So today has been interesting. For whatever reason God has chosen today to enlighten me. He has made it very clear to me what my weaknesses are as a Catholic and Christian and I am finding myself struggling with resolving these weaknesses.
Around 2 o'clock this afternoon as I was finishing up with my second round of studying I heard my dog being obnoxious in the yard. I look outside and she has her nose trough the fence barking at this old lady who had made it a habit to stop and sit on her walker that has a seat and just stare in backyard. She is a neighbor who has asked us in the past to move our shed bc she wanted to put up a picket fence but didn't want to stare at my shed. That was about 2 months ago, and for some reason it rubbed me the wrong way. Even though my husband talked to her and said she was a nice old lady, I didn't like the question and have since had a bad opinion of her, well today I decided to confront her. I grabbed JJ and by the time I made it outside she was leaving and couldn't hear me asking her if i could help her. So I loaded JJ up in his stroller and started walking and caught up with her.
As it turns out I'm a jerk! First, she greets me with kindness and invites me and JJ to sit with her on her patio. She tells me she stops to look in my backyard bc she likes my walnut tree and needs to rest on her daily walk around the block because she is 95 and things aren't as easy as they used to be. She has lived in this small town for 70 years, had children who are in their 60's and 70's and lives alone in her house because she was widowed 19 yrs ago. She spent the next hour telling me all about what saint clair used to be, how she at one time knew everyone and has watched the tree in my backyard grow into the massive tree it is today. She is a delightful woman and full of spunk and character. I see her being someone JJ and I stop and see often and someone I am adding to my Christmas card list. Did I mention I am a jerk? I am glad I took the time to meet her today and am glad God made me realize what a jerk I am! I don't even know why i let her question about my shed bug me that way I did but I will catalog that feeling I had for future reference and remember to put it away next time someone runs me the wrong way.
Then later today I got a text from someone very unexpected. For whatever reason Jason and i had a friendship go down the toilet about a year and a half ago. I tried very hard to remedy the friendship. It was with a couple who was close to us, and the husband was one of Jason's best friends. It was very hard for him to lose this friendship and i went to great lengths to resolve the issue and never got a response from this couple. At the beginning of the yr I finally gave up and sent the husband an email saying pretty much that. I had done what I could and had nothing left plus at this point we had JJ and were pregnant again I just felt like too much had happened in our lives to just now jump back in to this friendship without it being weird. So I washed my hands of it and moved on.
Well today I get a text from the wife asking me if I got her email, which I had not bc I no longer use that acct. I dug it up and long story short she apologized genuinely and explained the issue and wanted to reach out and I responded in a frank manner that I didn't know where to go from here, a lot has happened, Jason is hurt and I dont know how to repair this. She genuinely seemed to take ownership of not resolving the issue and didn't seem to be passing blame.
I was really blown away by the email. It was nice and like I said genuine, but I don't know how to make this ok. Despite what happened, i tried a lot to make it better. I just feel like the issue wasn't so big that it couldn't have been talked about and I tried over and over again. And why should I now attempt to fix this. I have had a kid, we have gone through lots of huge moments in the last yr that they chose to ignore. I reached out over and over again, and why should I jump now bc they are ready now. I already washed my hands of this!
And as i pondered this more i realized something about myself. I know that one of my strong qualities is taking people where they are at, accepting their flaws and not expecting more out of people then what they can give me. As a result people often tell me I give people too much leniency, i let them walk all over me. And sometimes that may be true, but I see it as accepting people for their flaws and giving allowances for that. What I suck at is once I have washed my hands of something or someone I am sucky at moving forward in that situation. By the time I've washed my hands of you, you have probably hurt me pretty bad and I just am not good at moving past that hurt.
But then i realized that God calls us to be better people then we are. And this is probably one of those times when I need to be a better person then I am and need to make an effort to move past this. I know my husband regaining this friend would mean the world to him and I have a feeling the wife who has ignored us for over a yr may have had her own spiritual growth and may also need this. I know the husband probably misses jason as much as jason missed him. And there is something in my gut telling me I need to rise to this occasion and make this effort (and trust me, moving past this will be hard for me!) in order to be a better person then I am, the person God desires me to be. So we will see. I will let these gates of communication open and trust in God to make me this better person. I know that God would never turn his back on me or anyone and if in my situation would welcome this opportunity to mend these relationships. So in an effort to be this person i will try, I really will, but this is going to be really hard for me. But ultimately I also think it will be good for me. This is the person God desires me to be. Forgiveness can't always be on my terms and forgiveness, wether getting or giving it (which in this instance is some of both for me), is a gift from God. At the end of this I hope to have become a better person, so here goes nothing!
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