Chicken Pox

 Let's talk about real life, shall we?

Yesterday morning I woke up and felt like God was moving me -- not really speaking, just moving.  I felt like I needed to go talk to my sister.

I have a horrendous relationship with my sister.  She is 8 years younger than me, and has been given a lot more than I was because she was the youngest.  Our parents' business became much more successful when she was in high school, rather than the years when I was home and they were building it.  She had pretty much everything she'd want -- she even had a horse.

Seriously.  My sister had a pony.

She freely admits that she was a spoiled brat.  And thank God she's honest about that!   In the years that followed her charmed life at home, she basically threw her life away.  She made some very bad choices, resulting in a felony record and addiction.  She's now trying to fight her way back, and it's difficult.  She still relies on our parents for support.

So it sounds like I should have gone down to see how I could help her, right?

Oh no.  Most definitely not.   My sister's family has hurt me several times, with the things they've said and done.  She has excused their behavior and even in one case thought I deserved what I got (trust me, I didn't -- no one would have).  Not only that, I watched as our parents' hearts were broken as they helped her time and again.  I wasn't just angry at her family, but at her directly.  And at the bottom of all of it, I was the older son in the prodigal son story.  How could they love her as much as me, when I'd done it all right?  How could God?  How could her frequent "well, I've made mistakes" possibly begin to cover the wake of disaster she has left?

So I didn't rehearse what I would say, and I didn't need to stop for gas -- I could have let my fury fuel the trip if only emotions could be put in a car's tank! The thing is, I have had this raging forest fire of anger burning for so long that it had gotten completely out of control.  I had gotten to the point that I wouldn't even go to my parents' house if there was any chance that my sister or her daughter would be there.

And it's important for me to say this:  about a month ago, my sister spent about an hour on the phone with me, informing me what a worthless, judgmental, horrible human being that I was.  She yelled and raged.  She was not nice.  Fortunately, God intervened and I was able to be soft-spoken and not take it personally.  I chalked it up to her immaturity.

So God moved me.  I have to say that it actually felt good, because of this:  I had not wanted to say the things I needed to say to her because I couldn't see how they would solve anything.  I knew they'd only hurt her and do damage I could never undo.  Sometimes you just need to get over it.

But the thing I began to realise was that as much as my anger would hurt her, it was absolutely destroying me.  I couldn't get rid of it.  To someone like my husband, that seems silly.  He is able to just "shine it on," as he is fond of saying.  But in me, this sense of justice rises up and will not be satisfied until things are put right.  It nags and wheedles.  It refuses to go away.  This works for me and against me, depending on the circumstance.  So when God said "you've got to fix this," it felt like permission to just let loose on my sister.

And believe me, I did.  I yelled and raged and accused and disdained.  I went down my list and threw all my anger at her.  I didn't stop to worry about how it was affecting her.  I didn't care in the least.  I was completely selfish about it.  I got it all out.  And I don't know if God put some kind of emotional force field around her or what, but she just sat there and took it.  And then she said "Everything you've said is 100% right.

I didn't expect that.

The next thing she said was that she had vented her anger at me on the phone those weeks earlier, and now it had been my turn so it was even.  We went on to talk about everything I'd addressed.  What I began to see was not "well, I've made mistakes and I'm not proud of what I've done,"  I had seen in the past, but a sincere sorrow over what she has made of her life. We set a few things straight about misconceptions we'd had of each other. I learned that she actually made steps toward some choices early on that would have changed her life dramatically.  Not that it made any difference in the way things turned out, but it went a long way towards my view of her character.  I began to see what my parents see, not through a filter of pity, but clearly.  This is a person that actually may deserve God's love after all, who pays daily for her mistakes, has picked herself up and moved on, and who does regret her choices.  She got what she asked for, what she deserved, and now she's coping with a determination to now do it right.  Imagine that.

In the end, after a couple of hours, we came to a truce.  She is in a desperate financial situation, and my end goal was to teach her about couponing and saving money.  I'm great at that, and while she's relatively good at it, she's not as good as me.  The thing was, I knew I couldn't even begin to teach her anything until I got through all the fire.

We walked away on friendly speaking terms.  We agreed to disagree about some things.  I still have issues with her children, but she and I -- we're ok.   The raging fire has been put out.  We're really nothing alike, and that won't change.  We will probably never be friends.  But it was a start toward being sisters

People are hard, and family is the hardest.  The thing is, you can't avoid them.  They aren't like friends you can just move away from or never call.  They keep coming back to haunt you because there's always something, even the most fragile thread, that connects you.  We hate it, we love it, we depend on it, we are cut to the quick by it.  They are the Chicken Pox virus of life, that never leaves you and occasionally flares up like the most painful Shingles in some people.

So we have to deal with that.  We are humans, so sometimes we rage.  As much as we'd like to be just like Jesus, our nature gets in the way.  But the beautiful thing is that God can redeem it, and we have to adjust our expectations to be in line with what we can realistically get.  A truce, friendship, love?   Let's just take it one step at a time, shall we?

They have a vaccination now against Chicken Pox.  My youngest daughter got it, and apparently my husband and a couple of my girls have the emotional version.  I guess I was born before that was available.  I've stop expecting myself to do better than the best I can.  Sometimes it's better to burn a line of fire before the raging inferno consumes you completely.  I trust God, and I love Him, and I know that He knows what He's doing.

I just hope He never lets me get Shingles.