Christ_empowered
Member
- Oct 23, 2010
- 14,242
- 10,722
So...today, I went on the sunday drive with my dad. We drove all over, he took some pics, we got out at one point to look at the outline of the mountains on the horizon and some big ole clouds...and...I even got DQ, which was amazing, too. Thing is...
...we never got a long when I was younger. I attacked him almost 8 years ago, which landed me (Praise God!) in a Teen Challenge facility in a neighboring state. Nobody expected him to forgive me, much less...take me into the house, deal with me as The Lord changed me, love me, all that...
...and its all because of Christ.
See, Mental Health, Inc. wants you to rehash the past and analyze and talk about "boundaries" and such. The Bible says honor thy mother+thy father AND also says that true believers will take care of family members who can't take care of themselves. So, in my case, it cuts both ways right now.
I've been praying daily, sometimes more than 1x daily, "Lord, I praise you for my mother. I praise you for my father. I praise you for both my parents," with the result that...I genuinely am less bratty and psychobabble-d out. I do love my parents. I wish they'd drink less, I wish they'd try to make some solid friends, but...yeah. I love my parents. And I think my dad picks up on my genuine love for him and we both just want to move forward.
My dad's a good man. Now that I think about it...a lot of our "family problems" were $$$ in nature. Makes the world go roun, or so I hear. Anyway...upward mobility is the American Way, but its not always easy on everybody. the climb from working class bohemian, intellectuals to middle-class respectability was particularly hard on my parents, for some reason (I was really young then, so I don't get it...). The drinking certainly didn't help, but...well, you work hard, then you drink hard, then you work hard, then you have to ditch your hippy friends because you have a kid and a new, bigger house, and...
...yup, its The American Way alright. Has its pros and cons, I suppose.
I'm getting to the point--only because Christ has changed me and keeps on changing me--that I can move past the psychobabble that had taken over my mind and see my parents as people. People who love me, sometimes imperfectly. People whom I love, often imperfectly.
I was sick...mentally, I guess...definitely physically and spiritually...for a nice, long chunk of my life. My dad didn't know how to deal with it. I mean, he came from 50s-70s, middle class, calvinist America...work hard, don't be a bum!, etc. etc. Nothing wrong with it, just...what do you do when your kid can't get or keep a job and is a complete burn out? I get it now, or I think I do...it was hard for them, just like it was hard for me...but in a different way. My grandfather (dad's dad) had a nervous breakdown, too...part of what made it so disastrous is that he was always man's man, business man, corporate man, and then...towards the end of his career...he just lost it. Ended up having electroshock when whatever pharmaceuticals they had back then failed him. Now that I look back...I think maybe seeing me so sick brought back some bad memories for my dad, plus he'd never thought that my problems were bona fide mental illness; he thought I was using Rx treatments to "numb my emotions," etc. Complicated...families often are...
OK. I'm done now, I think. Point is, The Lord is good to all of us. I think I'm supposed to say "even me!," but, hey: who are you talking to? I really think: "why not me?," so I'll got with that...why not me? Why not my family?
LOL. I really am done now. File this one under "Ramblin' Praise report."
...we never got a long when I was younger. I attacked him almost 8 years ago, which landed me (Praise God!) in a Teen Challenge facility in a neighboring state. Nobody expected him to forgive me, much less...take me into the house, deal with me as The Lord changed me, love me, all that...
...and its all because of Christ.
See, Mental Health, Inc. wants you to rehash the past and analyze and talk about "boundaries" and such. The Bible says honor thy mother+thy father AND also says that true believers will take care of family members who can't take care of themselves. So, in my case, it cuts both ways right now. I've been praying daily, sometimes more than 1x daily, "Lord, I praise you for my mother. I praise you for my father. I praise you for both my parents," with the result that...I genuinely am less bratty and psychobabble-d out. I do love my parents. I wish they'd drink less, I wish they'd try to make some solid friends, but...yeah. I love my parents. And I think my dad picks up on my genuine love for him and we both just want to move forward.
My dad's a good man. Now that I think about it...a lot of our "family problems" were $$$ in nature. Makes the world go roun, or so I hear. Anyway...upward mobility is the American Way, but its not always easy on everybody. the climb from working class bohemian, intellectuals to middle-class respectability was particularly hard on my parents, for some reason (I was really young then, so I don't get it...). The drinking certainly didn't help, but...well, you work hard, then you drink hard, then you work hard, then you have to ditch your hippy friends because you have a kid and a new, bigger house, and...
...yup, its The American Way alright. Has its pros and cons, I suppose.
I'm getting to the point--only because Christ has changed me and keeps on changing me--that I can move past the psychobabble that had taken over my mind and see my parents as people. People who love me, sometimes imperfectly. People whom I love, often imperfectly.
I was sick...mentally, I guess...definitely physically and spiritually...for a nice, long chunk of my life. My dad didn't know how to deal with it. I mean, he came from 50s-70s, middle class, calvinist America...work hard, don't be a bum!, etc. etc. Nothing wrong with it, just...what do you do when your kid can't get or keep a job and is a complete burn out? I get it now, or I think I do...it was hard for them, just like it was hard for me...but in a different way. My grandfather (dad's dad) had a nervous breakdown, too...part of what made it so disastrous is that he was always man's man, business man, corporate man, and then...towards the end of his career...he just lost it. Ended up having electroshock when whatever pharmaceuticals they had back then failed him. Now that I look back...I think maybe seeing me so sick brought back some bad memories for my dad, plus he'd never thought that my problems were bona fide mental illness; he thought I was using Rx treatments to "numb my emotions," etc. Complicated...families often are...
OK. I'm done now, I think. Point is, The Lord is good to all of us. I think I'm supposed to say "even me!," but, hey: who are you talking to? I really think: "why not me?," so I'll got with that...why not me? Why not my family?
LOL. I really am done now. File this one under "Ramblin' Praise report."