Christianity Oasis Forum

[sandrad05]

k I know yall must be getting tried of me by now.
but I decided to continue my counsel course. Because I think in the long run there will be reward for the effort. If I come to a place again like this last one I will not beat my self up but will give my self a breather and then return and re-read what I have already studied and go to next step.

As I read step four first time is when i got really upset and I thought it was because of all the other things I was going though and that I could not deal with "me" right now.
As i read it again today there are two things that I saw and would like to share. But be warned, I still do not know how to give cliff notes, or digest version. So I think it is going to be a long letter. Hope that is ok?

When I did step 3 I saw how what i was receiving so lined up with what is in step 4. Even the story I told of the child and the stove. I do not know what that means but i did notice it. And I also realized i could not think on Grace without thinking on Forgiveness. which is step 4.
Like I said I do not know what that means but I noticed I had already touched on step 4 in step 3.

So as I was steading today their are two people that surfaced in my mind.
My sister who has gone to heaven and my mama who soon will join her.
These two people as far as my immediate family goes have always been the most important people in my life. Yet, they are the two that i have hurt the most in my life.

The mind as away of allowing us to hide things deep inside things we don't want to see and deal with. It is a way of self preservation. Protecting our selfs. It is hard to believe as much as i love them I could hurt them with the intensity that I loved them with. and that is a lot of high power intense.

As for my sister she had always been the glue to our family. She was beloved by each and everyone of us. We needed her because she stooth hurts and agreements. She loved even when hurt. She took us in and shelter us after she had gotten married. We all looked to sissy to take care of us. And that included my mama and daddy. Sissy was the loving one. I was the angry one. My brother was the loud one who raised his fists to take care of all his emotions. But, with sissy we all feel a tenderness toward her. We did not strike out at sissy ever.

When my daddy shot himself everything changed, She changed.
As I have already written in my testimony the only thing that me and my daddy had was The Bible and God. I led him, it was the only thing he intrusted to me with him. So it meant more than anyone could know that we had had that between us. That was it. Sissy had had a life time of daddy's love. He adored her. I only had my faith to give him. I treasured it and held it close to me.
During the three days that daddy was layed out the pastor asked us about daddy and our thoughts and relationship with him. Sissy stole that one thing my daddy and I shared. She told the pastor with me standing there she was the one who lead him to Jesus. And sat with him and spent time learning the word together. She had had everything I had never had with my daddy and it struck a wound deep, deep inside. I tried to appease my outrage by telling my self it did not matter daddy knew and I knew. That is all that matter.
It changed how I looked at sissy from that day forth. It did not change our to- gather-ness but it changed what was happening in my heart. Bitterness and resentment grew by leaps and bounds.
I was taught that no matter what we are family you never leave your family to protect, and fight beside them. When one is in trouble we all are in trouble. We unite and stand as one.

But the day we buried my dad my sister and her family left with my brothers family to go to Austin where he lived. I was left behind to deal with my own self alone. My brother told me my kids would up set my mama and my sister handed me 50.00 and told me to go to my friends here in Henderson. at the time I lived in Bridge City and it was about a 4 maybe 5 hour drive from there. I could not drive in the conduction I was in and why should I go there my friend did not show up to support me as i buried my daddy. I was without any one to support me during that time. Not even a friend.
this struck so deep everything I had been told all my life was a lie about family. My family left me behind, alone. And since then I have never felt any thing else but that. Alone.

I think that was the first glimpse of anger i felt toward my sister.
The second was she collapsed into a darkness she went away, her physical body was with us. But not sissy she lived in a world of pills given to her by doctors.
She could not fight, she just laid there so weak and lost. I could not reach her. Months passed and she just took more and more pills. Her family was falling apart and she could not even see it. Until it was too late.
Once i asked for her daughter to spend the night with me I was having a really bad night. I just needed company. She went home and asked her mother my sister if she could spend the night and sissy told her to tell me I was just going to have to learn to deal with it. That if she said yes now that I would except Candice to stay every night. Anothe blow it intensified the already bitter and resentment that built up in me. It consumed me.
I felt bitterness toward my whole living family and that encludes my mama.

