This new lifestyle affords a lot of time thinking about things. That's good for a writer, a musician, a theologian, and woman, an artist, a differently- abled person. I've been thinking about how I got here , to this place, not only locale but this spiritual place.
Stuck in a little village for twenty years there is so much to forgive. I used to forgive so easily. My ex husband used to say I had the heart of David. Then, like Job's story, it seemed that life on earth said, 'Oh yea? Well forgive THIS!" and then threw every arrow conceivable through my heart, piercing it, trying to draw blood.
For me now, it isn't that I don't still forgive constantly and fairly easily by just human standards, it's that I get stuck on wanting to know why. Where I stay entangled, though not enmeshed thank God, is trying to understand the 'why' of someone else's hurtful behavior or decision to not choose a life giving activity.
Why - does someone find their self esteem and self worth through affluence and possessions?
Why - does someone hurt so badly inside they can't face it and project out their pain on others?
Why- does someone do things that hurt themselves and, in doing so, hurt me?
Why- does someone prefer a lie to the truth or The Truth?
Why- does someone keep their distance from the pain of loss.
The list is endless. I have arrived at this. I cannot understand someone else's 'why' unless they tell me or someone who knows their 'why' tells me. For example, years ago there was an old geezer who just wanted me out of a position of leadership. He worked very hard to have me removed. When the end of my tenure was coming, a man came to me and told me his mother was the man's assistant and for fifteen years the man forced her into an affair she did not want. That was the days when women didn't know they couldn't be forced into things. She had even fled to another state to get away from him.
He and his wife, who knew of the affair and chose to look the other way back in the day when women didn't know they didn't have to put up with affairs unless they wanted to, were very fearful of a new trend in the organization for people to tell their true stories. Their 'why' was a fear of facing their own story.
After I knew that, everything made sense and I let go of a rope in a game of tug of war I could not win.
There was another man in the same organization. During a particular ritual of healing, he stepped forward to me and whispered, "I want to be a better husband to my wife". I knew it took every ounce of courage in his being to say those words to me. I gave him the biggest smile of affirmation and said words to the effect of 'you already are'.
When I get stuck and I think the behavior of others is incomprehensible, I ask the Lord to take me back to the list in my own life. When was self esteem and self worth found in something other than God's Love for me? When was I frozen and out of touch with my pain? When did I hurt myself by binge eating? When did I come to love The Truth? When did I keep my distance from my loss and cry only sixteen tears when necessary?
I just have to remember my journey. Then I understand why. It's never fails to connect me appropriately with understanding.
Love,
Deborah
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