Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: New (01/01/26)
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TITLE: This Doesn't Have to be Difficult | Previous Challenge Entry
By Wilma Schlegel
01/08/26 -
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Her daughter, Millicent, drew back at Audra’s words, as though she’d been struck. “But it is!” she insisted, almost commanded. Her tears stilled in the moment when she spoke, then began again immediately.
“It really is,” Millicent’s therapist added in a coddling tone.
Now Audra drew away, pulling back the hand she’d extended toward Millicent.
Millicent went on about the many woes of her life. “I need to learn to put myself first,” she stated. Her voice was unsteady, her fingers trembled. Her eyes…her eyes sent daggers as she spoke.
Wide-eyed, Audra said nothing. This was crazy. She was almost seventy years old. Was Millicent really blaming her…again? How many times had they been down this road? How many times had they all ‘walked on eggshells’ to not upset Millicent? How many times had Millicent exploded anyway telling them all how wrong, twisted, narcissistic they were?
This time Millicent had offered an apology at the outset. That was new and different. The list of hurts, needs and expectations was not new.
Audra left the meeting with a handshake to the therapist and she numbly accepted the hug from Millicent and returned it. What else could she do? Millicent called the shots, again.
Once home, she tried not to think about it. A mother should be glad, but she kept returning to the troubling reality. Millicent was back in their lives again. Still manipulative, still demanding. Still blaming everyone else for her troubles. How had this happened? How had she, Audra, allowed herself to be manipulated again?
As she fretted, Audra envisioned the old comic duo, the devil and the angel, one on each shoulder, only this time they were not comical.
“You were a terrible mother,” the devil jabbed at her. “Did you really think you’d been excused? Well, you haven’t been.” He smiled an unkind smile at her. “You made so many mistakes. Maybe you’re a mistake, maybe you should consider that, what do you think?” he kept jabbing her.
The angel said nothing.
“You know, you can never be clean enough,” the devil accused. “The man upstairs?” He pointed his pitchfork heavenward. “He’ll never let you in. Did you really think he would? He can’t stand the sight of you!"
The angel offered nothing. No comforting words, no argument.
The devil jumped to the shoulder where the angel was. He poked his pitchfork at her. She fell away with a quiet gasp. And then the devil said words that struck fear to Audra's heart. “Did you really think you owned your life? You don't. We own you.”
Audra’s insides quavered. She felt lost, trapped. Was it all true? She took in a shaky breath.
Sleep that night was almost impossible. The next day and night held the same dreaded misery. She knew she had to pull herself together. But how could she? She didn’t feel clean enough to pray.
Hadn’t she read somewhere once though, that it was in exactly these times that a person should pray? Still, how could she have the boldness to approach the Father?
She went to the kitchen for a drink of water. Her eyes fell on a quote she’d saved and had placed under a magnet on the refrigerator door. It was from Charles Stanley and it said, “Once God extends His favor to us through Christ, He will never take it away. We are saved by grace, we live in grace, and we will be recipients of it throughout eternity.”
They were such wonderful words! Here was encouragement, blessed reassurance! Audra got her drink of water and took it to the room where she studied her Bible. She opened to the verse she was memorizing, Hebrews 10, verse 39. “But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.”
Audra felt new! She thought about what that devil on her shoulder had said, a partial truth. She was not in control of her life. But the rest of his statement was a complete lie. ‘They’ did not own her. She belonged to her heavenly Father. Because of Jesus’s atoning blood, her sins were forgiven. She believed that. She, Audra, was one of those ‘who believe and are saved’. Praise the Lord! Thank you, Jesus. With the Lord’s help, this didn’t have to be difficult.
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