Going...Going...Gone

I am done. Writing my blog was the end result of that. My daughter says I did it for retaliation and to hurt her. I did not but she has always thought ill of me and accused me of things that were not in my heart. I’ve gone through my grief process and am on the other side. I’ve told my story of a mother who has gone through a close family member dropping their belief in God. I am stronger for it. My beliefs are the same. I believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I believe in heaven and hell. I believe in Judgment Day and the End of Time. I believe in evolution. I don’t believe the earth was made in 6 days as we understand days. My daughter could learn a lot from me about the Bible if she would have talked to me instead of assuming I believed the Bible the way she does. I may not be a perfect Christian…if I were Jesus would not have had to die for our sins. I’m not where I want to be but I’m sure not what I used to be either.

I am going on. I cannot please my daughter or son-in-law about my beliefs and they cannot please me about theirs. I accept their choices but acceptance does not mean agreement. Now, they must accept me for who I am, the way I am in the same manner that wish to be accepted. I tried to bring my daughter back but could not and my son-in-law too. I will never understand why, even if they no longer believe Jesus is the Son of God, why he is a bad example of a human being and why they would not want their children to know about the man named Jesus if not as the Son of God then just as a man who walked the earth and did good.

After reading my daughter’s story I understand that she was disappointed in God and disillusioned too. She was disillusioned with religion and the people who represented it. God did not do as she wanted in the time she wanted and in the way she wanted and neither did the people she put her faith in at her church. My son-in-law follows this too. Through her disappointment she chose not to share with anyone who might have been able to help her get through it with her faith dented, but intact.

My daughter and son-in-law want to be who they are now without any flack and I want the same. I want to be who I am without fear of my grandkids being taken away. I want the freedom given to my son-in-laws side of the family. My vocabulary has always been full of God and I am not going to change that just because my daughter and son-in-law have chosen another path. I did not change, they did and I will not hide my beliefs because they now deny what they once believed and we all shared as belief. If they choose not to allow me to watch my grandkids because they fear I will speak to them about my beliefs, then so be it. What I do in my home is my business. What I do in their home is their business. I will not have my freedom of speech taken away by them nor will I any longer be censored by them. I want to be comfortable being who I am and not who they want me to be. They are always welcome in my home and I hope I will be in theirs. I was told by them I could share my beliefs with my grandkids with the stipulation that I let them know that they are my beliefs and not all people believe the same but when I did that they became upset. They did not retain their word. The sad thing to me is that they accused me of sharing my beliefs on a day that I did not. Before all this we all talked about religion and the Bible and God but that has changed with them and I can go through my life without doing that; what I refuse to do is to deny who I am and always be on guard as to what I am saying and to who.

I offer them reconciliation. Reconciliation can be thought of as “burying the bones.” Reconciliation is not forgetting, it is choosing to leave the bones buried. Choosing not to go to the graveyard so to speak, and digging the bones up, examining them, turning them over and over and then reburying them. Reconciliation will not be successful if it occurs like that. In other words, reconciliation is burying the bones, not forgetting they are there but purposely choosing to leave them buried forever. I choose to do that. I love my daughter. I love my son-in-law. I hope they choose to reconcile too but if not, what will be, will be.