Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Dearest God,

This morning I found the file that had apparently slipped down under the hanging files in my cabinet.  Working on pulling out 2018 papers for tax preparation, I discovered the file entitled:  Hope for Mom and Dad.  I opened the file and began flipping through the papers.  I was flooded with memories now over 20 years old.  Sadness, sorrow, anger, resentment and bitterness threatened.  Tears formed and wanted desperately to slide down my face.

Back in 1996 and 1997 I had spent months doing research on my parents' financial situation.  Things just were not adding up.  My dad had talked with me and so had my mother.  They gave me permission to dig deep, make calls and figure out what was going on.  And so I did dig deep, way deep and what I found was so disturbing that I was overwhelmed with pain and anguish.  What followed was a confrontation with the financial perpetrator.

Although I saved my parents from financial ruin, I paid the price for upsetting the family system of which I was a part.  My mother decided we would not have Christmas together because my "poor" brother couldn't afford it.  Not long afterward my mother died of heart problems.  Never before had she had problems with her heart.  I concluded she died of a broken heart.  Daddy's Alzheimer's stole him away and my family as we knew it was destroyed.  A hole formed in my heart and soul.  Just an hour ago it threatened to widen.

But you intervened.  "Do you want the old past to pervade your present and rob you of your future?  Do you want to give in to the temptation to relive the past, build new hate and descend into the depths of despair?  Do you want to exchange the hope of today and all your tomorrows for cynicism, anger and negative, hopeless living?"  I know I stand on the precipice waiting to decide.

Help me,
O Lord,
to cling
to you.
Help me
let go,
to surrender all
that threatens
to change me
into something
I am not.
Help me
trust you
for my moment,
my day
and the rest
of my life.

Love, Andrea