Pain and Hate. . .two very strong emotions.

This past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity of going on a women's retreat to Caswell beach. It lasted from Friday night-Sunday after lunch. There were 24 of us and our sessions were from the Beth Moore study on "Loving Well". It was a great study. It talked about how we can love the four different kinds of people we encounter in our lives.

There's the people who bring us joy,(they're easy to love), the "testies"(they cause us to grit our teeth everytime we see them, but we act like things are ok), the "foes"(we hate them with a passion), and the "far", (they're people we don't know at all who God has cross our paths, ie; homeless, strangers who need help when they break down on the street, etc.

Our biggest discussions centered on our"foes". Not to brag in any way, but I can honestly say that I don't have any foes. Oh believe me, I've had foes in my past.

When I was growing up, my Mom was my foe. She hated me and I hated her. She wished me off the face of the earth and I wished her off the face of the earth. My Grandpa Miller died when I was 7 yrs. old and my grandparents lived right next door to us. My Grandma Miller's kids decided that Grandma shouldn't stay alone that first night, so I went over and climbed in her bed and slept with her. Then I stayed the next night, and the next night, well, you get the idea. At the end of the week, everyone decided that my Grandma and I needed to live together. We lived together off and on until I was 19. My Grandma became my mother in every essence of the word. I loved her and she loved me. We did everything together. We grew all of our own fruits, vegetables and meat. She did washings and ironings for families and by the age of 10, I was responsible for keeping the house clean, and taking care of all the animals outside. We raised chickens every year for the eggs and meat, rabbits, and ducks,( we used the duck eggs for noodles). I don't remember eating the ducks. I don't think we did. We had cats aplenty to keep the mouse population down, and we had 2 small inside/outside dogs. I even raised a baby sow one year but that's a whole another story. Needless to say, like most farmers, we worked hard, but I loved being with her and I loved helping her. It was a good life.

When I was 19 yrs. old I surrendered my whole life over to God. I told Him I belonged to Him for the rest of my life. I'd go anywhere, do anything, I'd even eat bugs in Africa if that was His plan. I stopped by the church on a weekend. Back then you didn't have to lock the church doors, they were always open for a stranger to come into the sanctuary and spend time with our Lord. I was sitting in the pew near the front and I heard someone walk in from the side door. He was wearing shorts and sneakers and you could tell he had been running. It turned out he was the youth minister of the church. He saw me come in since he lived in the parsonage right next door, and he sat in the pew ahead of me. He didn't say anything at first, he just let me cry. He offered me a Kleenex, and then we talked. I told him that the family had just decided to place my Grandma in a nursing home and for the first time in 12 years, my parents had asked me to move back home with them. I told him that I hated my mom and that she hated me.

He then opened his Bible to some scripture and started writing down passages for me to read. All of them had the word "brother" in them. He told me to take these verses and put the word, "mother" instead of brother in there and see what I found out. He'd come back the same time the following Saturday and see if I still needed to talk. I went home and poured over my Bible like never before. The next Saturday, I went to the church. He was waiting there for me on the same pew. This time he said, "I want you to walk in your mother's shoes for a little while. I want you to go and talk to her siblings and friends and find out what it was like for your mother when she was growing up. I DID go and talk to my Aunts and Uncles. I asked them why my mother hated me so much. They all had different reasons, but they all agreed that she hated me. At first, I didn't see how these visits were helping me understand my Mom at all and then the more I prayed to God about it, the more the pieces fell into place.

I went back to the church again that following Saturday, and there he was again. We talked about my Mom and then the flood gates of tears just began pouring out, I couldn't have stopped them even if I wanted to. I went home that very afternoon and found my Mom in the bathroom putting on her make-up and asked if we could talk. She said she didn't really have the time, but I asked her to please make the time, it was important to me. I told her I was sorry for everything that had happened to her and for the life that she had had to live. I understood now why she hated me. I got all the love and attention from her Mom that she wanted and needed so badly when she was growing up, but that she never received. She had 8 other siblings to compete against, and I had none. so I got all the attention and loving. I told her that if I could give her my life and all that it held, I would. I would trade my life for her so that she could finally know the love of her Mother. I was so sorry for the pain that I must have caused her when I was growing up, even though it was never intentional, it still hurt her. She turned away from the mirror with tears in her eyes and walked over and gave me a hug. My Mom had never hugged me my whole life. After several Kleenex's later, we sat down and I told her that I loved her and that I wanted to put the past in the past. That neither one of us could throw the past up into each others faces, and that from here on out, we had a clean slate between us.

The funny part is, I really began to love my Mom and when I was able to give her two beautiful granddaughters 7 and 9 1/2 years later, she was able to love and enjoy them and my girls never knew what it was like for me growing up. (well, until they read this blog). They know a little bit, but not the whole picture. I never saw the reason to share this with them since their Grandma Nusbaum was great with them, and we were ok in our relationship by then. They loved her and we went and visited both sets of grandparents every other weekend so that the girls would know their grandparents. It was 1 1/2 hrs. to Alan's parents, and 45 minutes to my parents house. We visited Alan's parents Friday nights, ate lunch with them on Saturday and then went out to my parents house for dinner and had fun playing with my side of the family until late Saturday night. We didn't usually get home until after 11p.m., but we had so much fun!! I miss those weekends.

Today, I can honestly say that I don't have any foes in my life. I learned from hating my Mom as much as I did when I was growing up, that I never wanted to hate anyone again. I didn't even hate Alan and Jamie when they destroyed so many people's lives. I hated what they did and I hated seeing all the consequences of the choices that they made, but I never hated them. I didn't like them for a time, but I didn't hate them. I don't like carrying around that gnawing pit in your stomach that you get when you truly hate someone. Life is too short for that, and besides hating another person doesn't hurt them, it hurts you, and only you. They could care less. God never wants us to hate anyone, that's Satan's trick. So who do you surrender your pain and hate to, Satan or God. I chose God years ago and it's the best decision I ever made. So go hug someone today and make my day. Let's stop all the hating and let the Lord win this one.