Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: GRACE (08/24/23)
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TITLE: Through The Years | Previous Challenge Entry
By Linda Bowling
08/30/23 -
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I heard my mother yell at the dog in the next room and I flinched and shut my eyes. I knew the quiet, serene moment of the morning had been lost. I began to hurry, wanting to finish the cleaning before she made her way to the kitchen. My mother is 88 years old, and she is just as mean, hateful, and selfish as she has ever been. I had no desire to be in her presence for long. She steals my joy, and sucks the oxygen out of the room. I say a quick prayer of forgiveness for my unkind thoughts, but I know my Jesus understands since we have rehashed this topic a thousand times over in my head.
I live with my mother to offer the physical and financial help that she needs. When my father passed, my heart was torn from my chest. I didn’t know how I was going to survive this unbearable grief. At the time I blamed and hated my mother who I felt contributed to his lack of will to live any longer. My father suffered emotional and physical cruelty from his wife, as all of us children did. When he took his last breath, I was there, and I wanted nothing more than to lash out at one person, my mother. Thank God I didn’t. I bit my tongue and maintained my wayward emotions in her presence as I have often done over the years.
There was no real show of love from my mother growing up. No hugs, no kisses, and no I love you’s. I had all I needed when it came to food, clothing and shelter, but as the only girl among three brothers, the emotional love I craved from a mom wasn’t there. It was my earthly father and Jesus who together, carried me through those trying times.
By the time I lost my father, I had been divorced and my own two children were grown and had families of their own. With nothing but a small burial policy for my dad, my mother immediately made the loss all about her and what she was going to need physically and financially to survive. I made the decision to give my home to my son for his young and growing family and move in with her. I didn’t have to, but I strongly felt it was what God wanted me to do.
Trust me, I have begged, pleaded, and cried out to God to take this burden from me. I didn’t want it, and emotionally I knew I couldn’t handle it. But my love and my faith for Jesus has kept me grounded in the face of this adversity. I take his commandment “to honor thy father and mother” seriously, Exodus 20:12, KJV. There were times when I fought hard to defend myself and my own decisions in the face of my mother, but as the years passed it became less about me and more about what God has called me to do.
Seven long and emotional years have now drifted by, and I still cry out to God in my times of weakness. But he picks me up and dries my tears and gives me the grace and strength to go on. I now know what God was trying to teach me, and it was about knowing and giving grace. Just as my heavenly father bestowed his infinite grace upon me and the country I served, it was my turn to give and extend that same grace to my mother. I may not feel the emotional connection that most feel for their mom’s, but I can demonstrate love by giving grace and forgiveness to the one person that God has placed in my care so that he may show me how to grow, understand and apply the true meaning of grace.
God be the glory…
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May I pray with you from Numbers 6:24-26?
Thank you so much for sharing.