Geminids Meteor Shower a Bust....

...due to significant cloud cover, but I have been treated to the occasional twinkles of fireflies in the wood and songs of the night by peepers and crickets, snuggled by Ashley, resident kitty, and Maggie, guardian Australian shepherd, is on duty, watching all from the top step of the front porch.  Starbucks Holiday Blend in my Franciscan Desert Rose mug, 70º at 5:10 A.M., gentle breeze, flannel pajama pants, an unneeded down throw by my side...I wish you were here to enjoy these holy moments with me.  All this and the view of our Christmas tree from the front porch looking in has made for a peaceful morning.

My thoughts have been with a young mother-very-soon-to-be who lost her grandmother two days ago.  She is brokenhearted as she was so looking forward to her baby girl, aptly named Noel, meeting her great-grandmother.  My daughter-in-love lost her last grandparent this past week as well; PopPop he was called, never got to meet his newborn great-granddaughter.  

So life goes, cruelly to one generation in agonizing loss, blessedly to another who was in that limbotic place of not being able to live or die.  I had the pleasure of meeting both these beloved grandparents, and as with most who get to live a long life, their bodies had begun to be uncooperative.  I often think of the words of a first cousin of my mother's--does that make her my second cousin or first cousin once removed?--"No matter how old and decrepit they get, it's hard to let them go."

But go they must, and the mantel of historian is passed to the next generation.   My grandmother told me numerous times that her mother was able to identify any bird by its tracks and by its song.  That information must have marinated in my soul, for when the time was right, as a young married woman and mother, I had a thirst for knowledge--I wanted to know the identity of the many birds flitting, soaring and singing in southernmost Georgia.  I bought bird books, I took pictures, I set up bird feeders in my quest to be like the great-grandmother I never met in person, but knew so much about from stories my mother and grandmother told me.

My love for the Word of God came from my "Grannie."  She often retreated to her bedroom to read it and many times I'd find her sleeping, her Bible open and face down on her chest.  The Word found its way into her heart from her bird-loving mother, of whom it was said could hear any passage read aloud and was able to identify chapter, verse and book.  Grannie's Bible, with a completed family history section filled in, resides in a place of honor, on the dresser in the guest room which doubles as a morning prayer room, my prayers said while sitting in a chair which belonged to Grannie. 

I've bunny-trailed in my storytelling, as Grannie often did.  And those young ones who listen patiently to the same stories told over and over, each time anew for the teller, will be rewarded when their own children and grandchildren listen, eyes possibly rolling, yawns stifled inwardly, but words settling in their souls, germinating for the next generation.  

The two aforementioned baby girls will meet their great-grandparents in a different way, but I know they will meet them all the same.

A song of hope, "Hallelujah, We Shall Rise"

Copied from Cindy Trimm

“Praise, like gold and diamonds,
owes its value only to its scarcity.”
- Samuel Johnson

One of the most devastating sources of emotional pain that a person can experience is rejection. Although it is rarely perceived as a blessing, I believe it is often a divine announcement that you were never supposed to prosper within a particular relationship or realm in the first place.

Some of us were born into homes, communities, and even nations that reject us. Conversely, some of us place ourselves in relationships or communities that will never help us prosper. Instead of finding our strength and identity in God’s unchanging love for us, we turn to individuals or institutions for affirmation or stay too long in a dysfunctional relationship.

Sound familiar? Maybe you’ve been so afraid of the unknown that you’ve stuck with familiar roles or relationships no matter how repressive they are.

I want to encourage you to try a different approach. When you are confronted with rejection, think of it as a divine course corrector. I love how the actor Sylvester Stallone describes how he handles rejection:

“I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear 
to wake me up and get going.”

When it’s time for you to move on, embrace rejection as the push you need to get going. Or when you deviate from a course you have been divinely guided to pursue, understand that rejection might be what keeps you pointed in the right direction. Someone once asked me, “How do you deal with rejection?” My answer? “With grateful acceptance.”

When you are confronted with rejection, 
think of it as a divine course corrector. 

Learn how to use rejection as a tool for growth. It requires great discernment to know when to ignore rejection—when to keep doing what you’re doing regardless of what others say—or when to use rejection to provide valuable feedback regarding what you should be doing, how you should be doing it, or with whom. 

