Confession: sometimes I feel as though I deserve to be frustrated.
angry.
hurt.
confused.
I am a natural born sinner, and I know better than anyone my daily failings.
I also know that the choices I make in this life I am living are never completely right or wrong.
They are simply choices...
to make it through a day.
to care for someone in a different way.
to care for myself.
Choices made selfishly and greedily, and choices made because I am otherwise out of options.
I know very well that each and every one of the small hundreds of daily choices we make as humans effect us and those we love - not always either well or poorly, but in that same gray way that we don't always understand. I can try my best to prepare myself for the reactions of others to my choices, but ultimately, I must stand by them knowing that I made them, and from that moment on my life is ultimately different.
But that is not part of my confession. My children and my partner do not typically understand my choices. I struggle to communicate clearly with all 3 of them what the needs of this family are and how difficult it is to be the only one who can see that choices aren't always right or wrong but varied in their shades of gray. You know the ones - parenting, money, cleanliness, responsibility, time. The choices made in any of those decisions are equivalent to Breaking Bad variations of gray.
Sometimes, the things I choose to benefit the family are misunderstood. Sometimes they are just really poor choices. Sometimes they are necessary. Sometimes they are difficult, confusing, frustrating, or easy.
So here I stand - confessing that I have made choices that aren't perfect, that don't always make sense, and that sometimes feel to others like I've chosen to be hurtful. Sometimes knowingly, sometimes unbeknownst to me, always for the benefit of one or more of the four of us.
But then here is the Absolution:
I know what LOVE is. I know that LOVE is with me, comforting me in my dismay of being misunderstood, consoling me in my anger when I'm not listened to, and compassionate when I make all manner of mistakes. LOVE abides in me and offers herself to the family in and through and between all the choices we ALL make as a family. LOVE is the glue that binds us together in a holy way. LOVE is the solvent that removes the binding that anger, mistrust, frustration, and sorrow hold me in.
LOVE wins. (even when it doesn't look like it.)
