Year's End

2 Cor. 4:16 “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”

The Year's End

I look at the calendar and see December 27, my son’s 22 birthday, and I have to wonder where all of the other the months this year went. I feel like I feathered through the pages of the calendar and landed here in December with no fill in for the in between. You know, you’re given a life-altering diagnosis and something in your life is supposed to change right? You make or complete a bucket list, family surrounds you and supports you, you strive to live every last second of the years of your life you have left.

That didn’t happen to me. I altered my daily eating habits, I changed my physical activities to include walks and stationary bike rides and I do more cleaning, more writing, but that’s about it. The outside world exists only when I force myself to go out and place myself in this seemingly mechanical robotic world we live in.

One day I’m sitting in the doctor’s office being poked and prodded, the calendar saying January 25th, then I’m sitting under an eclipsed sun and it says August 21st, then I blink and now it is the 27th of December.

I’m sure all of you have had a significant year where you took scenic trips, relished family memories, ate delicious toxic food and wonder where all the weight came from that you’ve added. Me, I’m wondering where in the world I hid forty pounds that I lost. My mother in law just said to me on Christmas, that she didn’t know I had forty pounds to lose because I always looked great. I guess looking great and actually BEING great are two different things. Shrinking from a size seven to a size three is forty pounds. Now I have no clothes that fit, again.

While I may have lost weight I feel like I’ve aged ten years. It’s kind of weird and nothing I do can change that portion of my year. I did have a nice Christmas and that meant a lot to me. The enormous amount of food did overwhelm me but I stayed focused on my macaroni salad. Macaroni salad, you ask? Well yes. Back home our Christmas’ always had my great-grandmother’s secret family recipe for macaroni salad and potato salad, and my mother always had pork, sauerkraut, and kielbasa simmering in the slow cooker. 

When my German great-grandparents (my dad’s grandparents) came here to America not too long ago, they brought with them recipes to hand down to the family. My mother actually made the recipes the best and my aunt’s always envied how she made it just like their grandmother! They tried to duplicate the recipe to no avail. I was always by my mothers’ side when she made the salads so I basically knew what she did that made it so special. She says my niece has acquired the ability to reproduce her salad but sometimes misses an ingredient but the similar taste is still there. 

I don’t make her potato salad because I don’t really like potatoes but the macaroni salad I made last year for my son and hubby was back-home delicious so much so, it took me back home for a moment when savoring every bite. When I thought about facing Christmas day surrounded by food and family I mentioned that if I could make my mother’s macaroni salad, I would have that one cheat to eat, relishing the taste and my surroundings would melt into the background. My husband, loving the salad, had no problem with my request!

I have never shared my salad with this family and his brother makes some good tasty food himself. I felt the two pounds of macaroni was too much so I saved me a small bowl for home and took the rest thinking it would go untouched because of all of the food my bro-in-law made. Amid the turkey, ham, dressing, cranberry sauce, string bean casserole and a host of other stuff sat my macaroni salad. 

Holding my plate in my hand I loaded up on macaroni salad and two deviled eggs that my hubby made. No one knew that they were organic eggs. I went and sat at the table surrounded by family and ate, after prayers of course. This family actually prays before meals, something I never knew in my life before coming to Nebraska. 

After the forks began scraping the plates I could hear the low murmur of ‘mmmm’s’ circling the table. I thought they were agreeing with how good my bro-in-law’s food was but then it came out, “This macaroni salad is delicious!” 

I think I blushed, “My macaroni salad?” 

Out of ten people there, only one didn’t like the salad and that was because he had eaten a pepperoncini thinking it was a banana pepper and his dinner was ruined by the taste, otherwise, the macaroni salad was a big hit. I had an almost empty bowl to take home with us by the time we left. There was a request to bring it to the Easter dinner and his brother said I could bring that dish again next year! 

If I give them nothing else to remember me by, my old family recipe will linger in their minds and taste buds for years to come. I’m sure my laughter and personality will be sweet reminders also, but I can say what made my year was sharing a meal from back home, bringing my dysfunctional family close to me while sharing with my new family. 