The key to gaining wisdom through rejection 
is rooted in your identity—knowing who you are in Christ and who God called you to be.

Life, in general, is risky—and the more risks you are willing to take, the more you will risk being rejected. The next time you face rejection, keep the following three truths in mind:

1. The problem may not be with you. People usually reject what they don’t understand, do not have the capacity for, or cannot control. 
2. It’s a matter of perspective. Talk the situation through with people who know you, your gifts, and your calling. Ask them for perspective and feedback to make sense of the situation. 
3. Mediocrity resists greatness. Albert Einstein observed, “Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”

Remember, your worth is not found in what others think of you! Use rejection to build and strengthen your resolve.

Praying you will use rejection as an opportunity to prevail,

Short and Sweet

"Thom, you're about to find out just how much we love you."--Mr. A, speaking to our firstborn over the telephone about the upcoming birth of his first child this fall.  

We women have so much to say and share about pregnancy, childbirth and infant care, volumes are written and spoken.  This, however, is about the most touchingly beautiful thing I've heard, from father to son. 

Mr. A and our firstborn son
an outstanding father
to an outstanding son
1988

 

2012 at our firstborn's wedding
Mr. A, best man
Mrs. A, best mom :D
our firstborn
his lovely bride
our second son, also best man
his then girlfriend, now fiancee
and the 7th person, number of perfection,
now resides in the womb of our daughter-in-love

Psalm 103:17But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
18to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.

Grilling Out For Two

I'm still in the wrapping-my-mind-around-it phase of re-learning life for two as opposed to three or four and any number of add-ons which accompanied the third and fourth members of our family established in 1986.  I'm getting on my own nerves with this topic as it's been nearly two years since our last nestling flew well and west.  Writing it out seems to help, though.

When the grill-meister, Mr. A, mentioned grilling out, I wasn't particularly enthused, but it was hard to resist his.  The next thing I know I'm kneading some Tastefully Simple seasoned salt and a little water into some ground beef and Mr. A is firing up the grill.  (I'm not a Tastefully Simple representative, so no self-interest in plugging their products.)  After making huge circles of raw beef, trying to accommodate for shrinkage, a generous amount of coarse ground pepper  and fire on both sides, voila!  We had tasty, homemade burgers for lunch.  

Mr. A salted tomato slices and ate them with relish, no, not literal relish, but like he was Georgia born and bred.  He has lived here 45 of his 61 years, so the culture really has rubbed off on him.  I'm not sure of the origin of the stinker in him, whether it was his birthplace of Ohio or his childhood home of Florida, but he doesn't mind wasting a pickle thrown in the dog's direction for the sheer entertainment of watching her immediately spit it back out.  She's not fond of tomatoes either, for the record.  

We rejoiced in the sunshine and we spoke frankly about where we are in life. We've signed all the pull-the-plug papers giving each other the legal right and blessing to do so.  I said to him I never want to be simply a body he has to bathe.  He said he didn't either, but life is a test and it isn't always fair.   

He then said he hoped we wouldn't have to take care of anyone else anytime soon.  That was after I mentioned many people my age, breathing on 52, are in the beginning stage of looking after their elderly parents.  My last parent was buried 12 years ago, so we were bonafide members of the sandwich generation.  Mr. A said we did that well.  Enough of that.    

He earns his relaxation daily by working hard and it's mighty gracious of him to say I earned my relaxation by what I did in the past, caring for children, an aging parent, and in time a brother.  I don't feel like I'm earning mine daily, I said to him, but I did mop the floors yesterday.

"That's important, too," he said in all seriousness following my less-than-serious remark.  It's a beautiful thing he appreciates the upkeep of our home.  I'm the first one to stand up for homemakers and what we do as a vocation, but I also have to admit it seemed to have more value when more people benefited from the labors.

It's a beautiful day to get over myself and any maudlin thoughts trying to creep in.  Lots of sunshine today and lots more tomorrow to stock up on before April comes in next week with afternoon thunderstorms.  Lunch dishes have been dealt with, Mr. A is mowing the lush, spring green grass and the afternoon is mine to do with as I choose.  My mission, this second half of life, is to choose well.  The afternoon's "activities" will consist of a book or two or three, some blessed sunshine and the time for some healthy self-talk, "It's OK.  Relax and enjoy.  You really did earn it."  

