Much of my life has been driven by fear. I have lived under the weight of a hundred forms of fear. Gratefully in the past few years some of that fear has been transformed and the weight taken away. I am noticing a new kind of fear and I'm still not sure what to do with it all.
I have a wife now, so now, instead of trying to fight for myself I grab on to fight for her. I don't just fight for her though. I think I am experiencing the panic of Adam in the garden watching Eve eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, unable to stop her and scared to death he would lose her and be alone.
Shell is not "eating of the fruit" per se, but the fear of losing her for any reason is as equally distressing.
I am a personal pacifist. You can beat me up. You can kick me in the teeth and pretty much get away with it. However, if you mess with my wife, my Dad, my kids or my dogs and I will go off and it won't be pretty.
So what happens when two people I love can't seem to make it work? That situation confuses me. I am called to honor my father and love my wife, but my dad, in the confusion of his old age, and under the influence of well meaning friends, crosses wires, misplaces facts and time lines and blames Shell for things for which I should get blamed. The trouble is even when I tell him the blame lies with me he won't accept it, forgets it and insinuates to the next friend he talks to that Shell is to blame. It is not pretty. History is re-written in his own mind and he shares it with his friends and in the process hurts her unfairly and unjustly. He makes assumptions coming out of his confusion and shares those assumptions with his friends, assassinating the character of the woman God chose for me. How am I supposed to deal with that?
It is not his fault. At 85 years of age he can't keep it all straight. I need / want to honor him. But equally, I need to protect and love Shell. This is a fight I don't know how to fight. It is a fight that shouldn't need to be fought. I'm the one who screwed up and he only wants to blame her. I wish he could see it. I wish he'd put the blame where it belongs and leave Shell out of it.
I tried my best to take care of my Dad and failed. He blames her or at least indicts her with his words to his friends, when he should be indicting me. it was my failure to keep track of the details and just assume everything would work out that is costing him now. Shell helped me implement the plan and repeatedly urged me to pay attention to the details but I did not heed her counsel and now my failure costs two people I am responsible before God to protect. How does that work?
I am glad that the God I have come to understand recently understands my plight, forgives my character defects and will ultimately protect my wife and my Dad.
Surrendering Dad and Shell to His care is much harder than surrendering my own life. I can trust my own life to Him because of the road we've walked together. It is much harder to trust their lives to Him.
But I am tired of this fight. Just like with everything else I need to surrender. God never seems to want to let me win when I wrestle with Him. Instead of fighting, I need to simply do the next right thing, and surrender it all to Jesus, trusting Him with the results. That is a bitch and I suck at it, so I get back on my knees and tell Him I don't know how to surrender when I have been fighting so long and I need His help to give it up. He will hear and He will answer.
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