1 John 4:20 (NKJV)
If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
I find that I have lived a life of rejections for many reasons but mostly for loving when others could not understand.
I found myself always doing what my heart told me that was right, whether it be loving a man that was much older when others could not understand why...
or a brother whom most everyone thought was a monster.
I will admit I have always marched to a different drum and with this I have sometimes found life to be difficult.
I have always tried to be the good friend, daughter, sister, mother, grandmother but yet refused to stray from my core values.
I have taken the blunt for mistakes of myself, my siblings, children and spouse. I have been overwhelmed and scared at times leading to a quick temper in my earlier days.
I am sure I have been misunderstood many times.
However, most importantly, throughout my life I confess I have loved my family with every ounce of my being.
My younger brother and I share a special bond. We were raised together and experience the same life situations moving through many town as we grew up. We faced new peers, schools and place which lead us many times to realize that we could always count on each other.
Life did make us playout our seemly intended roles.
I was always the older sibling in the second set of siblings & was the protector and confident for my younger brother.
As he grew that job got harder and most of the time I found I was ill prepared to help him resolve his problems.
I finally found myself giving him the "tough love treatment" even when my heart was breaking for having to do it.
Many years passed and I still worried about my little brother. At times he did things that only I could understand. I always knew he did not have the strength of survival as I had acquired. He would often be mislead and became dependant on others to make his way through his life.
When our father died I understood he would be less able to cope & become devastated. He should have had my protection.
I have carried the feeling that I had failed him to this day.
However, for me at the time I was occupied with my life being "full on crazy" in my own situations.
I did not know anymore "how or if " I should keep enabling him.
I kept my distance and was overwhelmed with my own anger for his not listening to "my perceived sage advice" even when he would ask me for it.
I began to realized I could not live his life for him. He would have to learn to make his own choices and live with the consequences.
Little did I know, that he would make choices in a way I never imagined.
"On Oct 10, 2000, just 3 years after our father died and 18 years after we lost our mother. He in a confused daze and an accompanied by additional long locked away rage that motivated him to take another human's life. The life of a woman he confessed to adore but yet felt troubled by an imagined or maybe not... betrayal."
Many hated him for the monster they saw. I felt my heart explode with ache & hurt for him and those lives that he changed forever.
I tried to find sense and reason for his actions.
When all was said and done I knew that no matter his actions, he was still my brother and I loved him.
I also knew, this was not something I knew how to fix. All hurt & pain he caused would leave me with no way to erase or compensate for them. I determined that my only recourse was to just love him and others as I always had done and then let God sort out everything else.
There are days my mind does goes back to these worries, hurts & wounds. They seem to resurface from time to time to be dealt with once again.
My always "go to advice" for myself is to remember to love myself, my family, my friends and help others... or those that I can.
When the weight gets too heavy, I am to give it over to God and let him help me through it all.
God Bless You & Yours In Your Daily Life...
Nana
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