Mother-in-Law! And other in-laws, too

(written December 2014)

A blog post which inspired a blog post: 

http://thepioneerwoman.com/blog/2014/12/ship-of-hope/

Let me start by saying my post is not directed at any individual, but thoughts inspired after reading this lighthearted post by Ree Drummond, AKA The Pioneer Woman. 

I'm sharing this because I appreciate her holding her mother-in-law in a positive light.  I had a good one who lived to be 91 years old and I'm trying very hard not to be the type mother-in-law who causes constant grief to her children and their spouses.  No one is perfect and I'm sure I'll err, have erred-- I'm very new at this--but most mothers-in-law aren't completely evil as they are often stereotyped.

I have welcomed my daughter-in-love and future daughter-in-love to tell me if and when I step over the line.  Long before my sons were even old enough to consider marriage, I puzzled over the vitriol automatically assigned mothers-in-law.  That person, in most cases, is the one who had the most influence in shaping the man/woman a person fell in love with and wants to spend the rest of their lives with, and for that she deserves respect.  

I would say to young married men and women to look ahead and plant good seed for the future.  One day, odds are, you will be a parent-in-law and most people realize the truth of reaping and sowing, some call it karma.  Treat your in-laws the way you will want to be treated.  

To mothers-in-law, including myself, honor your children's "grownness" and their boundaries.  Respect is deserved, but it is also earned.  Trust how you raised them and unless they are breaking the law or need a substance abuse intervention, butt out of their personal business.  We figured out how to conduct ourselves in our own relationships; give them the same breathing room.  It is not our role or place to be involved with every detail and decision in their lives.

If you/I slip, accept their "no."  Biblically, our grown children are to respect us, but they are no longer obligated to obey us.  If we are trying to make our grown children obey us or worse yet, trying to meddle in or run their lives, then face it, we're being manipulative and the Bible regards manipulation in the same realm as witchcraft.  Don't act like a witch!  It won't get you stoned to death as in Old Testament times, but it carries a potentially strong and unbearable penalty, emotional distance from your grown children and their families.    

Their primary relationship is with their spouse and must be respected as such.  Remember, especially with the holidays upon us, we must now share them with their other families, and it's still humanly impossible to be in two places at the same time.          


  

28 Years and counting

(written September 2014)

By the ripe old age of 19, I'd given up dating.  Six months had gone by in my plans to figure out a career in which I could support my solitary life.   A mutual friend practically shoved me and this sweet man together.  He knew we belonged with one another.  Poor fella, our bow-legged friend, Grannie said he couldn't hedge a hog in a ditch, has had four divorces.  I wish he would have had the success in his own matchmaking he had in ours.  Grannie told me how she'd prayed for a good husband for me.  I don't remember apprising Grannie of my plans to remain alone.  She and God as co-conspirators trumped what I had in mind, and a what a funny delivery person He arranged for the news.

   

















Here we are at a family reunion, 1983.  I thought my mother would blow a gasket when she found out Mr. A was nearly ten years old than I.  No, she told me she'd once dated a man seven years her senior.  I think know she liked him. Grannie's brother, my great-uncle, Dan DeLoach, teased me that day, or maybe he was ribbing Mr. A, about being one in a series.

  
The series ended.  

Three months after our wedding we started a baby.  Three years later, another.  He was there the moment they exited my womb, he helped each move away from our home when the appointed day came, and he was there for them every day between.  In those days we buried Grannie, all our parents, my best friend, breast cancer be damned, and one of my brothers.  There were a couple of minor surgeries for me, one medical crisis with our older son, and both boys kept us busy with stitches, glue, casts, eyeglasses, a playground scuffle, a call from the principal about a dress code revolt.  I can think of more but recall Mom's wise words, it doesn't pay to tell everything you know.

