I don’t know if I’m the first person to be experiencing this, but it has been an interesting journey.
60 years ago my grandparents were getting married. Grandma was LDS and Grandpa was Catholic. I don’t know when or how or any of the details, but he started learning about the LDS church and investigating it. By the time I came along, he wasn’t active in the Catholic church, but was LDS either.
I remember one time when I was about 14 he announced, “Well, I was going to be getting baptized, but the missionary that I really like is getting transferred, so I’m not!” The missionary even got permission to come back to baptize Grandpa, but he used that as his way of getting out of it.
Then about 6 or 7 years ago Grandma called me around this same time of year, asking to make sure we were coming to their house for Christmas. She told me, “It’s a surprise, but Grandpa's getting baptized on our anniversary!” I asked her, “Has he stopped drinking?” She replied, “No, but he has cut back a lot.” I told her, “Well, let me know when he has stopped!”
3 weeks ago he announced to the whole family that he was going to be baptized. Where have I heard this before? It was a mix of emotions.
The past three weeks I have reflected on this and the past 10 years a lot! It was exactly 10 years ago that I moved out. It was extremely bittersweet. Bitter because there was a LOT more verbal abuse thrown at me the last 24 hours I was there. Sweet because I knew that for once in my life, I never had to go back!
The following 6 months after I moved out I was still in counseling with Joy and then went through SOLE. At the end of SOLE I thought I had completely, 100%, forgiven Grandpa. Over the past 9 ½ years little things come up here and there and I’ve realized that as close to complete forgiveness as I was, I wasn’t at 100%, yet.
For 10 years I have avidly avoided Grandpa. I haven’t gone out of my way to talk to him. If he is in the same room then I will talk, rarely to him. If I call their house and he answers, I ask for Grandma. I’ve also been known to just hang up on him if he utters the words, “I love you.” The first time I remember hearing him say “I love you” and it was not in the midst of abuse, I was married. Which is also when I was so stunned all I could think to do was hang up!
Every time the subject of Grandpa getting baptized came up, I would get angry about it! For a long time I held onto these feels that I would not support him getting baptized. I couldn’t see around the fact that he wasn’t worthy to. After all the things he said to me, he has to at least repent of this sin. There was no way I would support him getting baptized until he apologized for the abuse.
It wasn’t until within a few months/ days before the announcement that I finally changed my negative feelings about it all.
I married the most perfect person for me! It was Brad talking to me rationally that got through to me. I realized I needed to let go of my personal negative view of my Grandpa and let him getting baptized be between him and the Lord.
As I sat there telling Brad how there was no way Grandpa could get baptized because he was unworthy of it and is doing it for the wrong reasons, Brad finally changed my thoughts. He explained, That is you Grandpa's problem if he is did this all unworthily (like still drinking). I don’t need to worry about it and need to just let it be. Brad explained that even though baptism essential to getting to the Celestial Kingdom, if someone makes those baptismal covenants and still lives unworthily, it is their own condemnation! It finally sunk in that it doesn’t matter if I approve or not, it doesn’t matter that I will never get the apology for the abuse. Grandpa will live his own life, make his own decisions and if he truly changes his life and gets baptized that is great. If he gets baptized and keeps abusing and drinking, then in the end he will be worse off than if he had never gotten baptized. I am not going to be the one to judge him. I don’t really know the intentions of his heart.
I have finally gotten to a point where I am not angry, mad, sad or disapproving of his baptism. At the same time I’m not excited or happy about it either. I am just going along with it. My feelings are “Ehh”. Really, I don’t know what to say or how to describe how I feel. Mostly, trying my hardest to push towards neutral.
Every time the subject comes up I cry. I have been trying to figure out why. As I have finished writing this I think I have finally figured out the emotions behind the tears... I feel like accepting him getting baptized is the biggest step I have taken in forgiving him for the abuse. And that is causing me to cry, a lot!
PS, apparently he has stopped drinking
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