Family
I am hurt.
It happened again.
You re-injured the old wound, and I wish it would just stop happening.
But we are family, so I have a choice to make.
I can stop loving you or I can forgive you, knowing you will probably do this again.
That sounds ridiculous, but we have talked and yet it hasn’t changed the dynamic. Sometimes I give you the silent treatment, thinking you will miss me. Maybe you do, but my silence doesn’t seem to make you want to change.
I have an expectation, and I realize it may be unrealistic. I would love to have your support in person, not just on the phone. I would like to hear your voice and see your face together in real-time and close proximity.
I hate your excuses. They shoot me back to the past when the damage began, but we are getting older now and the chance that you will change is slim.
I walk wearily from another wound. I wish I could just not care about it, but we are family. I will always care. As I write I realize I will have to try again to reach out and tell you that your presence matters. I don’t want to demand it, but I wish I could.
Expectations can feel as real as the clothes that I am wearing. They make us feel secure. When they are met they tether our confidence, but when they fail to be met anger can surge like a mighty tidal wave.
I have to remember you can’t read my mind, and though I would think you must know how I feel, maybe you don’t.
If you continue to disappoint me will I still love you?
Yes, because we are family. It’s your presence that I miss. Your hands have never harmed me. Your love for me has always been obvious, it’s just the way you show it needs work.
So how can I forgive you again for letting me down?
I will be honest with these feelings. I will look at them squarely. I will pin down my expectations and invite God into them. I need the peace that my Savior brings. You are not my Savior, my strength and confidence have to come from a higher source. God never fails. But I love you, so I will risk talking to you again about how I feel. Whether it changes you at all I know it will change me, because I am going to release the debt you owe me. I am going to forgive you today, and not next month or next year.
Time is too short. We are not guaranteed tomorrow. And even if you don’t change your ways I can work on my heart with God’s help. You are family, my flesh and blood. Though I want to be close I have to accept that if we are not close I have at least done everything I could to try to change that. Not by yelling or silence, but by picking up the phone and talking to you.
“Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends.”
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