  
And we made it this far.  This is my favorite picture of me and Mr. A.  I'm one who prefers to aim and shoot at others and more often than not I'll successfully evade being in the crosshairs of anyone looking down a scope at me.  This day, though, I asked our older son to shoot us.  Mr. A might not appreciate me telling this, but the reason we are laughing is he had just playfully pinched my bottom.  He's fairly reserved in public, on the shy side when we were first dating.  He seemed to overcome this in the ensuing years. 

    
 Goodness, it seemed like aging greatly accelerated the next decade.  Here we are at our older son's wedding, and next year, God willing, we'll have a similar picture at our baby boy's wedding.

There is an intensity in young love and an intense beauty in more seasoned love.  Two become one both instantly and over time. When tears are shed after lovemaking because both know this sweetness will one day come to an end...  

If I were to have a tombstone, "I was loved" would be sufficient.  I don't want one, though, for our ashes which will be mingled.  I want them released in the Matanzas River in St. Augustine.  My older son mentioned having somewhere to go in memorial.  I don't want my descendants standing in one place thinking we are "there."  I rather like the idea of resurrecting together from the ocean, miraculously being called back together, holding the hand of my best friend en route to eternity.  

Mr. A has played this song for me several times recently.  Its message covers the meantime.  

Hold On Love  

It's What's In Your Heart

(written in 2014)

"It's what's in your heart."  

My favorite Aunt Gladys quote.  

Great-aunt, to be technical, and a sincere Christian.  

Too few of those.  

While many chose to defame my late brother who lost a war with alcoholism nearly six years ago, she chose to speak to him as Jesus would.  

Another woman, who was morbidly obese, commented, "I wouldn't live with Robert either."  

She was referencing his former wife, glomming on with other vapid gossips who felt superior to him because their sin wasn't as bad as his sin.

She professed to be a Christian, but I prefer Aunt Gladys' way of living out her beliefs.  

My brother had given a car to the large woman's husband, and he had put food in their freezer when funds were short for them.  

Aunt Gladys overlooked the failure of my brother's fleshly nature to ensure he was prepared to meet the Lord.  

The other Christian woman overlooked her failure of the flesh to judge his.  No mention of the contents of his heart.

His flesh failed; his physical heart failed, but his spiritual heart did not.     

He did a very kind thing for someone who would later revile him.

Like Jesus.

Matthew 7:16 says, "You will know them by their fruit."

Aunt Gladys said, "It's what's in your heart."

My brother was reassured and comforted by her words.  He knew what was in his heart.   

There are those who refuse to see what is in theirs and don't think their fruit is rotten.

On this first birthday of Aunt Gladys' in heaven, I think of her, I love her for loving the unlovely like Jesus would.  

She lived clearly and consistently and without hypocrisy according to what was in her heart--a love like Jesus'.

And my brother--he was originally scheduled to have heart surgery on July 31st, our late mother's birthday.  He requested a change in date in case he died because he did not want his siblings to have that painful association should the worst happen.

Alcoholic cardiomyopathy was the ultimate end of his physical heart, but the kindness and consideration of his spiritual heart did not fail.  

When people regard themselves more highly than the least of God's people, they fail.  Miserably.  And saddest of all, most of them are too filled with pride to see their failing, let alone acknowledge it.  

Gluttony is superior to alcoholism? 

Gossip is superior to alcoholism? 

Such is the nature of deception.  

Haughty arrogance caused the enemy of our souls to be excommunicated from heaven.  What else, but deception, could cause one to think that will not be their fate when they will not consider what is really in their heart.         

     

Then and Now

(written on September 30, 2014)

On the anniversary of the eve of my first son's birth, I recall a startling truth I chose not to absorb at that time:  Two women, one of them my mother, the other an older co-worker from the bank where I was previously employed, stood at the foot of my bed on the maternity floor, looked at each other and solemnly spoke of how quickly children grow up.  I see them clearly, but 27 years gone by have made the one who spoke and the one who agreed interchangeable in my memory.  Their message is ever present at this phase of my life--they uttered the truest thing ever spoken about children.  

Earlier today I was puttering on the front porch and in the front yard, washing bird feeders and watering plants, and though it's been close to six years since I have had any heavy responsibilities for a person other than myself, another truth still startles me:  I. can. take. my. time.  There wasn't a reason in this world to rush because it would be hours before the next thing was expected of me, cooking dinner, and even that is not an expectation--if I asked my husband to pick up dinner, he would gladly.  

