Learning to honor

On Mother's Day, Pastor Dan did a teaching on honoring your parents (namely, your mother) that I listened to kicking and screaming on the inside. I basically flat out rejected it and convinced myself it didn't apply to me...all the while understanding deep inside that I'm not exempt from the scriptures calling me a fool for doing so.

My mother had me in her forties, out of wedlock, after having two other children that were raised by other people. She wanted to have an abortion, and would have gone ahead with it if my father hadn't threatened to end her life if she did so. So on March 24th, 1978 at around 6pm, she had me via c-section. She stuck around for about 10 months before deciding having a baby at her age was not something she particularly had patience for, and split. She moved out, and eventually moved to Houston when I was in 1st grade (right after my dad met his new wife and they moved in together).

My dad had a full time job, so I ended up living full time with the person who started out taking care of me part time...my father's ex-wife...the one he cheated on with my mother. She took me in and raised me as her own child from the time I was 10 months old. Now that relationship wasn't perfect. As you can imagine she had plenty of misdirected angst against me, mixed with love, that she used to verbally abuse me on a daily basis. Yet it was easy to forgive her. She was in her late 50s when she took me in and her life wasn't a bowl of cherries. But she gave me a roof over my head, home cooked meals and plenty of love the way she knew how to give it. I loved her. She passed away in April of '05, a few months before I got married.

For a while I thought that I had done the hardest thing I needed to do...forgive the woman who raised me for all the horrible words she spoke into my life. I thought she had hurt me worse than anyone else could have. Yet all the while, deep in my heart, I had been harboring unforgiveness towards the mother that birthed me. I didn't realize this until Pastor Dan's message.

So now I embark on a journey to honor the woman who I've basically ignored for the past few years. I choose to do this because I do not want to live a life of obscurity, I do not want to be a fool in Yahweh's eyes, and I want her (Delia) to come to know the knowledge of His saving grace. I'll keep you posted.