Beautiful, broken love

This week my brother got out of jail. It was a good day.

For some, a 3 month stint in county lock up is really not that big of a deal. But you should have seen him before he went in. He was scared. He was scared my mom might die while he was in. He was scared he might do something stupid and turn 3 months into a year or worse and he was scared that no one would be around to make my dad laugh. I love that about my brother. He is a really funny guy, but it's humor that has attempted to guard a tender heart.

This week my father gave us a large sum of money to help us out of a financial crisis we made with our own hands. That would have been enough of a blessing in itself, but he did it with tremendous grace and kindness. It reminded me of Jesus talking to the woman caught in adultery. He does not condemn her, but rather he protects her from the angry mob and yet encourages her to go and sin no more. As John 1:14 says, Jesus was full of grace and truth. My father did that for us this week and the blessing of his words and deeds may have healed a part of my husband's heart that few people will ever even see.

It was a good week.

And all the while, my mother wanders our home lost in some far away world. She can't sit still for more than a few minutes before she is up again moving things from here to there or trying to eat a styrofoam cup. Oh how we all long for peace to come for her. The helplessness is so overwhelming at times. And yet, both my brother and I sit in awe of my father. Not just for his patience, endurance and faithfulness but for how this is transforming him into a new man: a good, kind, thoughtful man with a generous heart.

Somehow in the midst of this intense sadness, we are all being transformed for good. I have no idea how God is doing it, but the evidence is all around me.

I heard a teacher say recently that suffering gives us a platform for influence. I've thought about it many times. I suppose that does not assume it will always be a positive influence, but I certainly can see biblical examples of the transforming power of suffering in God's word. Joseph comes to mind for most people. He was a talented, gifted, arrogant and probably spoiled kid, but after many years of unjust suffering, God transformed him into a talented, gifted and humble man who literally saves the nation of Israel along with Egypt. Nelson Mandela's story is very similar.

I don't know what God has waiting for all of us in my family. My father says he lives day to day because that is all he can do. He considers each day a gift. But no matter how this plays out, I am so thankful for the richness of our relationships right now, despite the pain.

Given the choice, I would never have agreed to this plan. Alzheimer's completely sucks. Our hardest moments of the journey so far have been when my mom would just start cowering, for any number of reasons, and say to us "Are you going to throw me away?" What the hell happened to that woman as a child? What did they do to her? It would make us all crazy with anger and rage at the invisible perpetrators and our sense of powerlessness would go that much deeper. But here we sit, with no clear end in site, having endured a very intense war, where we lost one but found the 3 of us.

I did know my mother well enough to know that she would have been willing to endure this if only for our sake. At some level we all live selfish lives, some more than others, but in her own way she did attempt to love us.

One night many years ago, I challenged my mother in front of my father, as to why she would not take care of herself. Her cholesterol was insane and her diabetes was not being treated and she would not slow down enough to do anything about them. After pressing her a couple of times, she finally admitted that there was not enough money for both my mom and dad to retire, so she planned on dying first and letting him have the retirement money. My father and I sat there stunned. We both tried to speak to that lie, but we did not sway her and she has carried out her plan. But that was my mother's way of loving us. That was so messed up on so many levels, but behind it all, was love.

It's not the way I intend to love my kids and it's a severely broken form of love, but I can still call it love. And even in all its messiness and brokenness, God has used it for good. Sounds a little like Joseph doesn't it?

So I sit in awe of God somedays. And somedays I weep over watching the woman I call mom slowly disintegrate. Other days are filled with laughter and joy as my father and brother and I enjoy each other just because we are enjoyable people. I don't know when that happened. I don't know when I became enjoyable and when I started really enjoying my family, but I like it. Those are good days.

And perhaps there are many good days ahead of us. But hope can feel like jumping off a cliff when all you've ever done is survive. So this week, I will spend time with Jesus in the Smoky Mountains and meditate on God's tenderness and kindness and try to make some room in my life for hope.

Perhaps this will be a good week too.