Though I did not with draw physically from my family. In every other way I did. when my sister's husband left her she started leaning on me for support I gave it with my whole heart, but my mind would remind me of the wounds she had inflicted on me. It was like two people that lived in me. The one who was bitter and resentful on the inside and the one who could not stop caring and loving my sister. I would see the hurt and fear and lost-ness in her eyes and I could not refuse to reach out to her.
but when i got home, my mind would chew me up with the bitterness and resentment. why could i not be happy that she got alittle tatse of her own medice? She deserved it, she did not deserve comfort when she throw me away so easily. again i feel the need to say how much i loved my sister. And how very angry I have been with my self how guilty I feel inside.
I know as much as I could not openly show my hostility toward her she felt it at times. She knew how I felt about her. but like my mama they pretend not to know that way you do not have to deal with it.

As I was going through the course it gave the meaning of forgiveness
forgive: prefix "for" means before and the word "give" means commit. so to forgive is to think of things as they were before the offense was committed.

How do I tell you what my sister had meant to me? We were suppose to grow old together in a bond that only sisters could have. She was and is
the one who taught me sisterly love and all that that means.

The unforgiveness that i have carried for my self is that I had held so much bitterness and resentment toward I lost the "before" until she was killed. And it was like I could not remember why I felt such bitter and cold resentment toward her. It seen so senseless and not worth one second i spend feeling that way. She will never know I did not mean it! If only we had had more time, i know that we would have gotten through it. Because we loved each other.

I will never have the chance to take it back, she is dead. She will never hear the words I so desperately need to tell her ever in this life. She is gone.

And because of this fact I have hated my self, beat my self up. and have felt I deserve every bad thing that happens to me. i do not deserve happiness, love, peace and most of all forgiveness. because I will never receive it from my sister. I should have been the one to die. Not my sister. If you only knew who she was in our family you would understand that.

After her death I saw the "before" too late.

But, today I except that God in his great wisdom knew what he was doing. He must have felt I needed to stay around awhile? Until now i would have said he has made a horrible mistake maybe it is his first but all the same a horrible mistake.

Though I will not hear my sister words of forgiveness there is something that I know about her. If she was here to hear me she would not hesitate to forgive me. She was the most forgiving person I have ever known. She would have hugged me and told me she never stopped loving me. And as i tell you of my sister I can feel the release and forgiveness from her. I know that she would roll over in her grave if she thought for one moment that she had caused such torment in me.
And because i know my sister I think with time and as this sinks in that i will be able to forgive my self.

I was going to tell you about my mama, but I think one person at a time is good. As for my mama, we have had the time to talk things out. I know she holds nothing against me and I know i hold nothing against her. It is just the memories of our troubled times as mother and daughter.
I thank God that he has given me time with my mama to close and heal old wounds. that when she passes i will not have this over whelming guilty to tend with.

As i was writing this there were some recent things that flew through my mind. That makes me think God is healing my family.

The last time my brother was down here before we went to Austin, we along with his wife sat in my room talking about mama and trying to make plans about things. He got teary eyed and looked at me and said:

"YOU ARE MY HERO" if you only knew what that meant to me. My brother and I have had a strained relationship for years. More than 20. We have not been able to be in the same room for more than minutes before we attacked each other with hurtful words and so on. I felt a long time ago he did not love me. Nor did he want any thing to do with me. which is true in many ways. I had a void where he was suppose to be.
So when he said that he gave me a hug that said everything that was never said between us. I thought that when my mama died i would never see my brother again because it was only her that kept us together.
We have had many talks since then. We expressed so much and a healing has begun between us. i understand him and he understands me and we have forgiven each other. there is still an uneasiness between us but that is from years of anger on both sides.

I have not focus on this because my mind has not had a moment to reflect on my brother and my self. But now I can see this is all part of God's plan.

