I’m not a good practical joke kind of gal. I guess it’s because I don’t appreciate feeling like a fool. Then again, who does?
Do you remember the game 52 card pick-up? If not, let me explain. Someone walks up to you with a deck of cards and asks if you want to play of game of 52 card pick up? You say, sure. Next thing you know 52 cards are pretty much flung at you and land all around you. The person who dealt that hand to you, laughs and laughs as you try to karate chop cards away from your face.
You know what happens next? You get to pick up the cards laying all over the place. Good times.
I can’t help but think of this “game” called life and how things get flung our way and how we pick up things that were never meant for us.
For those of us who have a tender heart. we pick up way too many things. We pick up the hurt, the hate, the love, the pain, the anger, the offense, the approval, disapproval, grief, shame, angst, and the list goes on and on.
Lately I’ve been beating myself up with the Bible over the commandment to honor thy mother and father. My father passed on years ago. But he left a highway of pain for those of us still here to travel on. That journey leads from hell to healing.
Unfortunately, my younger brother couldn’t seem to let go of the demons he picked up along his road from child to adulthood. His life ended in 2019. He could never truly drink his pain away. Not for his trying. The irony of that is, the drinking inevitably did take the pain away.
My older brother, well, as far as I know, he just tucks things away like they don’t exist. It’s the leave the cards where they landed and just walk away method. But, we all know that if you don’t deal with the pain and grieve the past, it will inevitably deal with you.
Me, I talk about it. I write about it. I need to get it out of where it doesn’t belong. But, there’s one area in my life that right now I can’t handle hearing. It’s because I’m still healing.
My mom went through a lot living with my dad. I know, because what I don’t remember, she wants to tell me about so I can see how awful everyone else was to her. As if she didn’t have a part in all the dysfunction. She wants to let me know how bad she had it. How she had no choice in the things that happened to her. She loves to deal the blame game.
My mom is smart as a whip. She knows how to cut you with the words that easily come off her tongue. It’s her protection against what comes against her. You can be having a perfectly civil conversation with her and if you say one thing in a manner she doesn’t’ like, you’re immediately reminded of what a jerk you are.
Next thing you know you’re playing the conversation over and over in your head trying to figure out what just happened. Ugh!!
I’ve always felt so bad for her and what she went through. She wants the sympathy. She thrives on being the victim. Which is really sad.
I wish she could see how strong she is. I wish she could know how smart she is. I wish she could accept that even though life wasn’t what she expected, God gave and continues to give her the strength to get through it. But, that’s not what she wants to hear. I know, I’ve tried.
Maybe she needs to hear it from someone who isn’t close to her. Lord knows I can’t listen to her tell me one more time how bad she had it and how everyone else is to blame. Instead, I tell her I have to get off the phone. I don’t want to say anything that would cause any more irreparable damage.
To honor my mother right now is to daily forgive her and who I thought she could be or who I wanted her to be. Mostly, I just want her to know the love her Heavenly Father has for her. The forgiveness He wants to pour out on her. The mercy and the grace He abundantly shows me daily.
It also means, we go weeks, sometimes months, there’s even been a year or so where we haven’t spoken. If you have or had the type of relationship with your mom that was good, please don’t ever tell someone from a severe dysfunctional home that they only get one mom and some day you’ll be sad when you can’t talk to her. Or, how you wish you could still talk to your mom. It further places guilt on an already shame filled brain that’s trying to heal.
Not only that, you make it known the topic is not a safe place to honestly converse about.
It’s not to say my mom and I don’t have good conversations. We do. But they’re few and far between the calls that bring up the pain. The ill effects she pours out over those in her path can be brutal. It’s what she knows to do and how she keeps others from inflicting more pain upon her. It’s a coping mechanism.
Unfortunately, the walls she put up to keep the pain from coming in, have also caused the love from getting past the barbed wire entry as well.
So, I pray. I pray for my mom to see herself as the Lord sees her. As His beloved child. The one He sacrificed His life for and the one He beckons to in ways that can reach behind the wall, humans can’t touch.
What I can no longer do, is pick up her pain and all that goes along with it and walk with it as if it were my own. Her path with the Lord, is not my path. Anytime I try to walk her pain out, I defeat my healing. It’s no different than trying to quit a bad habit for someone instead of for yourself.
Lord have mercy!
Healing happens when we release the pain. When we open our tightly fisted hands over clutching on to that which is meant for our harm. No one can do it for you. The necessary steps belong to the person walking the path. Supporting and loving her sometimes is best at a distance. For the both of us.
So before you pick up something that doesn’t belong to you, please, count the cost. You’re very life depends on it. Carrying each others burdens is not the same as living them for the person. Each person has their own path to walk with the Lord.
It’s why in Psalm 55:22 we’re reminded who we are to go to for help:
“Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you;…”
and
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”“
Matthew 11:28-30 (ESV)
Jesus loves you better and more thoroughly than any human can. He proved it by dying on the cross for you. The best thing you can ever pick up, is the Bible. It’s the only true game changer that will get you back on the path where you belong.
Blessed to be Broken 
This was a raw read. That you can write about family who is still alive is courageous. I see these posts as mini essays that will one day be part of your memoir. God bless you.
On Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 4:21 PM Blessed to be Broken wrote:
> Trish Cordell posted: ” I’m not a good practical joke kind of gal. I guess > it’s because I don’t appreciate feeling like a fool. Then again, who does? > Do you remember the game 52 card pick-up? If not, let me explain. Someone > walks up to you with a deck of cards and asks if yo” >