This morning, I dragged my old bones out of bed, hobbled to the kitchen, and put on a fresh pot of coffee. So far, so good. Hubby had a VA appointment, so it was just my two four-legged girls and me.
When I opened the microwave oven, there sat the salt shaker laughing in my face. I didn’t put it there. The girls said they didn’t put it there. So that leaves one other person. I just shook my head and laughed.
Seniors get a lot of eye-rolling, head-shaking, and heaving sighs, and with good reason. We’re slow, forgetful, can’t hear, can’t see, and sometimes forget where we parked the car before realizing we haven’t even left the house!
Yesterday, my husband checked us out of the restaurant, and I saw the panic in his eyes. “I can’t find my card! I must have left it at home. Honey, get your card out.” I dug out my wallet and handed him the card as the elderly cashier sat utterly confused. “Sir? Are you looking for your card? It’s right here. You just handed it to me!”
Well, that’s not so bad considering we both got up, got dressed, and before heading out the door, I said, “Ya know what? I don’t have a doctor’s appointment today. It’s not until next week. And guess what else? You didn’t miss your VA appointment; it’s tomorrow!”
Some months drag by like a snail in slow motion. Other months leave you scratching your head, wondering if you slept through it. You batted your eyes, and poof! It disappeared!
And working in the yard. That’s a barrel of laughs. We’re like two old turtles trying to cross the road before getting squashed and eaten by a big, fat, ugly buzzard and wishing we had when morning rolls around and we realize we’re not dead because our bodies are screaming bloody murder.
Old age isn’t for sissies. We either get up and keep going or get run over on life’s hazardous highway. Some days, you feel like roadkill, and all you did was sit and twiddle your thumbs all day. Doesn’t matter. Just trying to remember stuff, like doctor’s appointments, if you took your meds, brushed your dentures, or fed the dogs, sucks the life out of you.
But, at 79, my husband and I are blessed. We’re still breathing, kicking, and taking care of ourselves. We’re still in our home, still cooking and cleaning, and keeping up the yard the best we can. Some days are so tough that I think about signing myself into a nursing home. But just remembering the smell knocks that stupid notion out of my head.
And besides. There’s always gonna be days that keep you laughing your head off. And who doesn’t need a good laugh at any age these days?
Let’s play the blame game. No rules. No responsibility. No consequences. So easy that a child can play it.
Take my great-grandson, Gideon, for example. He was four at the time, with snow-white hair, baby blue eyes, and as hyper as a squirrel on speed.
One afternoon during a family get-together at our house, I stepped out on the deck to find birdseed scattered everywhere. And I knew, without a shadow of doubt, who did it.
“Gideon! Come here!”
Like a playful puppy, he came running to the deck.
“Did you do this?”
“No. I didn’t do that!”
“Then who did?”
“Big Bird did it!”
“Oh! He did, did he?” Then, pointing to the birdseed scattered on the back porch, I questioned, “Did Big Bird do that, too?”
“Noooo! Little Bird did it!”
The blame game. It begins in childhood and continues throughout our lives. It’s the wife’s fault that her husband beats her half to death. It’s the cops’ fault for stopping someone for driving under the influence. It’s the teacher’s fault that the student got caught cheating. It’s the woman’s fault that she got raped.
On and on it goes. Why should I get in trouble? Why should I take responsibility when I can pin the blame on someone else? Pretty soon, it becomes a destructive habit of lying, cheating, manipulation, and control beyond comprehension.
Even a Godly heart knows how to play the blame game, but never without its consequences: restless, sleepless nights, irritability, and many other forms of conviction that hopefully lead to repentance.
Blaming others is nothing short of a bald-faced lie, a coward’s way out of taking responsibility, regardless of the impact on someone else. Sadly, it’s become an epidemic in the world today. “Why should I pay when I can blame it on someone else? Why should I lose my job? Why should I stand trial and go to jail?”
Blaming others takes us all the way back to Genesis 3: 6-12 where Adam blamed God and Eve. Eve blamed God and the serpent, and surprisingly, the serpent blamed no one. His greatest mission was completed, for which he proudly took all the credit. In his gleaming arrogance, he deniably cut his own throat with God’s deadly curse, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel (Genesis 3:15).”
Jesus, God’s perfect Son, is the woman’s offspring. Satan struck his heel through his crucifixion, and Jesus crushed his head through his death and triumphant resurrection!
