Ash Wednesday...

[Lil]

Not wanting to start a religious discussion, but I just cleaned out my purse and found the bulletin from our Ash Wednesday church service. I didn't ever post about it...but at the beginning there was a "Confession and Absolution" in unison and I swear, they must have picked this one just for me. I had been having a rough few days and actually couldn't get through it and sort of left the sanctuary as soon as I could to have a good cry in the ladies room. It was actually pretty embarrassing. I don't know if anyone noticed, I guess Jabber might.

So...I never keep the bulletins and finding this in my purse must mean I should share it.

Lord, I do not like pain. I do not even like to be uncomfortable. I do not like the sorrow of heartbreak, the pangs of regret and the ache of broken relationships; I do not like the honestly and humility that are needed to face this pain. Forgive me for the brokenness that lies at the center of my heart. Make me whole again.

Thereafter the pastor replied:
God knows your reality. he knows that you are not what you were created to be. He knows that you are broken. But he does not abandon you to brokenness and pain. Instead he has taken your brokenness and pain and made it his own. In the life, death, and resurrection of Christ you are forgiven, you are made whole. Amen.

I still don't know what I think of this...Just thought someone else might find it relevant.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Lil, there is a thread titled "Highchair Tyrants" that may echo and expand upon your feelings. The thread is an old one, begun by Child of Mine. In the thread, COM shared the writings of Richard Rohr, a Christian mystic. One of the things touched on in the thread by those of us posting to it was the suffering of the Mary.

How did she function through that.

Within days, Richard Rohr had a piece on...the suffering of the Mary. Richard Rohr (to me anyway) seemed to be talking about Radical Acceptance in the highest sense of the word. That thread was strengthening to me. Sometimes, there are no words. All we can do is learn how to do this one day, one minute sometimes, at a time.

When something really bad has happened to us, I stay home. If I go out too soon and someone says the wrong thing (and it can be almost anything) I have to struggle really hard to pull myself together.

But you know what, Lil?

I made it through, and so will you.

Part of it is respecting the pain. It is real. There is no hiding it and there is no need to hide it. Those who have lost a loved one, or those whose children are ill in other ways, have the full support of the community. There are armbands and church suppers in honor of the child, and there are so many ways we are given extra care and time because we are suffering something monstrous. You and I and the parents on this site don't have that kind of community support. Often, it is just the opposite for us and for our kids.

And to see our children ostracized is heartbreak of a whole different flavor.

But it is what it is, and somehow, some way, we need to find or create the strength to get ourselves and our kids through it.

Lil, you know a little about the things that brought me here. What you don't know is that my daughter is one of the kindest, most intelligent, truly sweet people I know. When she taught, I heard more about her students sometimes than I did about my own grands. She is a loving, wholehearted person, and I have loved her wholeheartedly through all of it and I would do it again, in a heartbeat.

She has problems, and those problems have ~ I don't know. Have brought us all to where we are today, I guess.

My son, when he is not drugging, is equally an extraordinary human being. Not just bright, but kind and so very human.

Would he have begun using had his sister not been so sick?

No one knows. It is what it is.

Your son is still there, Lil.

He still loves you. You are his mother. The words you say matter; say them whether you think he hears you or not.

Love him whether he hears you or not.

None of us knows how long any of us will be here. We need to be as sure as we know how to be that we are saying exactly what we mean.

He will remember your words in the hard times, and they may be the strength he needs to choose a different path.

Sometimes, we have to take it on faith.

We have to take it on faith that it is correct to believe we can do this right somehow.

"Faith is not, contrary to the usual ideas, something that turns out right or wrong, like a gambler's bet. It is an act, an intention, a project; something that makes you, in leaping into the future, go so far, far ahead that you shoot clean out of time and right into Eternity, which is not the end of time or unending Time, but timelessness, that old, Eternal Now."

Russ
?

Here are some other things I find helpful.

"I am reminded that this is his life, and I have no crystal ball to see his future."

Child of Mine
Parent Emeritus

***

"It is what it is. Part of my life, but not the defining force."

Fran
Former Owner
Conduct Disorders

***

"I am ashamed of these tears. And yet, at the extreme of my misfortune, I am ashamed not to shed them."

Euripedes

***

"Sybil remembered the crucifixions of her past, and by each of them, where she herself hung and screamed and writhed, she saw the golden halo and the hands of the Fool holding and easing her, and heard His voice, murmuring peace."

Charles Williams
The Greater Trumps

***

"Love is not a victory march. It's a cold and it's a broken halleluiah."

Leonard Cohen
Halleluiah

***

And finally....

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous amounts of energy merely to be normal."

Albert Camus

I always think of my daughter, when I read that quote by Camus.

Prayers going up for you, Lil.

There is nothing easy or right about any of this.

Cedar

 

[Lil]

Thank you Cedar. Like I said, I was having a bad few days before Ash Wednesday, so it had kind of ... hit me. Maybe that's why I stuck it in my purse when I normally toss them in the recycle bin as I leave the church.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Thank you for sharing that, and I do find it very relevant.