The Chapter No One Wants to Finish

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. " - John 14:27

In the ebb and flow of life, the past several years have found me confronting the immeasurable importance of family and the influence that each familial relationship has contributed to my own growth and potential in this world.
Loss has been a preponderant catalyst. In four years, the core of my family, the adults that have been in my life, all of my life, that are responsible for raising me and guiding me are all but gone.
It has made my heart heavy and sad, and yet as my mother taught me from a young age, death and change are an inherent aspect of life. It can make you stronger, wiser and proves the resiliency that God has blessed us with.
My father, while still alive, walked away from our family four years ago and as of today, it has been almost two years since I have seen him face to face. There is still a relationship there, but he remains distant and non committal. While I still love him and have forgiven him, his deceptions have left me in a place where I can no longer trust nor respect him. The feelings of betrayal and pain that accompany that relationship are a always in the back of my mind. The man I thought he was and the man that I have discovered he is are two different people and the grief that accompanies that discovery is much the same as mourning a physical death.
Almost a year later, the Lord called my mother home. To this very moment, I can recall every detail of the night that I got the call from my brother. My already broken heart shattered and yet, I was grateful that she no longer suffered. So much of her life was a struggle and a battle to find peace and at long last she had found it.
The devastation that my grandparents felt, loosing a child was overwhelming and her loss marked the beginning of their own decline. It was in the months following her death that I was to step into the role of caregiver and in many ways, parent as they reverted back to a more simple and dependent frame of existence.
A year and a half after the loss of my mother, my renewed relationship with my uncle came to a sudden halt when he too, went Home to be with our maker.
Now, my grandparents had not only lost their daughter, but their son as well. For a parent to outlive his or her child is unfathomable , to outlive both of them must be unbearable. They were devastated and yet continued on living their life as best they could in the best way that they knew how. Their decline continued and more and more health problems surfaced as well as early stages of dementia in both of them. We had reached a point where they were no longer able to live in their own house safely, so they faced yet another momentous task in leaving the place they knew as home for 47 years and moved into assisted living.
Seven months after moving, my grandfather's health took a turn that he would not recover from. It was a slow and difficult journey as he went from hospital to long term care, finally to home where hospice would help me care for him in his final days. His last several hours were particularly difficult as I helplessly watched the pneumonia take his final breath, but I will forever be grateful that I was able to be by his side in his last moments.
My grandmother's dementia is now nearing the final stages as the years and trials have gotten to be too much for her. I have moved her one final time to a home where she can be cared for by loving people that can manage her needs and keep her comfortable. I visit several times every week and have come to cherish her good days, as the bad days are happening more and more often. Some days I am my mother and other days she sees me as Erin. I've learned to embrace whatever it is she sees because in her mind, it is what is most comforting for her. We talk about boyfriends and trips to the moon as I feed her lunch. She still has moments of fiesty and I love those moments. She was once so sharp and witty and at times, mean, but she loved me and there was nothing she would not do for me. Her mind is all jumbled and her body frail and her time here on this earth limited.
While the journey has not been easy, I am thankful for the opportunities and the blessings that have accompanied me.
My walk with God has become far more intimate and more connected that I could have ever imagined. I have become more in tune with the still small voice that guides me in the day to day challenges of life and He has taught me how to live more in the moment.
My marriage has grown stronger and deeper and I have so much gratitude for a supportive husband who, with all of the hours I spent away from home, still found ways to make me laugh and get me to relax when I had the chance.
My brother and I are as close as we have ever been and our bond only strengthened with the trials we have dealt with together.
I have reconnected with my cousins and developed a close relationship especially with my cousin Liz.
I have had the great honor of being caregiver and comforter to my mother and my grandparents.
I have found comfort and strength in relationships I would have never imagined.
I am still awed and amazed at so many moments of joy that have been mixed in with the moments of sorrow as I continue to reflect and learn from the path my life has taken me on.

Casting Pearls and praying for swine

"Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. " Matthew 7:6

A brief understanding of this passage is explained on biblegateway.com as such:

"The famous saying about "pearls before swine" has its origins in this passage; Jesus tells his followers not to waste spiritual resources on people who will never understand or appreciate them."

It's funny sometimes how God chooses to elicit a more "hands on" approach to understanding the words that he shares with us in His great book, and this experience was certainly one of those moments.
For some reason, I never quite understood the context of this verse and while it seems pretty straightforward, I none-the-less have often stumbled over the verse and just kept reading oblivious to the underlying depth.
Pastor Billy was my connection to clarity in a situation that had provoked both my desire to help someone in a desperate situation and my fear of getting into something far greater than I could handle. While I had only met him a few times before, I felt completely comfortable with him as well as his assistant. I am not one for small talk when something is on my heart and I wasted no time in explaining the situation I found myself in and that I needed to discern what it was that God wanted me to do. I also explained the sense of foreboding that my husband felt as the story of the family unfolded and that this very family had been members of his congregation as well. At that point, he asked me if his assistant could join our meeting, as she knows everything about everyone and would be able to give me the history of this family that I knew so little about.
I learned that their problems had a deep and rich history of abuse, greed, debauchery and a myriad of other dysfunctions. I learned that people before me had tried to help and that ultimately the only thing that changed was the people/person who were trying to help them.
Billy was quick to emphasize that I should heed my husbands instincts. Not only was I reminded that my husband is the head of the household, but that God had used him as an avenue to give me pause before I charged forward in my attempts to do what I thought God was calling me to do. That was the moment when I was reminded that yielding to God is is just as important as serving Him. Actually, more important. How can I serve His kingdom best if I am pursuing my own agenda of what I think God wants when He sees the whole picture and KNOWS what He wants.
Billy shared with me many more words of wisdom before we prayed and parted ways, and as I walked out of the church, I felt both sad and relieved at the same time. I wanted to save this woman from the chains that life had wrapped around her, but also had to reconcile with the reality that while her circumstances were dire, her own choices played a large part of where she was in life.
Later that evening, my husband and I were able to sit down and talk about my meeting and what our next move should be. We decided that we would go her house together to collect the money she owed me and leave with her the information she needed should she want to make a change. It allowed us to still help her and yet not enable her.
Roughly six weeks later, I sit here and reflect upon that journey, knowing that most likely nothing in her life has changed. The air conditioner that I bought her was either stolen or sold not even a week after I delivered it. I have fully removed myself from the situation except in prayer. I am never sure what to pray for them, but I ask the holy spirit daily to intercede on my behalf.
Hearts can always be unhardened, miracles can happen and fundamentally prayer is where great seeds can be sown. So, while I have intimately learned that I must not cast pearls before swine, I have also been reminded that the gift of prayer is always mine to give.