Bleephole moms, good dads

This post will be somewhat similar to my previous post in that I'm going to process some things. Here's my main point: If somebody is consistently showing me that they're a bleephole (that they truly couldn't care less about me), I should probably pay attention and respond accordingly. I think if a bleephole isn't willing to change (or start caring about me), it's probably best if I just walk away. I understand that now.

"She is like the merchant ships, she brings her food from afar. She also rises while it is yet night, and provides food for her household, and a portion for her maidservants." (Proverbs 31:14-15)

"These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him: a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood..." (Proverbs 6:16-17)

My birth mother was a bleephole who continually instructed me to lie and who was, I think, as pretty far from being a Proverbs 31 woman as you can get. I especially saw this after I moved back into her home when I was an adult. Since she was retired, she didn't have to be anywhere during the day, so she would stay up very late at night and not get up until very late the next morning. One morning, the phone rang. I answered, and the call was for my birth mother. If memory serves correctly, I told the caller that my mother wouldn't wake up until 10:30 or 11. When I informed my mother about this later, she was like, "Why did you tell her that??" Um, probably because it was the truth. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Speaking of the kitchen, one morning I decided to cook myself an egg. I think maybe this was around 8 or 9:00ish. Unfortunately, I probably wasn't quiet enough, because my birth mother suddenly emerged groggily from her room, told me she would cook the egg for me, and completely took over the stovetop. I don't think I tried to cook anything else in her kitchen ever again.

I got the message that day about my mother's kitchen being off limits for me. Unfortunately, I haven't always gotten people's messages that quickly. And I've attracted more bleephole mother figures.

"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil..." (1 Corinthians 13:4-5)

A few years ago, I was in a very short-lived mentor relationship with a friend who was old enough to be my mother, and she often reminded me that I wasn't anywhere near her age. Around that time, I was barely beginning an extended time of inner healing, so God was stirring up a lot of things inside me. Some of it was old, and some of it was very new. My bleephole mentor pointed out and brought out a lot of things inside me that needed healing, specifically a Jezebel spirit, codependence, and rejection. The fact that my friendship with her was a catalyst for a lot of this healing was definitely God being merciful. Unfortunately, the way that she interacted with me wasn't always a God thing.

In an attempt to distance herself from me, she set some boundaries with me, but I didn't understand them. I think some of this was her vagueness, and some of this was my hardheadedness. Unfortunately, she didn't deal with me graciously or kindly when I accidentally violated her boundaries. For example, when her birthday rolled around, I couldn't write on her Facebook wall because she had blocked me from it. I couldn't send her a private message because she had forbidden me from doing so. So, since I had her physical address, I decided to mail her a birthday card.

A few days later, I approached her at a social gathering. I had been in the process of filling out an application, and I was going to use her as a reference, so I needed her phone number. So, I asked her for it. Suddenly, in front of everybody, she exclaimed, "I DON'T WANT YOU TO HAVE MY PHONE NUMBER!" Then she pulled me aside and added, "I got your birthday card in the mail. Freaked me out!" Then she rebuked me by verbally barfing the issues she had with me in our friendship, clarifying that we had gotten too close too fast. I felt terrible about what I had done to her. And I was thoroughly embarrassed and mortified because I had wronged her.

It took me a while to realize that she had wronged me, too. It took me a very long time to heal from the way this bleephole mentor had hurt me. And it took me even longer to realize that she probably didn't love me in the first place. Um, excuse me, rude lady, for mailing you a birthday card. If I had known that you would publicly humiliate me for it, I probably wouldn't have.

Walking away from a relationship with a bleephole is probably one of the most healing things I've ever done. It's taken me years to realize that not everybody is a bleephole. Not everybody hates my guts. Not everybody treats me like I belong in a trash can.

Sometimes it's the non-bleepholes -- the ones who truly care about you and treat you like a valuable human being -- who are so stubborn about loving you that they will never walk away from you.

"Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" (Matthew 7:9-11)

Many years ago, a friend of mine told me about a movie that he was excited about: Life is Beautiful. He explained that it was an Italian movie with English subtitles about a crazy guy who made up this game with his kid when they were stuck in a concentration camp during World War II. My friend told me that this movie reminded him of the way that God interacts with us.

I think it may have been around 1998 when my friend saw Life is Beautiful in the theater. By the time it was dubbed into English and put on video, it was around 1999 or 2000, and I saw it and fell in love with it. (Now I have it on DVD, and it's one of my favorites, whether in dubbed English or straight Italian.) The first half of the movie is hilariously funny, almost a farce. The second half of the movie is extremely sad, definitely a tear-jerker. I usually break down during the last scene.

My friend was right. The way the crazy-funny guy in the movie interacts with his child is very similar to the way God interacts with me, His child.

In the beginning of the movie, the man always had a quirky way of looking at things, and he was particularly obsessed about meeting a particular lady and manipulating his circumstances so that he could spend time with her. After he married the lady and they had a son together, the little boy had questions about the Nazi occupation of Italy; he asked why one shop had a sign posted that said, "No Jews or dogs allowed." The father replied that some people just don't like certain types of people. He was like, "I don't like Visigoths. Is there anything that you don't like?" And the little boy was like, "Spiders." So, the dad was like, "OK, then we'll put up a sign in our shop that says, 'No Visigoths or spiders allowed.' " That was an example of the way that the man interacted with his little boy. He painted the world a certain color so that his son wouldn't freak out.

The man's way of handling things was consistent throughout the movie, regardless of his circumstances. God is consistent, too.

God is my Anchor who I depend on to make sure I don't fall off the boat during this really crazy tempest called life. Several years ago when my bleephole mentor publicly called me on some really serious sins, God comforted me afterwards by saying, "It's still just you and Me." Now that I'm in the middle of an unemployment desert where I'm hoping the sun won't bake me to a crisp, He still tells me, "It's still just you and Me." If I obsess over my checkbook and crunch numbers in my head to try and figure out where I went horribly wrong and where I could have not spent money years ago, God is immediately like, "You'd still have to trust Me." Whether I'm totally broke or whether I'm rolling in money, it's still just me and God. Whether I'm in a room full of close friends or whether I'm stuck inside my lonely apartment for the fourth day in a row, it's still just me and God. Whether I'm leading worship in a room full of dozens of people or whether I'm singing to Him by myself while I'm driving in my car, it's still just me and God.

He's my Friend, and He's consistently proven Himself to be there for me anytime I need Him, and He's consistently proven that He loves me and cares about me, and He's consistently shown grace, kindness, and gentleness to me, and even if He hadn't proven or shown anything to me, it still wouldn't change who He is. He's just like that. He isn't anything like a bleephole. He doesn't even operate in the same Kingdom as the die-hard bleepholes do.

Of course, that's not to say that bleepholes can't repent, and that's not to say that I shouldn't forgive them. (I myself used to be a bleephole supreme, and I still can be if I'm not careful.) I've discovered that the forgiveness process for a consistent, unrepentant bleephole can be a pretty long one, but it's definitely worth it.

(I think if I learn more about what God is like through movies than through actual people, that's pretty bad.)

God is definitely the best Parent in existence, and He can definitely make up for and heal any way that any other parent has wronged me. It's definitely one of His specialties. I think I understand that now more than ever.