Forgiveness

I have not spoken more than a handful of words to my mother in law in the last 5 years.
To put it simply...I got tired of being the target of her mentally unbalanced anger.

Listen...it goes back 35 years.
35 years of pretending to get along.
35 years of acting as if...when we both knew it was going to be a never.
35 years of her being nice to my face and vilifying me to others behind my back.

Her own grown children are aware that she is unbalanced.
They are all aware of her statements about me and to me.
And they all say the exact same thing..
"That's just my mom. That's just how she is."

For me..."That's just my mom" doesn't cut it anymore.
I. Don't. Care. if you say "That's how she is" anymore.
I am tired of the mental bullshit and decided I ain't going to play the game anymore.

When I had our first child, I was inundated with "advice" from her.
You're not feeding her right.
You're not burping her right.
You're not dressing her right.
You're not holding her right.
You're not diapering her right.
Baby girls are ugly "down there" with no hair.

When I got pregnant for the second time her advice was to get rid of it
as our first born who was now 2 was much too young yet to have a sibling.

When our second child, another daughter died at birth. she blamed me for it and told her coworkers and family members (who speak a different language and live an ocean away) that I had gotten drunk one night during my pregnancy and that that was why the umbilical cord and gotten twisted around her...cuz my unborn daughter had gotten dizzy from the alcohol I had consumed and had twisted around and around and around.
(17 years had passed before I was told about this. One of the European relatives came for a visit and told us what they had been told, by her, as the reason for our baby's passing.)

She also told us that we were bad parents and that god would take away all of our children.

When my husband decided to spend the next 30 years as an alcoholic I also got blamed for that.
She told me my cooking was bad. She told me how to, and how often I should be, having sex with him. She criticized my house cleaning skills. When the children fell ill or even fell down and hurt themselves, I got the blame from her for that.

She took it upon herself one day to come over and tell me that her son was only staying with me because of the children and when they were all finally out of school he would leave me and she hoped he would then find someone who really loved him.

She would try to hook him up with the single ladies that she worked with.
"So and so really thinks you're cute AND she loves sex too" was one of the things that was said in my presence...I kid you not.

 Now lest you think that I cannot let this go, that for some reason I just cannot let go of all of the things that were said about me behind my back and to my face for the last 35 years,
I offer up this fact-
Just recently my husband had an attack of his gallbladder and/or pancreas which landed him in the hospital for 2 days.
Upon finding out that he was in the hospital with gallbladder issues her words to our grown adult daughter were- "That's because your mom doesn't take care of him."

I know this is a long and rambling post and truly I am only touching the tip of the ice burg here..
But I wanted to tell you about church this past Sunday.
It was empty...lots of seats available everywhere...and out of the corner of my eye,
I see my mother in law, whom I have not spoken to in one entire year, sit directly behind me.
This is not new.
She chooses to sit as close to me as she can all the fucking time at church.
Sorry Lord.

I wanted to move. I wanted to change seats.
I felt my brain start to burn.
This wasn't any hot flash.
This was molten hot ass lava that I felt I wanted to spew.
I crossed my arms. I started tapping my foot. I felt bees in my blood stream.
The rage she makes me feel is totally unchristian.
I just want her to leave me alone. To not sit by me. To not talk to me.
I'm crazy and crazed and raging and enraged and unforgiving like a tree.
I. will. NOT. be moved.
And I keep getting prompted by Jesus to forgive her.
Shit.

How can I Lord?
How can I offer forgiveness to this woman?
This woman who has always thought and said terrible things about me?
I don't know how to do it. I don't think I can do it. I don't want to do it.

She tells people lies about me Jesus.
I can't tell you how many times she has hurt my feelings and made me cry
and no one, not even her son has come to my rescue.
He tells me to ignore her, that she is mentally unbalanced.
So I ignore her and she sits directly behind me at church.

For years she mails me birthday cards with checks for $25.00 which I do not cash
then she hounds us with phone calls as to why her check hasn't been cashed.

She calls my mother and tells her that I am lucky that her son chose to marry me
because without him, I would have ended up being an unmarried hag.

Forgive THIS Lord?!
Forgive her all her sins against me?
Lord, You do not know of what you are asking of me....
How does one forgive what has become unforgivable?

In this season of Love, Joy, Peace, Stillness, and Holy Birth
I sit here and do not know how to offer her those things that He is asking of me.
Can I not just keep trying to ignore her?
Isn't that sort of like forgiveness if I don't engage with her??

Help me Jesus...Give me the words. Give me the will and the want.
Show me in this holiest of seasons how to do something hard.
How to give up my will and do what You are asking.
We are so broken........