An explanation/demonstration of why cheap grace/hyper-faith has ruined my family.
For all of my life since day one, my family has had two options. But every time, they don’t just pick the wrong option, they master up the most absurd idea known to man. They decide, even though anyone in their right mind wouldn’t even consider it an option. It becomes their life’s dedication and they confidently commit themselves to seeing it through. To the literal death. They are consistent, I will give them that.
As a child I observed. I rode the wacko train and got dragged along through every mind-fumblingly stupid idea and that was my normal. I didn’t get worried over classes, camps, and or competitions. Those commonly “stressful” situations kids experience were my relaxed. I liked leaving the house because I proved that I was different. I am my own person. I’m not just my upbringing. I didn’t spend all of my time justifying my means with the end, I just do the right thing. Trapped behind a shadow at home, trying to be respectful and honest at the same time. I’m just a little provoked child.
This has been the impossibility of my life.
Carrying along a last name that people instantly judge me from. I don’t blame them but it’s hard. I’ve always been the “troublemaker” in the family. My choices or opinions were always the opposite of the authority I was born under. I wanted Biblical standards, not my family’s last name standards. I was just mimicking the sermons from Sunday’s service. Those always made sense to me. So, sorry?
God, and the dream of leaving was what helped me get through. Childhood oblivion helped as well.
Those were crazy times. But now, it’s no longer about shady loophole businesses or the trial. Going bankrupt, moving our home into a fifth wheel, giving away all of our furniture before we even moved. Friends always wondered why none of us had bed frames. It’s not about “losing” our college tuition, or investing our life savings into a con. Answering the door with someone serving papers, or every night worrying that I’d wake up and Dad would be gone. Getting in trouble with the IRS, DHS, and any government three-letter organization. It’s no longer about my 8th birthday party being on the front page because “Mr. City Councilman’s Daughter’s Dog bit the neighborhood hand surgeon,” or dad turning into the joke of the literal country. Oh the list could go on. I’d better stop, I don’t want the news after me.
It’s not about how mom doesn’t love dad anymore, or dad drinking too much. How big sis got pregnant her senior year and big brother got arrested, or how their son stopped talking because he hates the family.
It’s mom’s health and I’ve officially lost my chill.
Mom fell in the kitchen and had a seizure on Friday. My little brother saw her fall and screamed for Dad to call 911. Her water glass shattered on the floor, her eyes rolled back in her head with blood coming out of her mouth. I was at work and I can only imagine how traumatic that was for my 11 yr old brother to see.
It lasted only a couple of minutes. She laid there looking more dead than alive until the ambulance rushed to the house. All of the neighbors stood outside and watched, they all love mom.
It’s the fourth time Firemen carried Mom down our front walk in her bathrobe.
This next part will ruin you, because it ruined me.
She ran out of seizure medication. The medicine people are on for the rest of their lives after having brain surgery, (Mom has had four). Her prescription was never refilled, on purpose! In their eyes, “she’s not sick and she never has been.”
I sat in the kitchen and listened to the pathetic explanation my secular Florida family was given when they asked why she had a seizure. Somehow, it’s always the doctor’s fault.
I think I need to refill my chill pills and ask my boyfriend to drywall the punched holes in my kitchen. I’m telling you I’m LOSING it. I’ve never been so angry in my life. I kicked a tree.
It’s the teaching they’re listening to. It’s the cutting themselves off from everyone they love. Ignoring Pastor and doing whatever they want that’s got mom where she is. It’s all of these TV preachers they’re so obsessed with, preachers that don’t know my family or their history giving them advice. They buy every book they print and sign up for every newsletter. Hyper faith and overly positive thinking, it’s denial and it’s killed mom.
Why be grounded in one church? Why can’t you attend whatever church you feel like? Why does home church not work? Why do we need to be under an authority that isn’t just Jesus Himself?
I’ll tell you.
Because of this predicament I’m in right now. It’s not just cancer. It’s deeper than that and I’m afraid it’s too late to be fixed.
Thanks for reading and your kind messages. -E
Lord help me.
Elaine Kate 