Is it worth destroying someone else to save your own skin? Is it worth the consequences and the penalty for sin? Is it worth destroying your own life? Satan thought so. But in the end, God will wipe that arrogant smile off his face, strip him of all his power, and cast him into the lake of fire and brimstone where he will be tormented day and night forever and ever (Revelation 20:10).
The blame game isn’t a fun game for anyone to play. It offers no rewards and promises only sorrow and pain. Like quicksand, it slowly swallows the soul alive. It’s the game Satan invented and plays, so how can anything good possibly come from it?
Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy(Proverbs 28:13 NIV).
Those words shot out of my mouth like a bullet as I sat confronting my stone-faced mother. We hadn’t spoken in months. I never wanted it to come to this, and only God knows the blood, sweat, and tears I poured into the relationship all my life to be what she wanted me to be, to make her happy, to fill the craters in her soul.
I was her protector, her emotional empath child, easily controlled by the guilt and shame she lavishly poured on my head. When I resisted, she used scripture and religion to further shame and punish me. But I was not her golden child. I was a wounded wildcat, fighting for every morsel of my being.
But between the oppressive silent treatments, the glaring eyes, and the fragile china-doll act, I was always the one to break down and apologize. The shunning was too much to bear. Thus, the emotional mold was created. No matter how hard I tried to break it, it became more firmly set in the concrete of manipulation and control. My voice, my rights, and my life were overruled by a drunken puppeteer.
The never-ending, losing battles were as fierce as the raging fire consuming my soul. Like a corpse rising from the ashes of torment, I transformed into a monster of self-destruction.
Gone was the sweet, gentle soul I once was. My spirit was crushed beneath the heavy burden that was never mine to bear. Like falling down a flight of stairs, I spiraled into the depths of depression and despair. I’m a good-for-nothing failure, too damaged and too dangerous for anyone to get too close, lest they arouse the monster within.
It seems my mother was hell-bent on destroying my life. Of course, no one would believe that. She hid it well beneath the cloak of religion and her fragile, china-doll facade. But after two years of weekly cognitive therapy sessions, I faced the unbelievable truth: Someone had to pay for my mother’s pain, and that someone was me. I was the target. The scapegoat chosen to die beneath the corpse of my mother’s abusers.
And yet, the most agonizing thing I have ever done in my life was walking out of hers. And I couldn’t have chosen a worse time. My father had just died. And again, in her twisted mind, I was somehow responsible for her grief. I couldn’t comfort her. I couldn’t please her. I couldn’t whisk her away to another planet where she could live happily ever after. So I left her to wallow in her own pain. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had nothing left to give her but the raging monster she created in me.
Of course, no one understood why or how I could be so cold and calloused. “She’s still your mother,” church people would say. “You picked a bad time,” my sister said. And others would come to me, reporting my mother’s surprising dismay, “I don’t know what I did to make Sandi act this way.”
Through therapy and the unconditional love and support of my husband and my son, I pushed through the anguish and pain of the unconventional choice I made. Walking out on your mother is a cardinal sin. But a mother’s emotional abuse, the bloody wounds no one sees, is commendable?
After six long years, the Holy Spirit tugged at my heartstrings, compelling me to make amends. I was much stronger and wiser. She had no more power over me. I walked through the flames of destruction, empowered and refined. I can see myself more clearly now. Yet, though the monster inside me is more at ease, it refuses to die. And that remains my biggest struggle today. PTSD. It never goes away.
The relationship was as good as it could be. I changed, but my mother didn’t. She was more cautious and more cleverly subtle in her desperate need to control me. Spending too much time with her was like walking on thin ice, never knowing when it would break beneath me. Forgiving her is the glue that really held it together.
Five years later, I not only grieved her death, but also the death of my inner self. I had reached yet another confusing plateau. Who am I, now? What am I? Am I nothing more than a broken vessel, unable to contain anything good? My heart was one big blister of anger, grief, and confusion.
With her death came the ultimate betrayal, the fatal bullet through the heart and soul. In her freezing cold denial, shrouded in the smugness of death, she won. I lost. She snatched the core of my being and took it to the grave with her. The words I longed to hear will never pierce her lips: I’m sorry.
How can I live with the belief that everything wrong in the relationship was my fault? That she, the mother, was always right, and I, the daughter, was always wrong. Does the daughter not deserve respect? Does she not deserve her own voice, her own mind? Is she to remain a toddler, unable to think and choose for herself?