The only person that I talked to from back home on Christmas day was my mother, everyone else has forgotten about me so this year is the year of release for me. I need to release that family and move forward. The delete button cannot be more prevalent and necessary at this juncture in my life. I’ll continue on in my hermetic lifestyle isolating myself and living for me, hubby and my son, and…my macaroni salad once or twice a year! What a nice way to end the year!

Quotation Saturday ~ Family

Quotation Saturday

FAMILY

“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” 
― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“When God Created Mothers"

When the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into His sixth day of "overtime" when the angel appeared and said. "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one." 

And God said, "Have you read the specs on this order?" She has to be completely washable, but not plastic. Have 180 moveable parts...all replaceable. Run on black coffee and leftovers. Have a lap that disappears when she stands up. A kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair. And six pairs of hands." 

The angel shook her head slowly and said. "Six pairs of hands.... no way." 

It's not the hands that are causing me problems," God remarked, "it's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have." 

That's on the standard model?" asked the angel. God nodded. 

One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, 'What are you kids doing in there?' when she already knows. Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn't but what she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say. 'I understand and I love you' without so much as uttering a word." 

God," said the angel touching his sleeve gently, "Get some rest tomorrow...." 

I can't," said God, "I'm so close to creating something so close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick...can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger...and can get a nine-year-old to stand under a shower." 

The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly. "It's too soft," she sighed. 

But tough!" said God excitedly. "You can imagine what this mother can do or endure." 

Can it think?" 

Not only can it think, but it can reason and compromise," said the Creator. 

Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek. 

There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told You that You were trying to put too much into this model." 

It's not a leak," said the Lord, "It's a tear." 

What's it for?" 

It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness, and pride." 

You are a genius, " said the angel. 

Somberly, God said, "I didn't put it there.” 

― Erma Bombeck, When God Created Mothers

“You must remember, family is often born of blood, but it doesn't depend on blood. Nor is it exclusive of friendship. Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family.” 
― Trenton Lee Stewart

“Unfortunately, some family members are so psychotic that no matter how hard you try to forge a healthy relationship, nothing will help. Now that you're an adult, take refuge in the fact that some things are beyond your control. You owe it to yourself to steer clear of people who are harmful to your health.” 
― Andrea Lavinthal

“This, after all, was the month in which families began tightening and closing and sealing; from Thanksgiving to the New Year, everybody's world contracted, day by day, into the microcosmic single festive household, each with its own rituals and obsessions, rules and dreams. You didn't feel you could call people. They didn't feel they could phone you. How does one cry for help from these seasonal prisons?” 
― Zadie Smith,

DYSFUNCTIONAL

“It's my opinion, with some people, just knowing they are alone, living inside of their own miserable, self hating, dysfunctional mind, with their own immature, insecure, self pitying self is its own revenge. Their existence is their karma.” 
― Colleen Truscott Fry

“This is what we desire in intimate relationships but this deep connection is often so frightful that most do not take advantage of the opportunities presented for honesty.” 
― David W. Earle

“The dysfunction we are facing cuts deep into our social and moral values. Solutions are plentiful, but responsible co-creation is not (yet). We can no longer solve the many challenges by simply coming up with quick fixes. What we require is a transition in the way we co-create and experience reality. To step on the path of recovery and growth, we must establish clear and definitive objectives: 

- Institute effective and righteous democratic processes;
- Hold politicians, governments, and corporate entities, in particular, the financial sector and the media responsible to society;
- Reduce global inequality and improve collaboration;
- Improve relations and trust between various nations and groups;
- Simplify legislation and invest in a holistic education for all;
- Raise the value of righteous behavior and lessen the importance of material wealth.

To achieve this we don’t need a revolution, we need responsible evolution! There is only one path that leads to long-term prosperity: the path of truth. It doesn’t demand responsibility; it embodies it.” 
― Joseph Rain

MTOC ~ Day Three ~ Choice

“When faced with senseless drama, spiteful criticism, misguided opinions, walking away is the best way to stand up for yourself. To respond with anger is an endorsement of their attitude.” ~ Dodinsky

I have laid my past to rest and crawled out of the darkened pit with my fingernails intact as well as my dignity. While I could have lashed out at my sister for her insensitive ignorant remarks toward me, my son and my husband, I CHOSE the higher road and continue on with my life that I have built for myself. Not with the help of any blood family members who remain anchors that weigh me down. I now look to my Spiritual family to lift me up on a daily basis. 

