Digging Deeper
Romans 12:6-8, 1 Timothy 4:14
Choose the good.” Isaiah 7:15
As one I have been raised in a family where there were many secrets. I find myself going back to my childhood years trying to understand the things that made my life confusing, What happen that I live with so many fears today in my Adult years.
Trying to understand and make sense the things that made me so unhappy that made my childhood idealistic.
Although my family never had a whole lot of money and there were so many demands associated growing up in a Mennonite family. The first thought that came to my mind is trying to fight to survive. There were not a whole lot of traditions that my parents had made that I can remember. We did not get together on the holidays or ever I can recall celebrating any birthdays. My grandmother struggled to uphold had a lot to do raising a few grandchildren in her golden years.
Coming from a huge family there are fifteen children my parents conceived. Today there are five children left. I fall in place being the little sister, another who falls in being the fifteenth child which would be the baby. Nine children died before my baby sister and I was conceived. Grandma would faithfully take us along with church with her every Sunday. Poppa missed a few church services but Mom-ma faithfully attended church along with grandma and myself and the baby sibling. We were always there sitting in church. Growing up in a church surrounding, I feel missing church wasn’t an option. When I am not sick I make it my first priority to attend church services..I am always there sitting in church with my church family.
Sister Ada, find so many excuses not to attend so she don’t attend church as we did growing up. Time has changed. We’re growing older, more gray hairs and with health problems hitting us. Ada, now being in her late 50″s was just diagnose with breast cancer about two months ago..Poppa have done a lot of brain washing and lot of things he asked us to do, such as lie to mom-ma when he would drag my baby sister and I along with him to the horse races, if mom-ma should ask where poppa taken us, poppa told us to tell her a lie. Fact being only seven years old, we looked up to poppa and thought he had good reasons for us to lie to mom-ma. It wasn’t until I became an Adult I realize what he was asking us to do was wrong. Mom-ma had worked all week in a genuine effort to help to provide for her children. More Mom-ma made, the more poppa used the money to gamble away. With the violence we had witness in our home made our home life confusing, leaving with fear. The trauma that was impacted in my life through my childhood and teenage years followed me through my Adult years. I live with TBI (Traumatic Brain Injuries) the brain injury that was done to me..at the age of seven years old, I ended up laying in a coma for a month or two. The brain injury caused me to loose a good percentage of my memories. I have no problem remembering the bad but remembering people’s faces and good memories are the ones I have trouble remembering.
Do I have any hatred towards my earthly Father, No, He is my my father. However, I do not call him by the name “DAD”. I believe anybody can be a Father, but it does take a special man to call himself a “DAD”. A “Dad” he wasn’t to my baby sibling and I. Not the kind of Father that was supportive, or a good role model. His behavior was not one I would want to follow his path. Finally, I knew the only way I would survive in this world I had to raise myself and learn things the hard way. I had to face my fears alone. I remember the days grandma taken us along to church with her, remember attending Sunday school classes and learning so much. Gracious Heavenly Father, I pray, He would use me in ways I cannot anticipate, that I always be ready. I live with fears of being a failure in being a mother, a wife, a Christian, I live with racing thoughts due to the brain injuries. Accepted the fact as I grew older in my late fifties that my “Father” was a human being who lived with human dignity and also able to fall into the weakness of his flesh and make mistakes. It wasn’t until a few years before God called him home that he made changes in his life and asked God to forgive him of his sinful way of life. As a Christian we are to forgive but don’t have to forget. When he died, he left so many unanswered questions! God taken him to soon before we could have a father and daughter relationship.
Mom-ma outlived my poppa. Mom-ma was called home at the age of ninety eight years old on April 25, 2016 from Alzheimer’s. She died at the home of the oldest sibling. More secrets kept from the family and the outside world how Mom-ma was being cared for in her final days. Can’t worry for I left that in God’s hands. Even in the darkness hours of her life will not be dark to Mom-ma, for I believe the night will shine like the day light, for the darkness of her final days of life is as light to Mom-ma and even myself. Facing our fears even to our darkest hours we need to pray and ask God daily to face our life challenges and bless us with courage to face them not alone but believe He will give way to face the fear we live with not to face them because of the fear overpowering us to face life obstacles that stands in our way.