Over on the main blog I have been reviewing not just the last year but also all of the years of my care giving.
That time period is hard to define, and there is a lot that becomes messy in it. As I move forward, I want to make sure that I am letting go of baggage as far as possible, while not losing any lessons.
One post bothered me as particularly messy:
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/01/my-2020-reorientation.html
Now, a definite part of the messiness is that there is still a lot that is not defined for going forward. I have said - and it was accurate - that there is an element of illusion to thinking that a job and its paychecks will last, and thinking you know how the next few months or years will go. I still believe that, but being a job seeker still feels very different from being a job holder.
For all that is unsettled, it was a bulleted list a bit past the middle of that post that bothers me most. In it I list things that "should" have helped with the depression but that didn't.
Most of the post is more about what I don't yet know and the unease that comes from that, despite feeling that things will work out.
That list is something I know pretty well already, but it felt very important to say and it also felt defensive. Understanding that meant realizing that it belongs on the religious blog.
Firstly, I wanted all of those things out there because of how bad we are sometimes at comfort. I didn't need any additional knowledge or perspective where someone could say an encouraging thing and make it all better. It wasn't a matter of unrighteousness where the answer was repentance. It was just a hard time in life that hurt and wore me down, despite reminders and small blessings and lots of prayer.
I need to put that out there in case someone else going through a similar situation might find it and feel validated and comforted. I hate that there are people who, in addition to dealing with the vicissitudes of life, also have to question whether they are doing something wrong.
I mean, we are told to mourn with those who mourn.
We aren't told to encourage them to hush their mourning. We aren't told to shun them because they are kind of a drag and we feel bad not being able to change that. Maybe sometimes we can help bear their burdens, but we usually can't fully remove the burden.
That's life. We accept that. We also get weird about it too. Not facing that leaves a shallow faith; you want faith with deep roots.
Then there is the other thing.
Focusing on caring for my mother instead of making money was a choice. I knew it was the right one, and therefore I knew that the sacrifices that came with it were also the right things to do.
It is also a choice that looks very wrong to a capitalist society.
Oddly, a church that believes in consecration and tried United Order seems to sympathize greatly with capitalism, at least among its members.
We did not get a ton of help from our ward. There were a few bills that they did pay, and we were grateful for that. Most of our survival came from what we gave.
We got some judgment for that.
There was judgment for small things that wouldn't make a difference financially, because making house payments take a lot of money and there is a limit to how much selling things you already own or never doing anything fun again can help with that.
Most of my anger comes from a suggestion that we didn't need so many pets. I mean, obviously taking the most comforting creatures out of our lives and shattering their security is a small price to pay for the extra money that would be saved on pet food! Forget that we had them before. Without saying that pets are just like children, that... it's not a matter of forgiveness, but there is an opinion there that was irretrievably lowered. That's all.
This kind of judgment may also relate to a shallow, or at least uninformed faith. We believe that if you pay your tithing, you will always have enough. If you need help, surely you are doing something wrong. Well, surely that sounds more like Evangelicals (who - by the way - hate Mormons) than it sounds like Jesus.
We are all full tithe payers here, and we have always had enough. Other than about six months of being paid a part-time salary for caring for Mom full-time, I have been unemployed for going on five years now.
It has taken a lot of paperwork and the full sacrifice of my 401K and a partial sacrifice from Julie's and some use of care credit and much gratitude to the Oregon Health Plan, but we are still here. There is a roof over our heads, food in our fridge (I am a very skilled shopper), clothes on our back, and everyone has gotten the medical care we need, including the pets. We have even had some fun, along with lots of tears.
Yes, tithing works. It doesn't always work the way you think it should. It definitely doesn't always work the way you want it to. If it did that, what role would faith play?
That's what I really needed to put out into the world before I could move on.
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