How can I move on from here when I don’t even know who I am anymore? How do I learn to swim through the emotional turmoil without drowning in my grief? I feel naked, stripped to the bone, for all to see my wretchedness. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Like a wild beast searching for shelter and warmth, my spirit shivers in the cold, dark, bleakness of grief.
Even with God’s help, the night can be ever so long, dark, and lonely. Without faith in his love, grace, and forgiveness, I wouldn’t have made it. Even now, I have to remind myself that just because I can’t feel his nearness doesn’t mean that he’s not there. He has walked with me through the darkest, lowest times of my life, and continues healing my recurring, festered wounds. How does anyone get through it without God?
Relationships can be wonderful, and they can be deadly. I have to remind myself that I can’t fix anyone. That’s not my job. God is the only one who can fix a broken soul. By trying the impossible to fix my mother, she ended up crushing me beyond human repair. God is the only one who has the power to restore our broken souls.
I will never remain in a toxic relationship again. I will never allow anyone to crush my spirit again. I will never tolerate anyone making me feel like a worthless piece of trash again. It’s too painful, and recovery is too long and arduous. I’ve learned to value who I am, whether anyone else does or not. I have to live in my own skin, and I choose to live in it in peace.
My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV).
Southern melt-in-your-mouth buttermilk biscuits that I made with my own two little hands for breakfast this morning
Ever since we retired seventeen years ago, my husband has taken over the kitchen. I have to make an appointment just thinking about cooking something. And when he hears me stirring around in there, he yells all the way from outside, mowing the grass, “Get out of my kitchen!”
Funny how the roles have changed. And funny ha, ha, that he thinks because he cooks, I’m supposed to clean up the big messes he makes. Oh, no! If he wants to play King of the Castle, he has to be his own scullery maid, because I’m the Queen! That’s how it works in the Queen’s castle.
But this week, I took over the kitchen. I cooked the sausage. I fried the eggs. I made the brown gravy. And I made the buttermilk biscuits! Without creating a blizzard like he did the last time he attempted to make biscuits and dumped flour all over the kitchen.
I’m not a southerner; I’m a pure-blooded Yankee from Newark, Delaware. My mother didn’t make biscuits; she made yeast rolls. I had to eat supper at my best friend’s house to get a homemade biscuit. Her family was from South Carolina, and her mother was the Michelangelo of making biscuits.
Before my husband kicked me out of the kitchen, I learned to make biscuits. Big, fluffy, golden brown biscuits that would make a cannibal drool. Okay. Maybe that’s a little extreme.
Growing up, my mother did all the cooking, and I gladly stayed out of her way. Daddy was happy. My brothers were happy. And I was ecstatic! I cleaned the house. She cooked. That’s the way we rolled at our house.
I finally learned how to cook, though, but making biscuits was never my life’s goal. There’s an art to it, and southerners turned it into a masterpiece, at least my mother-in-law did. She’s the one who taught me, but it took a lot of practice. And when I finally learned, I made biscuits every day. I shared them with my neighbors. I shared them with my friends. I wanted to share them with the whole world!
But I had to stop making them . . . everyone was getting fat! So, when my husband took over the kitchen, I was lucky to get a slice of bread tossed across the table. You know the saying, Use it or lose it. Well, I completely lost the art of making biscuits.
But this week, like being zapped by the Energizer bunny, I kicked my husband out of the kitchen, rolled up my sleeves, and cooked breakfast every morning; biscuits and all. The first morning, the dogs laughed at my pitiful, wannabe biscuits. The second morning, they were edible swimming in gravy. The third morning, my husband’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. But this blessed, sacred morning, the heavenly host began singing, “Hallelujah!”
I met him at church. He said he was a Christian. I was a lonely, gullible, single mom who fell for his charming good looks and sugar-coated lies.
I was twenty-three. My son was three. He was thirty-six with a thirteen-year-old son that he had abandoned in an orphanage. Red flags were popping up everywhere, but stupid Cupid shot them all down.
He made me laugh. He made me feel loved. He made me as pliable as clay in his hands, twisting my Christian morals and ripping out pieces of my soul.