We ALL have a choice and while some will cling to the bitterness that shapes their life, I CHOOSE not to allow anger and bitterness to define who I am now. THAT my friends is God in me. It isn’t any scientific psychological mumbo jumbo, nope it’s that God mumbo jumbo that I keep telling people about. 

I have a friend who over reacted to something she had seen. Apparently Kirk Cameron is doing a tour giving HIS testimony of Christ. While he has the star quality that I don’t have, his words are going to be faced with pretty much the same criticism I’m faced with in my testimony. Us God people are just freaks of nature. I along with millions, and possibly billions are all wrong and all freaks of this ‘God’ we speak of. 

What did Kirk Cameron say that ticked my friend off? 

He said, "Wives are to honor and respect and follow their husband's lead, not to tell their husband how he ought to be a better husband," he says. "When each person gets their part right, regardless of how their spouse is treating them, there is hope for real change in their marriage."

She raged on, (I won’t share her entire post for privacy reasons) but this is some of what she said:

“If this is what being Christian means, then I don't want any part of it.” 

What she said, loosely, is that she heard Cameron say that women are to be servant slaves to their husband. His sister Candace said that she agreed with Kirk and is submissive to HER husband but what my friend missed was the CHOICE of the entire message. I think she missed the point that we, men AND women, are to love, honor, respect and cherish one another. Not be slaves but to honor one another.

I don’t judge her for her opinion on the matter because it is what I see as a national problem with the message that Jesus was trying to convey. People mix the Old Testament with the New Testament and make confetti of the words and dish out what suits them. They dissect the word to fit into their little world, they use the words like wet clay and try to form those words into a belief system that suits or doesn’t suit them. To ME, it looks like they’ve made an ashtray out of the Word of God.

They try going to church but again, they’re met with confetti and don’t understand what is being said. They’re looked over, gawked at and made to feel like an outsider so they flee from the church never to return. They hear people TALK about the Word of God but for some reason, they don’t SEE the word of God working in people. Is that because the Bible bearers ACTIONS are not equal to what they are saying? 

It’s a fine line sure, but also, it is a matter of CHOICE. When you look at the starry sky at night lit up like diamonds scattered on a sunny beach do you see a disorderly array of stars or do you see things like Cassiopeia, Orion or the Pleiades hiding within the astrological signs? This is the same thing when people hear the Word of God or people speak of the word of God. Others hear a disorganized message or they hear a divinely orchestrated message hidden in there. 

Last year when my dad passed away, I couldn’t make it back home and it gripped me for months, the guilt, the hurt, the suffering pangs I felt. My sister in her obvious dislike for me (I’m not going to pretend otherwise) had said, “Well YOU made the choice to leave here!” I rightfully said, “Yes, yes I did, I chose LIFE over death.”

I had suffered back home and nearly lost my life on more occasions than one, so leaving my husband WAS a choice of mine, a CHOICE of survival. Those people enslaved me and kept me bound by their misfit whims of dysfunction and I just assumed that that is how life was supposed to be. I prayed often for deliverance from the hell I was entombed in. 

It wasn’t until I found freedom in the land of Texas was I able to see the outside world and after months of suffering anxiety attacks nightly, running off hyperventilating on the dark streets of Texas, I slowly got a grip on what reality looked like. My years and years of prayers were finally answered; I was free from enslavement. 

God put me on a path and only because my choice was Him did my world start to turn around and I saw the light of day. When I tell people of Christ, it isn’t from a high and mighty pedestal, it isn’t from a wealthy sculpted upbringing, it isn’t from being shaped by a defective family, no, it is from a woman who CHOSE God over living to the conformity of man. Yes, the same men who wrote the Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments. 

I live for the mysteries of God. You’re right people, the Bible is a bunch  of words, supposedly the divine intervention of God Himself, but it isn’t until you CHOOSE the Holy Spirit to live IN you will you ever grasp the meaning of one word or message from the Holy Bible. 

Acts 15:7 “And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe.”

Dysfunctional Family

Luke 17:3 “Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.”

