Within the first couple pages of this book he describes something that totally hits the nail on the head of why I get so irked by Wilfreda. I know why she bugs me but he's put it so eloquently into words that I feel I must share them. I'm going to give a bit of the story first so you understand where it's coming from.
"When I was five, my family visited my grandparents in California during Christmas vacation. They lived in an apartment building with an alley beside it- very exciting for a boy who lived on a farm in Michigan. At some point in my exploration of the alley, I decided to make a Christmas present for my dad out of the things I had found there. So on the morning of the twenty-fifth, my father had the privilege of opening a gift of a piece of black and green drainpipe glued to a flat gray rock with little white stones resting on the inside of it.
A masterpiece, to say the least.
The reason I remember this is because I visited my dad at his office a few days ago, and while I waited for him to finish his meeting, I wandered around looking at the pictures on his walls and the papers on his desk and the things on his shelves. On one of his shelves sat the drainpipe and rock sculpture, thirty years later.
He still has it.
He brought it home with him and put it in his office in 1977 and hasn't gotten rid of it.
We know why he kept it. How you treat the creation reflects how you feel about the creator.
When a human being is being mistreated, objectified, or neglected, when they are treated as less than human, these actions are actions against God. Because how you treat the creation reflects how you feel about the Creator."- 'Sex God' by Rob Bell.
It's the last part of the section that is totally Wilfreda. I get so upset with her because of how she treats people she claims to care about and love, and not only does she not think she's wrong but she thinks that's how you act.
I am all about forgiveness and what people have done in the past is usually the past... but not with her. I would be all about looking past what she did to her children and family if she didn't continue to do it in the present.
Yesterday I had to talk to her about the phone bill (because we're on a family plan with Zoe and Wilfreda) and they were over on their minutes... so I had to talk to her about the difference in this months bill. That unfortunately launched into her talking about how worried she is about Zoe and this, that and the other thing and I had to try and reassure her that things would be OK. Zoe and I have talked about this before and we had both agreed that we didn't think that God would have opened this opportunity up to her just to let her fall on her face... so I tried explaining that to Wilfreda but it just goes right over her head. She then turned around and tried to say something that she thought I wanted to hear and said, "The Lord's presence has indeed been a great blessing! I know Zoe will get His help." And honestly, hearing that from her is like a slap in the face. Does she even know what she's saying? Because to her God is something that you find in a Roman Catholic Church that you attend every Christmas and Easter. God can't be found in a non-denominational church that is progressive (what she said about Mars Hill). She just doesn't get it, but she thinks she does. She thinks she is full of wisdom about these things and if you want to try and sit down and have a conversation about it, she doesn't want to because she knows she doesn't have anything to say. When we have tried to talk about it she just says stuff like, "I'm old school, I like tradition." "That's how I grew up." (which it wasn't). And she gets really defensive about things when you ask her simple questions about why she does certain things like if the kids are going to sleep or going to take a nap she draws a cross on their forehead and says some blessing in Flemish to them that she doesn't believe at all. It's not that I mind the blessing at all, or the fact that she wants to do it, it's the WHY she does it. She doesn't even believe what she's doing...
It's hard to swallow her saying things like that because she doesn't believe in them herself. Because everything she says and does is a contradiction to what God's love is for His people. There was even one point where she told me that Zoe doesn't understand God the way she and I do... and I asked her, what was her understanding of God, and she just started stuttering about nothing. It was obvious to me then that she thinks that she's above others and looks down on them because of it.
It's also hard because she holds things over people's head. She told Zoe that she didn't like visiting us because we usually go out to eat, hang out for awhile and then she goes home (because she lives far away and doesn't like driving in the dark). She complained that she thought we were using her to buy us lunch... really? I've told her numerous times that if she wanted to stay in I would be more than happy to cook something. But then, she turns around and tries to give us extra money because she thought that would be nice. It WOULD be nice if she wasn't going to complain about it later. It would be a great gift if it was just that... a gift. Not something that she expected to get something back. It's like she thinks we're her charity, but we owe her for his generosity.
A good friend told me that I shouldn't let it get to me so much... and he's right. I shouldn't. And that's just something I'm going to have to work at. Reading this book has reminded me that even though she might have rejected Him, she was still created in His imagine and is His child... and I am to view her that way also. It will take some time, and definitely some grace, but I am trying to get there.
JVG
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