Grace and Mercy

To me, one of the biggest character flaws that I have is my ability to incorporate grace and mercy into my life. Normally, I am pretty good with having grace and mercy when it comes to strangers, friends, or neighbors. However, when it comes to my family it is the hardest thing to have and I truly struggle with this. I think a lot of it has to do with expecting more from family and parents and siblings. You expect more because you love them and you would go to the end of the world for them, whether you want to admit it or not. Recently, I was made aware of this and it isn’t something I’m proud of. I want to be the best example of how a lady should be, and how more importantly humanity should be to my children.  By not being graceful and showing mercy to my own family, that’s not being a good example or a good person. Anger and frustration have really taken a beating on me emotionally, and really weigh me down. I don’t want to be that angry person that snaps at the drop of a pin. I don’t want to be the person my kids fear, or the person who chases friends off. I need to forgive, truly forgive, and get rid of the anger and frustration that I’m housing and holding on to and let it go. Really let it go.

I really have struggled having a relationship with my middle brother. He struggled with addiction issues and is highly enabled by my parents, mainly my mother. I struggle with being frustrated with him, for not growing up and doing something productive, for moving back home frequently and accepting a lot of handouts. I get frustrated that he is in a craptastic relationship, for reasons unknowing to me, and has gotten his girlfriend pregnant. I am so frustrated that two, irresponsible people are bringing a child (another child for her) into this world and they are so unstable themselves. My heart breaks for that little girl. I think it is the most selfish thing they have done to date. But I’ve realized that being frustrated and angry isn’t going to help anyone, remaining angry at my brother for his actions and behavior isn’t going to be beneficial to him or myself. Instead, I should be supportive from a distance and show mercy and grace and move on. Be the better person, be the person I would hope my children would be. I know, it won’t be easy and I know there are chances for me to slip up, but I really need to let this go. It isn’t healthy and it isn’t fair for anyone. So tonight, I plan on calling my brother to catch up with him, to apologize for being ruthless and to help guide him to make sure he takes the appropriate measures that I think he should take as a dad. I worry about him becoming a dad in an unmarried relationship, I truly do. So I really want to help him be a good dad and a good person, I may not be able to help him financially, but I can help him emotionally and I can pray for him.

I also really need to let go of the frustrations I hold with my mom, and that is going to take a lot of time and a lot out of me. I hold a lot of grudges against my mom, and there are a lot of personality traits that really bother me and frustrate me. I tend to get extremely upset with her when she doesn’t tell my dad certain things, and leaves him out to dry. But I need to recognize that, that is their marriage and it isn’t my place to belittle her. I tend to be extremely blunt with her, because she victimizes herself, or she creates bad situations for normal situations. MY attitude won’t help the situation, so I need to distance myself from that and just focus on how I can help without being involved. I need to pray more for my mom instead of getting angry with her and yelling, and creating a ruckus.

I really, think that by showing more grace and mercy towards others and being more forgiving will allow me to live more according to His will and will help me follow God’s plan and allow me to walk closer to Him. I am an extremely emotional person, and I do truly take things to heart so this is a struggle for me. But it is really something that I need to change and is something I need to work on NOW before the boys have a real understanding of what is going on. I want to be a fantastic example of having grace and mercy and that needs to start yesterday now.

As much as I want to talk about my beautiful wedding day, I'm going to wait until I actually have pictures to post. But there is something I want to talk about, and while it isn't as lovely as my wedding it surely is something I need and want to talk about.

Addiction is a really tricky subject and situation. A lot of issues arise not only just for the addicts, but for their family and friends as well. I've always been a huge Intervention fan - but I don't feel like it really displays a lot on the subject sometimes. Then again, it is just a TV show.
I feel like family members struggle just as much as the addict does. It's a hard situation to be in. Knowing that the person you love and care about are struggling with a problem, that takes years and years to fix and will never truly be fixed completely. There will be scars and tendencies to fight for the rest of their life. As a family member, its hard to struggle with how to handle things the 'right' way. You want to help your loved one, but you don't want to enable them. You want to put your foot down, but you don't want to lock them out completely.

My brother struggles with addiction, and has for quiet some time now. Originally it was just alcohol - at such a young age it was quiet sad and it was thought that he would out grow his reasons to drink. Eventually it's just grown, and spiraled out of control. Turning into adderal, and marijuana and still alcohol, and to my knowledge and thoughts pain medications as well.

It's hard, it's hard to sit back and not be able to fix anything, to be so frustrated and there is just nothing you can do regarding it. It's also hard to not blame yourself, to understand that that person made those choices that got them there, you didn't force them to do anything and although you may of exposed them to doors, you never opened them and pushed them through those doors. It was them who did that. It's hard to understand that and to come to terms with that. Especially as an older sibling and as a female, where we want to take the blame and fix things, or at least I do. I want to blame myself for not being a better role model, for not hanging around with a better group. I want to change the rebellious stage and the bad things I have done, to take it all back, and to of never done so. But that can't happen. I have to remind myself on a daily basis that it isn't my fault that my brother is where he is in life, I didn't make him drink nor did I make him smoke nor did I make him take pills. I didn't force him into that. There are paths off of paths off of paths in life and while I may have exposed him to those paths off of paths, I never pushed him down those paths. That was his choice.

Addiction is a nasty disease, it literally takes the person that they were and turns them into something they aren't. They aren't the same caring person they once were, although they may be in the same body. If that makes sense. It's like they turn into this demon, becoming mean at times - lashing out on others when they can't get that high that they are seeking, manipulating people to get something they need - food, a ride, money. There is zero motivation to better themselves.
It becomes frustrating, quickly. You see the path they are going down and no matter how hard you try to pull them in the other direction or help them or find resources. They won't change unless they come to the reality that their is a problem with how they are living and what they are doing. It's been said time and time again, you can't make someone change unless they want to and it couldn't be more true.

Addiction has a way of ripping families apart, and it isn't necessarily because of the dangers of drugs, but rather the frustration and enabling. My mother and I struggle to maintain a good relationship because of my brother. My brother has always been the one that was given more attention, at least in my book. He is the middle one, and was always more emotional. I do know that he was more favored by my mom. But back to what I was getting at. My mother - no matter how much I try to explain it to her - doesn't understand that my brother has a serious problem, maybe she does, but she won't stop trying to protect him and she won't stop enabling him. She always will take his side, and stands between him and my father, gives him money, rides, food. I think a lot of the reason why my mother continues to enable him, is because she's concerned that if she doesn't something awful might happen, but also because she has her own struggles with addiction.