 My older son married a good cook and he often proudly tells us what's for dinner at their townhouse in Denver, Colorado.  In an unusual turnabout in sibling adventures, it was my younger son who led the way, first answering the call to go west, young man.  Shortly after he moved away, someone not known for thinking before speaking said, "He may never come back,"  then laughed heartily.  It hurt.  Thoughts ran through my mind like 'what a bitch,' and 'how mean' then the realization of what goes around, comes around reminded me it already had.  The speaker has yet to be assured of the competent and complete independence of her long grown adult children.

My sons, as of tomorrow and the 29th of November, will be 27 and 24.  Those ages jump out at me as I was 24 and 27 when I gave birth to them.  In a whirlwind, they were grown and gone to seek their fortune, and I found myself in a phase of life which feels remarkably similar to how I felt after high school graduation--not knowing what is ahead, realizing the potential for adventure is immense, only now there is that urgency of fewer potential years ahead contrasted with then.  

Confusing things is the fact there is nothing urgently needing to be done at the moment.  Anxiousness about that in our human doing, as opposed to human being, culture is tempting, but I plod along, learning to yield to the sacrament of the present God-given moment, and the Lord has seen fit to give me a long season of rest after a two decade season of the exhausting sandwich generation, heavy responsibilities for generations before and after, 

There is still that jet lag of the mind to contend with, and acclimating myself to the present reality is a journey very unlike the long, straight roads of my roots, the coastal plains of Georgia, and more like the scary hairpin turns of an ascending road of a Rocky mountain my elder son drove up in August, entirely too fast for my comfort!  I was a mere 45 when I was no longer responsible for a minor child and six years later at 51, the evolution to adult friendship and adviser-as-needed-never-unasked-for is still, well, evolving.  

Here, to this point, I have meandered.  I am blown away with pride and joy these boys are in fact men who have stepped up to the plate of life, grabbed every opportunity they could, and set out on an adventure when all too many play it safe, biding time in uneventful existences.  As much as I enjoyed the time they were safely under my wings in my nest, I am delighted to see how well they have flown, in fact, so far, knock wood, neither have boomeranged to the nest from which they launched, a good thing as their bedrooms have been converted to an office/craft room and a library/guest bedroom.  I vowed I would never sit among Legos and K'nex and cry for what was.  I've cried all right, but not in a shrine to what will never again be.

Still, I am fiercely protective of what, for 18 years apiece, I thought was mine, and when someone was trying to give an opinion on the career of one of my sons, I heard myself say, "Back off!"  I felt (and feel) a little bad about the abrupt delivery, but I backpedal not one inch on my sentiment:  The boy is a man, an autonomous being who does not need the insult of a helicopter parent.  He can make his own decisions, and whether they are the absolute best or not, they are a) his to make and b) thrive on or c) learn from.  

That was a moment of opening my mouth and my mother coming out.  I haven't yet met another soul who valued independence as much as she, and she lived without hypocrisy the virtue of not meddling in my life as an adult.  My opinion seems not to be blurred or skewed as my husband affirms gratefully what I have said.  She likely knew she trained me all too well and I would have told her to step back over a line had she crossed one anyway.

It is my turn to give this grace and freedom to my sons.  It is not a one-time and-done gift; it has taken the rehearsal of the half-decade plus of not being a parent of a minor to keep on giving.  I speak as if I had a choice.  I would not and did not try to discourage my sons from following dreams that led them over 1,600 miles from their childhood home.  I am humbled when I think of two dear friends whose children are entering the Army and Navy respectively.  Talk about relinquishment.  Relinquishment implies ownership, though, and that is never the case with our children; we are stewards and only for a few brief years.  

In any case, as I type out words to cement in my mind what is real and now, I think of the labor I went through to bring my first child into the world and I thank God that I don't have to do that again tomorrow!  As it hurt when each of my sons launched from my womb to my arms, it hurt when they launched from their childhood home into the world, but in both instances, the joy of watching their development brings an unending source of pride in their accomplishments, and now I in mine.  There are two handsome, hard-working, adventurous young men in this world I am privileged to hear call me 'Mom'--without all the responsibilities that title once entailed.             

