Back to Basics

My forest friends

I am struggling and have been for several weeks now. I am in one of those times where I have to get my bearings minute by minute. Sometimes I manage and sometimes I lose my way. I think I am coming to terms, yet again, that there are no quick fixes. That my life goes on regardless of how other people are living or feeling....whether they are happy or not, clean or not...my life goes on. For some reason that thought makes me mad right now. I have had a lifetime filled with other people's mental illnesses and addictions. I was conceived into this life. I am tired of watching and letting go and being powerless to help or change those I love. I don't want to wait for God's timing anymore. (Can you hear the tantrum building? lol)

I am grateful for the comments I received on my last post. Especially Dawn's from All That Heaven Will Allow. She commented about this reading and then posted about it in its entirety...well worth your time to go over and read it. I used to read Oswald Chambers all the time. Maybe its time to get my old daily reader out again. I loved this line in particularly:

We cannot stay forever on the “mount of transfiguration,” basking in the light of our mountaintop experience (see Mark 9:1-9). But we must obey the light we received there; we must put it into action. When God gives us a vision, we must transact business with Him at that point, no matter what the cost.

I think the ups and downs of this journey are taking their toll. I am a mother, just a human mother. No matter how much Alanon or education on all of this that I fill my head with, I still hope. I see solutions, common sense solutions, and I think, "if you would only try. If you would only give up any claim to doing it your own way... you might feel better. It might work."

Unfortunately, those are not my directions to give. I have tried so many times and it hasn't worked. To keep repeating that action would be insanity. Each of us must walk our own journey, filled with the ups and downs that we insert ourselves into. Our experiences help to create in us the person that God will someday use to accomplish His plan. We must walk through our own individual "valley of the shadow of death" to be able to appreciate the beautiful life we have been given. To learn compassion and patience and reliance on a power greater than our own self. To learn surrender.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:4

I can't walk the walk for my kids, my husband, or anyone else and they can't walk it for me. We each have to walk through our own valley and develop our own faith, our own spiritual muscles and strength to rely on. When I try to tell my girl the way to go, the most effective and efficient path to my understanding....I rob her of the opportunity to build her own spiritual relationships, her own faith based life, and her own strong muscles.

I struggle with doing this compassionately. I seem to need strong defined lines....this is good behavior. That is not. This is productive, that is not. I struggle with watching the process. I am impatient for change...and the reality is that the change I am looking for, may never happen. I have to open myself up to the idea that the outcome may not look like anything I have expected. Maybe it will be even more beautiful. Or maybe not. We just don't know.


A mom in my class whose daughter is schizophrenic shared these thoughts the other night:

"My daughter is a different person than the person I gave birth to. She is always changing, as am I. Our children are beautiful. We brought them into the world, we wanted them and we have loved them and raised them doing the best we have known how to. Our daughter is still our girl and we will take care of her for as long as she needs us to."


A very different disease than we are dealing with, but I thought it was such a beautiful picture of all of the above concepts. Patience, compassion, surrender. I thought of what a relief it would be to hear in your time of illness that "we will take care of you until you don't need us to." No time limits, no pressure to hurry and get better, no ultimatums...
I don't know that I am able to offer that...I don't know if it is even the right thing to offer in our situation, but I know that I can love for today. I can be patient for today. I can trust for today that God see's us.


I am struggling to find the balance. God show me my part.


Annette