Pep-
I am very grateful that you took the time to call me out to reply. I did see this last night and have been pondering my response. Hope this all will make sense to you and maybe help another who may be in my spot.....
Explaining my hurt feelings to you is just going to make me feel twice foolish.
Sufice it to say, I was hurt.
I am not sure it is possible to clarify my personal feelings to a stranger.
I am certain I am not willing to risk exposure of my underbelly at this time.
I completely understand. Although we have never met, I feel awful that I hurt someone whom I respect and admire greatly.
Choice was denied to me when your lie got me to participate in something I do not willingly participate in.
Yup. I see this. Acknowledged and accepted without qualification.
Yes, time is one of the things. But the lost time is not what wounds.
OK. The older I get, I realize that time is a precious and limited commodity. I had no right to ask you to spend yours under false pretenses.
Well, I guess I am more inclined to just let it go.
I surrender to the FACT that I have been deceived in the past and will probably be deceived in the future. As a big girl, I just ought to stop whining and get real.
I, too, have been deceived in the past, but that does not grant me any kind of entitlement to decieve others. As a big girl. I can also get real and face myself and those I have wronged. Eighth, ninth and tenth step stuff ya know.....
I find that other thread so distateful ... and I am truely sorry I made the wrong decision to check out what all the ruckus was about.
That thread is none of my business. At least I can make a choice about THAT!
LOL
Ok, here comes the hard part for me. As hard, if not harder, then the step stuff I mentioned above. You actually did me a BIG, HUMONGOUS favor by posting that particular link. I thank God that you did.
You unwitting hit about the biggest FOO trigger I have. Would never have happened if I had posted that thread myself. That's what the signals in my gut were getting to that I mentioned over "there".
My FOO trigger is the irrational fear of being forever defined by my mistakes, rather than defining myself in another way. I now work very hard against this deep seated trigger. I try to define myself thru God's eyes, and not my mom's. Rough stuff.
I grew up with an angry, cold, critical, alcoholic mother. Complete denial right up til the day she died a little over a year ago.
My entire adult life, she defined me by my childhood and adolescent mistakes. PG at 15, ran away from home on the very day I could legally escape--- my 17th birthday. To escape her and my molesting step-father. She forever stayed in denial about that, too.
Flat out told me that she didn't think she could ever forgive me for blowing open all the family dirty laundry. Outwardly Christian family, church every Sunday, blah, blah. The rest of her life, whenever we talked, no matter what good I did or was doing, she'd bring up my past mistakes seemingly outta nowhere and throw them in my face.
Your forgiveness and great kindness in conversing with me is turning out to be a huge reminder that not all people will act like my mother did.
Good to know.
Had a rash of that going on lately and your clarion call has got me back on track. Whew!
So then, if I may be so bold as to suggest, that maybe your decision to go there wasn't so wrong?
God is still sovereign and can even work amongst the "ruckus".
Thank you from the very depths of my being. You are used of God here in this place and other areas in your life, I am certain.
Helen