At Home In My Heart

It was my intention this afternoon to sit down and begin reading a series written twenty years ago when I was too busy to read hardly anything beyond the scriptures from which I drew strength, needed strength.

Laugh if you will at AHIM, At Home in Mitford, but with the publication of the twentieth anniversary edition at a time in my life where I have more of that than anything else in the world, I was finally going to reside for a season in a sweet little town.  

A couple of memories I would have preferred to remain unjogged came tumbling out as I read the first few pages.  

At AHIM's first printing, I and my children were out of our element, parent helper and students at a parochial school.  As far as the Catholic church views children, no one is to be turned away, an admirable Christian stance, but for some parents, it was a non-public school haven in which to turn their noses up at those thought beneath them.  

The Mitford series was recommended to me by one such woman.  She often put forth an image of herself as squeaky clean and wholesome, and if one has to sell their own self in that manner, questions should arise, but I took her at face value though her accompanying snottiness wasn't as veiled as she deluded herself.  

She waited for her kids in a pick-up line with, on any given day, the cars of the affluent, a Mercedes, a Jaguar, a Range Rover, a convertible the driver might have looked good in twenty years prior, and my old Buick, the one which created a smoke cloud when cranked and once had to be pushed out of the way in the direction of the convent.  One of my sons steered while my push yielded not an inch, then an airman from Moody Air Force Base helped me out of my humiliating circumstance.

Maybe I wasn't, but my kids were every bit as good as theirs.  It wasn't about me then.  I brought two beautiful and precociously intelligent little boys into this world, and I intended they'd have the best I could humanly attain for them.  

Uniforms or no uniforms, it wasn't long before it was established who was who, who lived where, and whose father did what.  My kids' father drove them to school in an old beat up truck we called BOB, bucket of bolts.  From the other side of the county where all the right people in the right neighborhoods lived, from the back of a field where chickens were once raised, two uniform clad little guys were brought to town, dropped among the children of the town's elite, and because they didn't know any better, they had the gall to outshine almost all of them academically.

I don't even remember how I came to be president of the Home and School Association, I do know I didn't volunteer for it, but as such, I was to help host a Christmas party for the teachers.  The AHIM recommending mom held the affair at her home, her kitchen and living area easily the size of my entire home.  Perhaps she feared a social humiliation along the lines of the Buick in the pick-up line, so she pulled me aside and told me she had plenty of silver and crystal trays on which to put whatever snack food I would bring.  

The.  Memory.  Still.  Stings.  

Condescension brings out the best in me.  As a child, I had so much going against me, and I'm so over it all I'll not recollect it here, but I'd wager almost all I have, except my dignity, that this woman's mother hadn't taken the time to teach her Latin prefixes and suffixes in order to better decipher the English language.  She sure as hell didn't have a mother who rattled off the letters of her nursing title to a doctor who used his alphabet to try to play the preferential treatment card in the emergency room, a mother who held a kindly farmer she knew in the same esteem as the administrator of the nursing homes where she spent the most years of her nursing career.    

My mother and I weren't remotely the best of friends, but one thing she modeled to me was to hold my head high in every circumstance, especially ones where someone tried to belittle me.  

With my head held high, and clothed entirely unlike everyone else wearing black to a Christmas party, I walked in with a crock pot full of Swedish meatballs and a vintage pink LuRay platter loaded with sausage balls made with Bisquick.  You should have seen how quickly those dishes were emptied, not by a mortified hostess to proper presentation, but by doctors and lawyers whose taste buds cared not whether the goodies originally rested on silver, crystal or cheap dinnerware from the 1940s.

At my humble home, I had pretty dishes on which I could have made a fancier presentation.  I didn't and don't have great wealth as the world regards it, but I had and have a love of beautiful dishes.  Those remained at home on the shelves where they are both displayed and taken down and used.  I was in the most liberated position of having not married a man on whose titled coattails I'd try to ride socially.  If I was cast into the role of idiot bumpkin, I'd play it well.  

The look on her face when I walked in was worth it.  The doctors and lawyers, like my man, were more interested in the contents of the platter and crock than the platter and crock themselves.  