This morning my sister in law called me she found my oldest brother that we did not know was our brother until we were grown. He was raised by my grandmama and we thought he was her son. Which he was she and my granddaddy had adopted him at 9 years old. We thought he was our uncle or cousin which no one ever told which he was?

He knew who we were all those years as a little boy when mama brougth us over to grandmama's for christmas or any other time when it was time to go she would gather me, by sister, and by youngest brother into the car and michael would stand on the porch waving good bye to us. he once told me in the few times we have seen each other. He could not understand why he could not go with us? Why mama left him behind? He carries so much hurt. He stayed away from us even after we found out. He is a loner most likely because of the mistrust he has suffer in our family. My mother and sister use to get so up set because he would say he was coming to see us and then not come. I understood kind of how he must feel and the scars he must carry that I never felt angry at him. I hurt for him. And wished he could trust us enough to try. But he never did. Until now. We are going to have a family reunion for my mama on mothers day. He , his daughter and his ex-wife are coming. my brother does not remember Michael as a baby and they have never met in person to talk about things. This will be a first. And I pray healing will follow my family.

I want to add one more thing. If you have something against your loved ones let it go before it is to late. When they are gone then you will remember the "before" and then it is too late. So do it now.

[mlg]

sandra, we never get tired of you. We love you.

Sis as I read what you shared...I saw so much blame you held towards yourself for the actions of your sister and family...but sis...blaming yourself is what the enemy has wanted you to do for so long...so that you wouldn't realize that God's grace was sufficient...but now you see...God's grace covers all sins and all of the past...it is a release of the chains that have bound you for so long...and it offers a new way...a new direction...one that brings healing and joy...the path you are now walking down.

I look forward to seeing you grow even more with the Lord. I know you are strong in your faith Sandra...and that is why the enemy tries to attack you so hard...trying to shake your faith...but you don't ever let him do that sis...you hang on tight to your Faith always.

luv ya

[Dora]

Sandra I love reading your posts. For some reason I always tear up. They touch me that deeply.

You said.....
She will never know I did not mean it!

Yes she does. She loves you and has completely forgiven you. The only things that is in the way now is you have not let go.

He died that you might have life abundant. Holding yourself in bondage is not abundance.

His grace is sufficient.

Love you, much!

[momof3]

Hi Sandra,

Sis, your post today reminded me so much of my family..and what the Lord has done in it.

My sister died of a drug overdose of prescribed pills. I knew she was abusing them and even went so far as to tell her dr...who would not listen to me. We argued over it, I made her leave my home, cuz i didnt want the kids to see it, and in the end, when she was found dead, i was angry..and guilty..for the anger i'd held toward her for not listening, dying, and leaving her children motherless. and....as you felt...never, ever being able to say, i love you, sis...forgive me.

Sandra...your sister is sooo at peace now. She wouldnt want for you to carry one ounce of guilt. There is no pain, no hate, no unforgiveness within her now. She knows that peace that we will know one day...and her eyes are open completely now, whereas, we only see in part. There is no resentment where she is. She only knows love and peace now....and with Jesus, her love for you is complete. Human emotions....the hurt and pain and any resentment...are gone from her. Let this go, now. Take hold of the grace from the Lord and forgive yourself. She already has...and so has He.

Take this time now..that you have with your mom..and your family..and let go of any resentment..any anger that would keep you from having a loving relationship..forgiving relationship...the Lord is the God of reconciliation and love...Lean on Him and let Him work in your family....He knows how to reach their hearts. Let Him work in you so that when they (and you) are human and make a mistake and hurt one another, that you will be able to extend the same grace and love to them that you have been given. Its easily said...hard to do...but NOTHING is impossible with the Lord..and with Christ's love in you (the part of you who loved and cared for your sister even when you were angry with her)..you can do all things through His strength.

God bless you sis. Your post today really struck home with me today.

His perfect will be done in your life sis..and in those of your family members, too.

in Jesus,
love momo