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Thanks Betty for your reply. I know our situations seem to parallel each other. It is hard to keep perspective when all the hurt comes back at you from distance and time. But I really do my best to keep my heart open to that forgiveness when the remembering is ever in the back of my mind. That too I try to push away and just remember the lessons that life hands us. I always tell my kids that it isn't the events in your life that shape who you are, it is how you deal with them that make you stronger as a person and strengthens your faith that all things work together for good for those that love the Lord. I sometimes grieve the relationship that I wish I had had with my brothers. I believe so deeply in family strength and bind mine together with all the love that I can muster. When I married , God not only gave me a wonderful husband and father of my children but also a family that has been as much mine as if they were blood.
Evelyn
-------Original Message-------
I will try and keep my response short because, as you well know Evelyn you and I deal with a lot of the same with brothers who didn't do anything but get all they could out of our mothers while they were alive and even after their death is possible.
God tells us that we're to forgive and He helps us do that when the forgiveness is hard as it has been for you(and many of us). However, forgivness and trust are not synonomis with each other and God tells us explicity to forgive but not forget the lessons we learning in the broken trusts of life but to use them at guidelines for not getting hurt again that way in the future. God forgave and he taught his disciples to forgive but he also told them to walk away and shake the dirt of the town off their feet when they were handed brick walls with people who would not change nor listen to what God had to say. I, too, pray for my brother but the brother-sister relationship he HAD was not a healthy one and any relationship now would have to be build anew....not try and regain what wasn't really there in the beginning. I, too, have taken a silence approach with my brother and should I ever receive a phone call like you did I would do just as you have...listen to what he has to say, remain with the forgiveness in your heart but refrain from reaching out much to him until he's proven that the words he says are trustworthy. When trust is broken it must be rebuilt thru a series of trust building situations not just one phone call with words and not trusting someone doesn't mean you haven't forgiven them.
Betty
"God sent each person into the world with a special message to deliver, a special song to sing and a special act of love to bestow. No one else can speak my message or sing my song or offer my love...these are entrusted to me." -------Father J. Nash -----Original Message-----
From: "Evelyn Millican" <edandevmil@...> To: <Grief_Group@yahoogroups.com> Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 14:15:40 -0400 (Eastern Standard Time) Subject: [Grief_Group] Question
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