Again - Forgiveness

I'm working on a Beth Moore Bible study called The Patriarchs. I wasn't too keen on doing it, I confess. I thought it sounded boring. I mean who needs to know anymore about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Apparently I do. And once again God is amazing me.

Over the weekend my friend, Lynette, went on a spiritual retreat that I also attended for several years. One of the things they do on this particular retreat is hand out a bag of goodies on the first night. In the bag there are two rocks with words written on them, a good rock and a bad rock. The bad rock represents something you will work on for the weekend and at some point throw into the lake, symbolically throwing that "issue" off of yourself. The good rock carries your word for the year until you come back next October and get a whole new one. In the past my experience with these words has been uncanny.

Lynette brought me back a bag of goodies. There were bookmarks, poems, a candle, all kinds of cool stuff in there. But all I was interested in was the rocks. I could feel the heaviness of them as I held the bag. I immediately dug down to the bottom. I pulled out a craggy, ugly rock with the word "anger" written on it and a clear pure one emblazened with "grace". I thought to myself, "Interesting. I don't get this. I'm done with anger. I don't do anger anymore. God got it wrong this time." I threw them back in the bag and forgot all about them.

You're probably wondering what this has to do with the Bible study. Well, let me fill you in. I'm catching up on the homework I didn't do last week. For some reason I felt compelled to go back and catch up. She's talking about the generational impact of sin and how we're likely to act just like our parents did even though it's the one thing we said we'd never do. You know what I'm talking about. There's something about your parents parenting that you said you would never ever for a million dollars in a million years emulate. Then one day you catch yourself saying, doing, or acting just that way. It's highly disturbing. This is her question: "What part of the discussion on parenting is speaking most clearly to you at the moment?" I answered very simply: "anger" Wow, where did that come from? The bad rock leapt into my mind. Then I went on to say that "more than anything in the world I want Max to be able to parent his children without anger and without screaming".

My mom was a screamer. Anything could set her off and everything did. Not only did she scream, but she screamed belitting things. I've done the same thing. I said I never would. I pray that Max's children don't have to live like that. Today I call myself a recovering screamer. If I gained anything from all the 12 step work I did in Al Anon, it is this, I no longer have to scream at my child. I've talked to him about it and apologized for the first 8 years of his life. He's so quick to forgive. I'm so thankful. I know he means it because I recently found his 8th grade English journal and read an entry in which he said "my mom is almost always happy". That was a gift. Thank you God.

So where does that leave me with my rocks and my mom? Today my mom and I have a good relationship. We've never talked about any of the past. That kind of thing just doesn't happen in my family of origin. "Don't ask, don't tell" and "If you don't talk about it, it never happened" are our family mottos. I've worked through a lot of the baggage. She's 85 and in frail health. What good can come from bringing it up now? Plenty, but I'm not going there. I've been too well trained. Instead I wrote my mom a letter today. I told her how much I love her and how she is so much a part of me. I acknowledged that our relationship has been at times hostile and distant and I asked her to forgive my part in that and I extended my own forgiveness to her. I told her that I have blanks in my childhood, unanswered questions, but that despite that fact today I walk in victory and I am whole and complete. I then embraced all the good things and named several that she has taught me. I told her that I know I've made some bad choices in my life and that if I had it to do over again I would do it differently. But those experiences make up who I am today as well as the good choices I've made. And I told her that God is using those experiences to reach other young women who may not have to do it that way because they've heard my story. That's their choice. All I can do is talk. And I'm talking. (Ok, I stopped short of telling her I was talking. I don't want to kill the woman!) So all that's left is to mail the letter, throw away the bad rock and embrace the good one, Grace.

Have I mentioned I love my mom?