could get out of it. I
refused to forget or forgive. I had little faith.
That one Christmas was the last time I ever saw my father alive. Later into the next year,
I had a best friend that called me and told me my father was dying. “why don’t you
come home and see him?” she had said. “He’s not going to be here long.” I pretended it
wasn’t that bad. I made myself believe she was wrong. I refused to even think about it.
Yet, there was a part of me that knew, a part of me that always knew the real truth. My
father had been a raging drunk his whole life. He had made my mother and all their
children cry and be afraid and live in fear day in and day out. A part of me thought, “why
SHOULD I go home at the end?” I don’t want to see him anyway. But then months later,
he DID die. Then it was all over. Then there was no more deciding, wondering,
deliberately pushing it all away.
I could only go home to his funeral now. The after thoughts, the wishing it could be
different and all the unspoken words are exactly that. They remain hanging in the air. It’s
like the itch on your back you can’t reach to scratch. So irritating. Life is like that. Life is
never really is as it seems. We are born into a family, to learn powerful lessons. My
lesson was to learn to forgive…..regardless. My lesson is still to forgive, regardless. My
lesson with my family has been ongoing. So much of my life was all about “stuff”, getting
stuff, acquiring stuff, wanting more stuff. This is where I got caught up in being “In being
OF the world and not IN the world”.
If I am all about more and more materialistic stuff and not about the people I am with,
then life becomes meaningless. Life becomes worthless. Life becomes empty. I do not
believe I was born into my family who I lived with to only remember pain and more pain
day after day after day. I am saying that as I look back, I must be able to forgive
regardless. WHY? Because it is the right thing to do.
My past pain, gives me understanding deep within myself, of my family and myself.
My past pain? Letting it go It frees me from my anger, hatred and regret. IF I cannot
learn to do this, I believe I will be given more lessons in this area of growth until I can
learn to forgive unconditionally.
So many of us have said; “Why me, God? Why do I have to go through all this?
IF we can come to trust that God does NOT give us any more than HE knows we can
handle, then and only then can we see that each of us are given our share of “Life’s
lessons to learn what ONLY HE knows each of us need to learn. All of us have different
lessons to learn and it is because of this that we cannot possibly judge another human
soul, regardless of how much anger we have. Today I have been constantly reminded of
this over and over in one situation or another. However, this is WHEN we experience truth,
and love and forgiveness.
Real growth does not just happen.
Real inner growth takes time and more time.
Eventually we become wiser.
Therefore I remember its important that I must pray daily for:
“discipline, discernment and detachment.”
I have to detach myself from a situation that I know I cannot fix.
I have to have discernment (Understanding) to know when to step back.
I have to discipline my day in every single hour and stay focused on my faith.
Therefore I share the following poem now:
“I asked God……”
I asked God for strength,
and God gave me a difficult life to make me strong.
I asked God for wisdom,
and God gave me more problems to solve.
I asked God to be successful and
God gave me a brain to work with.
So then I asked God for courage
and God gave me more dangers to overcome.
Then I asked God for patience;
and God placed me in situations where I was forced to wait.
Sadly, I asked God for love,
and God gave me more troubled people to help.
When I asked God for more favors,
God gave me more opportunities,
I received nothing I had asked for,
Yet, I received everything I needed.
All my prayers had been answered,
I have been richly blessed.
Written by Unknown.
I know that life is hard. Life can be lonely and life can be very difficult. However, life is
worth living because beauty, true beauty, does exist. Good things are truly ahead of us.
HE is the reason for all my good life. To have faith in something as small as a mustard
seed” is Faith. HE is always here for us. When I let go and remember that Jesus gave us
the most important message of all. He brought beauty and miracles and healing to
anyone and everyone that saw him. Yet, it was not enough, he was killed anyway
because of the darkness. As he hung on that cross, his last words are meant for each of
us to remember how important forgiveness is. After HE died everyone truly saw TRUTH!
The earth quaked, the heavens opened, Angels came forth and proved HIS light!
Forgiveness exists for each and every one of our family members, if we are open. This is
where I know I must start. I must face my own family forgiveness. It must start there.
There is a reason WHY we were born into the family we have. Each of us have a powerful
lesson of our own to learn. For all the pain, all the hate, all the evil that was done. Still HE
hung there and with HIS last dying breath, the man Jesus did not call all his legions of
angels to him and have them take HIM off of that cross. Instead he kept HIS humanity in
tact and with his last dying breath said,
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
“CAN I BRING MYSELF TO FORGIVE A FAMILY MEMBER TODAY?”
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