I'll say it again, it was worth it.

Recently I stumbled across an essay by Jose Micard Teixeira entitled "I No Longer."  This passage spoke to me:   "I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance."

I'd been living it for decades, but someone put it into better words for me.  I'd long known I was just as good as and not one bit better than, but his artfully sequenced words resonated in a heart that bears a scar or two from trampling attempts of those who do not understand their worth or mine.  

I wish I could say that was the last time I'd encountered such condescension: it was not; it is not.  And that's OK.  Sometimes it seems my assignment on earth is to try to maintain my dignity while others' much sadder assignment is to try to take it away from me.  

To them I say without words again and again, 'You can't do it.'      

I won't lie, it may sting, but with my LuRay platter, my old crock pot, and my mother's genuinely confident example, I am well equipped to endure such insults.  I would like to say I'm completely impervious, but the sting does come from the heartbreak that one human would attempt such a thing on another.

Or as Mom used to say, "You can't see for lookin'."  
         
   

Manipulation, Confrontation, Deflection and Freedom

ma·nip·u·late

  [muh-nip-yuh-leyt]  Show IPA

verb (used with object), ma·nip·u·lat·ed, ma·nip·u·lat·ing.

1.

to manage or influence skillfully, especially in an unfair manner: to manipulate people's feelings.

2.

to handle, manage, or use, especially with skill, in some process of treatment or performance: tomanipulate a large tractor.

3.

to adapt or change (accounts, figures, etc.) to suit one's purpose or advantage.

con·front

  [kuhn-fruhnt]  Show IPA

verb (used with object)

1.

to face in hostility or defiance; oppose: The feuding factions confronted one another.

2.

to present for acknowledgment, contradiction, etc.; set face to face: They confronted him withevidence of his crime.

3.

to stand or come in front of; stand or meet facing: The two long-separated brothers confronted eachother speechlessly.

4.

to be in one's way: the numerous obstacles that still confronted him.

5.

to bring together for examination or comparison.

deflect  (dɪˈflɛkt)
— vb
	to turn or cause to turn aside from a course; swerve

free·dom

  [free-duhm]  Show IPA

noun

1.

the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint: He won hisfreedom after a retrial.

2.

exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.

3.

the power to determine action without restraint.

4.

political or national independence.

5.

personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery: a slave who bought his freedom.

Over seven months ago, I confronted someone about manipulation, specifically gossiping in a manner which resulted in alienation of affection of several relationships which were important to me.  I gave detailed instances--time, place, and persons involved.  

At first, there was denial.  I was told that was my perspective, with the blatant implication it was skewed.  Then there was an apology.  Apologies are weak and lame without behavioral changes to back them up.  When the rubber met the road--I wanted this person and myself to meet with another party tainted in careless talking--the one who apologized suddenly vanished from the negotiation table.  Complete, utter, silent disappearance from communication.

Cue Cyndi Lauper, I saw true colors.  

Before the incriminating disappearance, an attempt was made to take the position of upper hand:  I was accused of being angry.  The offender was not angry, I was angered, thus I was in sin.  It was a manipulative deflection from a self-awarded position of righteousness. 
     

Of course I was angry.  Relationship after relationship was being meddled with.      

Bishop T.D. Jakes, of whom I have the utmost respect, wrote:

• Forgiveness is not overlooking, ignoring, or denying a hurt or an offense, and it does not require your anger to disappear.

People, anger serves the purpose of letting you and others know you have been violated.  It is a legitimate emotion.  When handled improperly, it leads to trouble, but feeling it in response to a violation--don't let anyone condemn you for a marker the Lord gave to sit up and realize something is very wrong.  A manipulator will absolutely try to take that power from you, anything to shut you up and take the heat off them.   

More from Bishop Jakes:

• Forgiveness is not excusing damaging or wrong behavior.
• Forgiveness does not rob you of personal power or exonerate the person who hurt you.

             The person I confronted spoke of tears and how hurt they were--that they'd been confronted!  If anyone in your life doles out relational abuse, deems themselves not responsible, then judges you for a legitimate reaction to their behavior, there's a serious, diabolical problem.  You have every right to separate yourself from this person until the behavior has been rectified.     

