Yesterday, two different people asked me how I was after my mother had passed away. I always feel guilty saying that I am fine. It’s strange, I remember the weekend before her funeral, my husband and I were driving in a car and heard “Disco Duck”. I remembered hearing that song with her when I was a kid. For just a little while, I remembered what it was like for me before I understood everything. Sometimes, the way she acted felt off to me, but most of the time I could believe that she was a wonderful mom, and I had a wonderful life. The older I became, the more cracks appeared in her lies.
Then, this week my husband and I visited my old house to get it ready for sale. We are trying to get rid of all my mom’s old stuff. There’s a corner in one room, where there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of dog toys. My mom kept buying her dog toys. The dog didn’t need that many toys, but she bought the dog tons of toys. She got to the point that every time she left the house and came back she brought the dog a toy. When I see those toys, I know she didn’t buy the toys for the dog. She bought those toys because she thought it created the appearance that she loved that dog so much that she bought the dog so many toys. When I see all those toys, it makes me hurt deep inside my chest because I know what it means.
When I was a child, my mom would give me everything I wanted and more. She bought me more clothes than I needed, she gave me more toys than I ever asked for, and she over feed me with more food than I could ever want. She didn’t do it for me. She did it to create the appearance that she loved me so much that I had more than I could possibly ever want because I had her for my mom.
God doesn’t do that. God wouldn’t do that. A true parent doesn’t do things to create an appearance that makes them look good, a true parent does things that are difficult out of love. My best example is God could have just made all the armies of angels come down from Heaven and make all of us knee down to Him and do His will, it would be such a great show of power and it would eliminate all the evil acts in the world, but that’s not a parent’s love. Sure, it would make God appear all powerful, but it wouldn’t allow for us to truly love God as a father. By giving us free will, by allowing evil acts in the world, God shows that He loves us beyond all measure. At least, that’s what I believe.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
