I have never liked New Year's Resolutions. While they seem great in concept, they seem like a setup for failure in action. However, I have always been a very goal-oriented person. Somehow for me, calling it a goal and not a resolution just seems so much more workable for me.
Humanity. Specifically my own humanity. It has hit me like a ton of bricks the last few weeks. Here is some basic background on the situation. At our last family gathering, Grandma made the statement that she does not feel as if she will make it through the year. Having already lost Grandpa, that statement hit really hard. I have felt every emotion imaginable since that moment.
My parents and siblings have been out of my world for two years now and out of Grandma's since Grandpa died in 2011. Still, while the rest of us have given up hope that my dad will ever change, she still holds out. She prays for him constantly, loves him unceasingly, and still hopes that God will change his heart. I hate watching her suffer. It breaks my heart to watch this day after day, knowing that only a miracle or his own deathbed would change my father.
So, I did what I knew how to do. I texted my dad and told him of the situation. I texted my sister, to see if her heart was any softer, hoping my message would penetrate. Nothing...absolutely nothing. It hurt savagely. I expected their cold response. No, I knew that would be their response. Somehow, I had convinced myself to hope one more time that they had changed. Somehow, I had convinced myself that I could change them. I learned that lesson the hard way. Nothing I could ever say or do would change their hearts. ONLY God could do that.
But it still hurt. It hurt so terribly that I lashed out in anger. In my heart, I hated them both. I knew it was wrong, but it didn't change how I felt. For weeks, I cried and tried desperately to shut them out of my aching heart. I wanted them to hurt like I did, or worse. My heart was bitterly angry. A heart my darling husband has had to pick up and put back together so so many times. Any other man, by now, would have run as far from my shattered heart as he could, but not Daniel. He picks up the pieces and holds them delicately and bandages the wound until the next heartbreak, when he patiently does it again. Not every man can love a broken woman, but he does so well.
Mark Twain once said: Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
How true that statement is! I have burned with anger-even hatred- for my family, and it has only hurt me and the man who patiently gives me strength.
And then yesterday, we were at a friend's wedding, and the minister was talking about what it truly means to "forsake all others" in a marriage. Of course, there is the obvious sexual implication, but it is so much more than that. It means to forsake anything and everything that gets in the way of or threatens to harm that relationship. This could be an unhealthy friendship or, in my case, my anger for my family. It has done and will do nothing but put a rift in our relationship, and I simply will not have that.
Of course, Daniel told me as much just the other day, and I did work to heed the warning- at least outwardly. Inwardly, I still burned like a volcano ready to erupt.
My father once told me: No one has any power over you except what you give them." It is ironic that I now use his words to throw off the power of my anger at him.
And God himself forgave far worse sins than have been committed against me. If I claim to walk in His ways, then I need to let go and forgive.
So what is my goal this year?: Forgiveness. Not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination, but absolutely necessary.
Humanity. Specifically my own humanity. It has hit me like a ton of bricks the last few weeks. Here is some basic background on the situation. At our last family gathering, Grandma made the statement that she does not feel as if she will make it through the year. Having already lost Grandpa, that statement hit really hard. I have felt every emotion imaginable since that moment.
My parents and siblings have been out of my world for two years now and out of Grandma's since Grandpa died in 2011. Still, while the rest of us have given up hope that my dad will ever change, she still holds out. She prays for him constantly, loves him unceasingly, and still hopes that God will change his heart. I hate watching her suffer. It breaks my heart to watch this day after day, knowing that only a miracle or his own deathbed would change my father.
So, I did what I knew how to do. I texted my dad and told him of the situation. I texted my sister, to see if her heart was any softer, hoping my message would penetrate. Nothing...absolutely nothing. It hurt savagely. I expected their cold response. No, I knew that would be their response. Somehow, I had convinced myself to hope one more time that they had changed. Somehow, I had convinced myself that I could change them. I learned that lesson the hard way. Nothing I could ever say or do would change their hearts. ONLY God could do that.
But it still hurt. It hurt so terribly that I lashed out in anger. In my heart, I hated them both. I knew it was wrong, but it didn't change how I felt. For weeks, I cried and tried desperately to shut them out of my aching heart. I wanted them to hurt like I did, or worse. My heart was bitterly angry. A heart my darling husband has had to pick up and put back together so so many times. Any other man, by now, would have run as far from my shattered heart as he could, but not Daniel. He picks up the pieces and holds them delicately and bandages the wound until the next heartbreak, when he patiently does it again. Not every man can love a broken woman, but he does so well.
Mark Twain once said: Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
How true that statement is! I have burned with anger-even hatred- for my family, and it has only hurt me and the man who patiently gives me strength.
And then yesterday, we were at a friend's wedding, and the minister was talking about what it truly means to "forsake all others" in a marriage. Of course, there is the obvious sexual implication, but it is so much more than that. It means to forsake anything and everything that gets in the way of or threatens to harm that relationship. This could be an unhealthy friendship or, in my case, my anger for my family. It has done and will do nothing but put a rift in our relationship, and I simply will not have that.
Of course, Daniel told me as much just the other day, and I did work to heed the warning- at least outwardly. Inwardly, I still burned like a volcano ready to erupt.
My father once told me: No one has any power over you except what you give them." It is ironic that I now use his words to throw off the power of my anger at him.
And God himself forgave far worse sins than have been committed against me. If I claim to walk in His ways, then I need to let go and forgive.
So what is my goal this year?: Forgiveness. Not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination, but absolutely necessary.
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