Loss leads to forgiveness

Someone once told me my perspective is my reality. My reality of family was complicated, loving, wholesome, intense and full of heart break.  I hear the western music in the background while I am writing about the final frontier.  I could write a book about it.  It would make a great movie. Each scene of the movie would be dramatic but there is a happy ending.  It just hasn't happened yet.

My mother grew up on a farm.  She started working at a young age.  She worked the fields with her brothers and sisters.  There were two farms that connected my grandfather and his brothers and they worked them to support their familes.  My mother lost her mother at a very young age.  After her brother died, her mother followed.  They left behind 12 small childeren.  My mother was now the oldest and the mother figure for a while.  Her family survived a brutal and cruel uncle, discrimination, abuse in every way and they survived becuase despite it all they loved each other.

When I think that times are tough I think about her and her family.  I think about my uncles and aunts.  They are all so much stronger than any people I know.  I hope they are proud of who they are because I am proud to be their neice. 

I started to think about family because I have a cousin I have been praying for lately.  She is a wonderful person but I haven't seen her in many years.  My dads family is completely different than my moms.  They are spread out and they all love each other but they keep each other at a distance sometimes.


I think that a great loss, especially of a mother makes a family grow closer,  A mother is like the balance beam in a family.  My moms family could of completely fallen apart but it didnt.  I learned that a family with no mother seems to stick together because they have learned that a loss that great is not worth all the silly fights.  My moms family can fight.  My grandfather was stubborn, so they all can have that quality.  Who am I kidding, I have it too.   Half my family didn't even come to my wedding because of this.  But their perspective is differnet than my dads family.  Each day can be taken for granted and when my grandmother passed away from my dads side I knew she didn't want to leave quite yet because her children still didn't quite get along.  Such a burden for her to bear, but in her death I finally started to see some healing happen with my father and his siblings.  She looks down on them everyday and I know she wishes that they would just forgive. They have grown so much.  And I know that she is resting more peacefully because they love each other.  In the end that is all that matter with family.  In what ever way you show it, its love.

This lead me to my questions for today....

When do you start taking responsiblity for the past and start living for the future?
We all play a part in the past.  But I have learned alot from my husband.  He is the most forgiving person I know.  I will be blogging about him tomorrow.  But, one thing he has taught me is that by the mistakes of others he has choosen to be better.  He is so positive.  But he is on to something.  You have to start looking at the past and realizing what part you played in it.  Then you have to set yourself free.  Then and only then can your future really be fully lived. Quit pointing the finger.  Its time to start looking at yourself in the mirror.


Did you tell the person you are upset with, that you are upset with them?

I think this is common sense but for people who hate confrontation the number one reason why they stay upset longer is becuase the never have the gumption to just tell the person..... I mean, just tell the person... You hurt my feelings.  Its not hard.  But people just don't talk.  With all this new techonology it only gets worse.  We post it on blogs, facebook and text people just so that we don't have to talk about it.  I have friends who would rather text someone than answer their phone.  The bottom line,  you can be mad all you want at a person but if you NEVER talk about it then you are only hurting one person. YOU.


Regret?

Dont regret today, don't regret tomorrow.  Just talk about it.  Regret is like a cancer. Noone wants to talk about it but when you are educated then you can hope and that is a little less intimatdating.

This is Coach Honestly.  Speak honestly.  Speak from the heart. And listen.