• Forgiveness does not trivialize your trauma or lessen the pain you have experienced.
• Forgiveness is not forgetting the hurtful or harmful things people have done or pretending those things never happened.
• Forgiveness does not mean you should restore trust in someone who hurt you or that you should have an ongoing relationship with that person.

This is where well-meaning Christians miss the mark, pushing people back to accepting relationship from abusers without requiring the abuser to show, take or have any responsibility for reforming their behavior.  It is ridiculous when one thinks about it in light of relationship with Christ.  After professing belief in Jesus and His main mission on earth, dying in atonement for our sins, there is the necessary acknowledgement of one's personal sin and repenting of it.

When someone places their behavior, their very being, above this, there is a name for them, a manipulator.  See highlighted portions above.  There are vast differences between forgiveness, restoration and reconciliation. Forgiveness is always in order for the Christian.  Always.  Restoration and reconciliation are dependent upon the actions of the other party.

    

So do you forgive a manipulator?  Of course.  Unequivocally yes.  To forgive means to release them into God's competent Hands, to not seek revenge, to allow God to deal with the person in His timing and in the manner He chooses, acknowledging that vengeance is His, He is just, and He knows the hearts of all men.  

Since we do not know the hearts of all men, we use wisdom to search for what the Bible calls fruit.  Essentially, what are the results of their life?    

If there is no demonstration of remorse or attempts to mend damage, nothing to evidence the person is sorry for the behavior or intends to do better, it'd be, well I hate to say stupid, but stupid it would be to re-invest yourself in someone who will surely continue to disrupt your life given the chance.  Apologies spoken to hastily end conversation, to restore one to the position of power to abuse, ring hollow.  That is also manipulation.  Listen for the echo--no change of behavior.  

Do you have to re-enter relationship with a manipulator?  No.

Must you forgive?  Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.  

Why?  

Also from Bishop Jakes, forgiveness...

• liberates you from your past and sets you free to embrace your future
• unburdens you soul of agonies that could infect every area of your life for the rest of your life
• relieves that emotional ache you cannot seem to escape, the one that holds you back when you try to move forward and weighs you down when you try to rise up
• takes a realistic assessment of the damage done to your soul, accepts that, and takes deliberate steps toward healing
• will release you to a new level of purpose, vision, creativity, vitality, intimacy with others, and success in every area of your life
• is essential if you are going to grow into the fullness of the person God created you to be--and it is indispensable to fulfilling your destiny
• is one of the best gifts you can ever give yourself

And even more wisdom from Bishop Jakes:  "Most of the time, people who will disregard and devalue you to the point of committing a serious wrong against you or hurting you deeply do not care enough about you to apologize."  

  

Trust is to be given wisely, cautiously, and when broken, the onus is upon the offending party to earn it back.  Words alone don't cut it, though a declaration of intention is good if it is followed through with action to back it.  The Bible commands us to forgive, to release the offender and the offenses to God.  There are no passages commanding trust in man. Forgive, yes.  Love, yes.  And in cases of continuing abuse, that can be adequately done from a healthy distance called a boundary.

Pray a prayer of release for yourself and for the offender.  Say their name, releasing them and their deeds to the Lord.  Say it as many times as is necessary.  Bless your enemy.  Pray for their needs to be met, for the Lord to forgive them, for they surely don't realize the magnitude of what they've done.  Praying for someone softens your heart toward them so that bitterness does not flourish there.  If it has, repent of that, ask the Lord to cleanse you of it, and believe that He will do it.  Don't accept condemning thoughts from the father of lies, satan, and don't accept condemnation from a person who will not change abusive behavior toward you.
  

Walk in the light and love of the Lord.  Walk freely!  You were never meant to be imprisoned by another's actions on this earth, and refusing to forgive holds you prisoner in your own heart. Free the offender!  Free yourself!

Do realize that where there is not reconciliation, others may deem you to be unforgiving.  Let them have their thoughts.  You do not have to defend your right to free yourself from emotional, spiritual, physical or any other kind of abuse.  This is between you, God, and a person who may or may not wish to be in relationship with you.  

Trust that the Lord will show you when/if the time is right for restoration and reconciliation.   

Then keep walking.