Difficult Truths and Learning to Forgive

Since my return to New England and my family, I’ve begun to face some difficult truths.

I have returned to a closed family system. I am as shut out as I was when I lived a continent away. This should not be surprising, as it is the pattern down through the generations. Once on the outside, always on the outside. I’ve reached the conclusion that trying to change it would be unproductive, cause permanent damage to already fragile egos and relationships, and place unnecessary stress on myself. Accept it and do my best. Form new relationships that will make up for the lack of family intimacy.

I’m working to accept that my family shows no understanding or compassion toward me, my life, or the various situations I find myself in. It is all my fault, my doing, and I should put up with it or shut up. Beating myself up isn’t a bad idea either. I’m the one everyone loves to compare him/herself to because they will always come out on top.

With the exception of my parents, I am an integral part of no one’s life. After they die, this will be even more the case. As far as my family goes, I am here for two reasons: to spend more time with my parents in their final years, and to deal with matters regarding Camp, the family summer home. Camp is the one and only thing that will keep me communicating with anyone in my family after my parents die.

The abuse that I experienced early in life, partially at the hands of a family member, has shaped my life and patterns of interaction in some unfortunate ways. Nothing is going to change that. Again, something I can work to accept without liking it.

Perhaps I needed to be away for so long so that I could face these truths without totally going over the edge – and to say this: I returned so that I could learn to forgive. I have spent too much of my life in anger, bitterness and resentment, shutting people out and missing out in ways I can hardly imagine. To truly learn to forgive, I need to start with the earliest, and most horrendous, wrongs of my life. I’ve returned to face them, stare them down, and accept them without becoming a victim again.

A couple of caring people have pointed out to me recently that I have faced less than ideal conditions in the past few months. Nothing like stating the obvious, but their point is that I need to stop being so hard on myself. I’m doing my best. When the wind howls in my face it is not my doing. The best thing I can do for myself is to be good to myself, even with others aren’t – especially when they aren’t. I can treat myself with the understanding and compassion that I should get from my family but do not. And I can do that while forgiving them. Therein lies any future I may have.

On not being Dumped by God

For me right now, things are seem as bad as they ever have. In many ways, it appears as if God brought me back here to New England from California and dumped me. Family relationships are strained, my job is not going well and will probably end soon, my living situation isn’t great, and I haven’t established new relationships here yet and suffer from grinding loneliness. Plus, the weather has been just awful this winter.

As hard as it is, as depressed as I get sometimes – even bordering on suicidal - as hopeless as things seem in terms of my family, my career, and the possibility of ever getting married again, I know that spring is coming. I have found a church that I like. It’s vital and alive. One of its ministries is the Stephen Ministry, a peer counseling program. Stephen Ministers receive many hours of training to minister one on one, helping those going through difficult times. I’ve met twice with my Stephen Minister, and both times she has said that she doesn’t believe God brought me back here to dump me. I have to believe that too. I do believe it, even the midst of incredible negativity. I hold on to this belief with all I have, because right now it is the best I have, and I believe it comes from God.

I hardly know what to call this belief. Ray of hope, beacon of light, bright spot down the tunnel – none of those phrases quite work. It has less to do with light than with substance. It is more like rock than light. I can almost touch this thing, it’s so solid. Here is the KJ version of Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” This faith is like a super hard polished stone that bounces enough reflected light back into my downtrodden spirit to move through another day without giving up despite all the messages coming from various quarters that I’m just not good enough. Those messages can’t penetrate this stone of faith.

Hear this: I am not giving up. And even if I sound like I am, I’m not.

Changing my Mind about Facebook

I recently made a cross-country move alone, an amazing, wonderful, stressful and sometimes frightening life event. I now live in Massachusetts, near where I grew up, but far enough away for things to still seem new and novel. And I lived in California for 15 years, so much has changed. More to the point of this post, I no longer have close friends here from earlier in my life. Although all my family is here and I'm close to my sister, it's not the same as having friends.

I'll make them in time, I'm sure. In the meantime, I miss my friends in California terribly. When I think about them, sometimes tears spring to my eyes, tears of gratefulness, joy, and occasionally regret that I didn't pay more attention to them or spend more time with them.

When I left California, I determined to stay in touch with them. I've never been good at staying touch with people, so this has been a big challenge for me. How am I doing it? My main tool has been Facebook. This is surprising for me, because not too long ago, I really disliked Facebook. The one and only reason I set up a profile is that almost everything in my profession did it as well. Here is a piece of an email I wrote to a friend:

>>I fear I am just an old fuddy-duddy, but here is my rant about Facebook:

"Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around
you." Huh? Instead of talking to them, you greet them electronically
with some absurd pretend plant or emotion? How meaningful is that?

Another objection I have is that it becomes a competitive thing. Who has
the most connections, applications, communications, etc.? It's not about
real connection, it's a numbers game. Find everyone you have ever known
and "friend" them. If you happen to run into them in person, maybe they
will give you the time of day and maybe not.

Do I really care what someone I barely knew in high school is doing at
this moment?

Incredible time waster too.

It's a young people's thing, and that's fine with me. I don't get it and
have a hard time making it work for me. LinkedIn is good because the
basis for the relationship is clear.<<

I think I also mentioned later that it stinks in the usability department.

My views haven't entirely changed, although now I realize that Facebook for me is what I make it. I find it easy, fun and gratifying to keep of track my friends' activities. Hopefully they feel the same way about me. There are at least a couple of people who I feel I know better since I left because of the personal content they add to Facebook. Now I wish all my friends were on it.

No, I still don't agree with or buy into the competitive aspect. I only friend people I know or want to know personally and/or professionally. I share for the sake of sharing, not to one-up someone. I play the occasional game to connect as well as have fun. I still don't get, and probably never will, the giving of virtual gifts. And I haven't changed my mind about Facebook's usability issues.

Facebook is helping me maintain my California connections in an important and meaningful way. For that I am grateful. I look forward to using it to find and maintain connections here in New England as well.

Grace

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. - 2 Cor. 12:9

Recently I've been contemplating God's grace, a concept that I hadn't given much thought to before. These words of Dallas Willard are what started me down this road: "Grace is God acting in our lives to bring about what we do not deserve and cannot accomplish on our own." (How Does the Disciple Live?)

The promise of God's grace makes it possible for me to both surrender to His will and to feel confident in it. For a long time, when I tried to work out which way to go or what action to take in my life, I would think through all I knew and then pray about it, hoping to get some sort of direction. Often I do not, so I would make a decision and then remind myself that anything can happen. Depending on my mood, I would project the "anything" to be either bad or good. Now my practice is to make the commitment to God daily that I will surrender to His will and trust in His grace. After doing that, saying "anything can happen" brings a sense of wonder rather than a tendency to predict. Awareness of God's grace help me to let go and live in the present, totally trusting in God.