The more time I spent with him, the more the devil reared his ugly head. The same devil I’d seen many times throughout my life. Didn’t I see him in the glaring eyes at home? Didn’t I see him in the man who promised to love me till death do us part? Didn’t I see him behind the curtain of witchcraft?
Suddenly, his twisted lies became as transparent as glass, his heart as faithful as a harlot. He didn’t own a house, a vehicle, or even have a job. He pushed his way through life using and abusing the weak and the vulnerable, and lying his conniving head on the pillow of his victims. But I kept closing my eyes and turning the other cheek. I kept going to church, singing the hymns, hiding my shameful heart in the chamber of religion.
But each day became harder to live with the person I had become, the person I said I would never be. I was making it on my own, raising my child without any help from his father, and keeping my standards high. I was a good mother, a good person with a strong determination to do the right thing, but out of sheer weakness and stupidity, I traded my sacred heart for ashes in the wind.
Kicking him out of my life was the smartest thing I had done since I had invited him into it. I made a big mistake. I can’t go back and erase it; it’s forever etched in the shadows of my mind. But I walked away from it. I learned a valuable lesson from it, and I became a better person because of it.
It was a Saturday evening. Robbie and I were sitting on the couch watching The Flintstones when he suddenly barged through the door, waving a gun around and blabbering like a lunatic. Frantically, I pulled Robbie closer to me, watching our lives vanish in the midst of a disastrous storm.
His eyes were as black as coal; his face twisted like a raging monster as he stood in the middle of the room, threatening his way back into my life. When that didn’t work, he held up the gun and said he was going to shoot himself. With a deep sigh of relief, I gasped, “Fine! I think that’s about the best thing you can do for yourself!”
God, despite turning my back on him, in his love, mercy, and forgiveness, protected Robbie and me that day. I can find no other logical explanation why a crazy, life-threatening maniac would suddenly turn around and walk harmlessly out the door.
Being a single mom back in the sixties was as tough as being a single mom today. The challenges and temptations are the same. Human soul snatchers are the same. The need to be loved and valued is the same. And God is the same. He never leaves us. He never betrays us. He never condemns us. He lovingly takes us to the Potter’s house and diligently restores our broken souls.
My husband decided to make biscuits. I decided to keep my mouth shut, a practice I don’t do very often. There’s an art to making big, fat, golden brown, flaky, melt-in-your-mouth, southern, buttermilk biscuits. Not a yearly, spur-of-the-moment thing to impress your next-door neighbor or important dinner guests.
A few minutes later, I walked into the kitchen, and thought I had entered a severe snowstorm. Flour was everywhere! On the floor. On the countertops. In the kitchen sink. I’m surprised the dogs weren’t covered from head to tail. Slowly recovering from the shockwave, I looked up, and lo and behold, there stood my husband looking like Frosty the Snowman with a smile as big as Texas.
As if he had reached the top of Mt. Everest, he said triumphantly, “Look in the oven.” I brushed the flour off the handle, slowly opened the oven door, and there huddled in the middle of the cookie sheet sat five puny little biscuits pretending to be big, fat, golden brown, flaky, melt-in-your-mouth, southern, buttermilk biscuits like his momma used to make!
Dare I trust my resurrected heart? The flickering candle of hope? The dimly lit path to freedom? The trickling water of peace?
Dare I trust the softer voices in my head? The gentle breezes in my soul? Dare I trust the raging monster is dead? That it will never rise again?
My heart was crushed by the hammer of injustice. Broken by ghosts of the past. Paying for crimes she did not commit. Drowning in tears that were never hers to cry.
It trusted the bloody hands of those who claimed to love her. The freezing tomb of silence. The glaring eyes of rejection. The coals of shame poured on her head.
But dare she trust these quiet chambers? To lay down her sword? To tear down the walls? Dare she believe in trust again?
No! I dare not trust my fickle heart. My fractured mind. My wild emotions. My murdered soul.
I dare not trust my destructive self. My racing thoughts. My doubts and fears. I dare not trust my broken self at all.
I dare to trust an unseen God. I dare to trust His tender love. I dare to trust His healing touch. I dare to trust His whispering voice.
I dare to trust His wounded hands. I dare embrace the blood He shed. I dare believe the words He speaks. I dare surrender to the cross.
Father, forgive my wounded heart. My angry tears. My shattered soul. I never wanted to hurt you. But I was afraid to trust your stubborn love. But I’m not afraid anymore.
Straight From the Heart 