Family

Many know of the circumstances of my family. I’ve said over and over again we’re not a tight knit, religious in any way family but oftentimes that leaves people scratching their heads and saying “What?”

Let me paint a picture: I have an older brother, J, who is 59 and living in Tennessee somewhere. I haven’t spoke to him in about 13 years and there really is no doorway to communication for reasons I won’t elaborate.

Then there is my second eldest, T: He’s an oxycontin addict/alcoholic living somewhere in Baltimore doing the ‘house squatting’ thing ie: moving from house to house, flopping wherever he can.

Then there is Ja who I just spoke to yesterday. (more about him later)

There is M who is married to a woman 16 years his senior living happily high on life in the ‘we’re doing great ignoring you’ world.

Then there is my sister, T, who is wrapped up in her family struggling to be everything for my mother and father. I haven’t spoke to her since June when her grandbaby was born.

What a mixed up mess, eh? There you have it, altogether six non-communicative siblings and a dying father and a disabled mother. I call my mother daily and I have for the thirteen years since I left home for brighter horizons. Little did I know I’d be out here, in the middle of nowhere with the inability to ever return home ie: my birthplace.

Last week when my father fell ill, I thought he’d be home by Sunday but he wasn’t so I took it upon myself to notify Ja. (I’m using initials to protect their privacy) Ja had no idea my father was sick, no one felt the need to inform him and he thanked me.

Him and I were the closest of all siblings and as dysfunctional life proves, no one was happy seeing US get along and well, that is where a lot of resentment arose. Even my mother and father were annoyed of our friendship. And that is what it was, a friendship. I befriended the black sheep and no one else did. As always *I* was the lone warrior in an extremely dysfunctional family.

At one time in my life, I was the only one that spoke to EVERY single one of them. I was there for them, their kids, the parties, the births of their children, the godmother of two, the helper of all. Even my mother and father, I was the only one who was there for EVERY thing! When my brother Ja had a second child I thought I’d be a godmother for a third time but no, he asked my sister whom he was TRYING to be a friend to in some way. (Yeah, that didn’t work out for him so well as you can imagine.)

By the time I left home, it was MY time. I had to finally realize that there was no hope, no one left to LOVE the only way I knew how to love. I was branding myself a ‘self-imposed’ black sheep. The pain I went through the first six years or so after I left, no one knew, no one cared, no one called, I was alone without the crutch of the dysfunctional family.

Yes, *I* called, I cared and I still tried to hold onto the crutch until I couldn’t hold onto the nothingness any longer and let it slip through my fingers like liquid in a strainer. I had to let go to embrace the new family I had joined and was welcomed into with open arms. I am not judged out here in the middle of nowhere. I’m not expected to do and be more than I can be and isn’t that what life is all about really? Being accepted for who you are?

“And the day came when, the risk to remain in a tight bud, was more painful than the risk it took… to BLOSSOM.” ~ Anais Nin

My brother and I spoke for well over an hour yesterday. He went on and on about his kids, his life and how much he strives to be the father to his kids that my father wasn’t to us. He asked about the siblings and he was shocked to find out that our sister lived not far up the road from him and that three of her kids lived there with her. I did tell him that I didn’t want to come home and see my father in an urn or a coffin and he understood. Completely understood.

I did get to squeeze into the conversation that sometimes I had to walk with a cane because of arthritis in my back and he was like, “Wow, how old ARE you?” Then we went over the siblings’ ages and whatnot, finally ending the conversation with the ‘I love you’ and stay in touch jargon.

After the call ended, I was hit smack dab in the forehead with realization. None of them know me. Do they know I’m a writer? I’m the editor of a newsletter? Do any know of my pain and suffering with arthritis? Do any of them care about MY life or that I’m even alive?

I got the answer from my Father in heaven on whether I should return home to see my family. NO was plain and clear not much unlike my father on earth had said when asked if I should come home, “Maybe next time.”

Don’t pity me or misunderstand where I’m coming from, I am at PEACE with every decision I’ve made in my life and I WILL go on living the life that God Himself has etched out for me.

“Trust yourself. You’ve survived a lot and you’ll survive whatever is coming.”

 ~ Robert Tew