Mirror

Mirror???

Without being aware of it children, by osmosis, acquire many of their parents’ values and behaviors. This is certainly true for Jill in Baggage burdens.

    

Frank, Jill’s father, struggled with being an inadequate parent. Men at work often bragged about hunting and playing sports with their sons. Their knowledge of their children’s interests contrasted sharply with Frank’s knowledge of his daughters’ desires. Frank’s lack of involvement led him to conclude he wasn’t a good father.

 The same sense of inadequacy plagued Jill. As Daniel, her first son, grew older he increasingly worked and played more with his father, Joseph. Jill felt left out. Horrified at the prospect of being an inattentive parent like her father, Jill attempted to draw Daniel back into her world. Daniel resisted Jill’s efforts for him to take home schooling like his sister, Amber. Jill’s persistence resulted in Daniel believing his mother was manipulative and self-centered. Similarly, Frank, making Jill to be an obedient child, also created a hostile relationship.

Alice, Jill’s mother, a United Church member, planted the seed of faith in her daughter. Jill’s grandmother’s church involvement and love reinforced Jill’s comfort with other people from the United Church.

                                                                                                           

What values or behaviors have you inherited from your parents? 

Next Post: Effects of Family Life 

Knowing family history helps explain Joseph’s behaviors and values. Jill’s children are also shaped by their family life too.

                                                                                               

Next post, the Mirror, looks at how Baggage burdens. shows how many of the parent’s values mold their children.

Like My Parents

Like My Parents!!!

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree is an expression that Jill in Baggage burdens. would passionately challenge. Her reaction would be one of shock. “I’m like my parents. Not a chance.”

Jill wouldn’t make the mistake her mother made of marrying a social drinker. Her father’s drinking spread from Saturday evenings in the bar to drinking weeknights. He frequently came home drunk, yelling and many times violent.

No way Jill would be like her father. “I don’t drink,” Jill would argue. “I don’t even hang around with any one who drinks.”

After Jill ran away from home, desperate, she took a chance by moving in with a social drinking friend. While under the influence, he broke his promise to her and stole a kiss. His indiscretion, in part, caused her to run away again and cement her conviction that no one who drinks can be trusted.

Jill’s commitment to avoiding moderate drinkers was tested once again when she lived in Camrose. Two boys attempted to win her affection. Easy-going Ben didn’t realize his social drinking would be a disadvantage. Joseph didn’t indulge.

Unlike her mother, Jill intended to be the most important person in her children’s lives. There would be no hint that she would betray them by siding with her husband. Jill knew first hand the pain a child feels when the mother attempts to defend the father.

There was one aspect in particular that Joseph, Jill’s husband, chose to be different from his parents. Their ambition caused them to try to drive home one stormy winter night. They drove into the ditch and froze to death leaving Joseph, an eight year old with no parents. He missed their love. He promised himself he would be content with what he had. He would never drive in poor weather if he had a family.

                                                                                      

In what way(s) have you chosen to live differently from your parents?

Next post, the Mirror, looks at how Baggage burdens. shows how many of the parent’s values mold their children.

                                                                               

   

Faith Expressions

A Faith Expression

As is expressed in the poster, Footprints, we do not realize that the Lord loves us, and is with us helping us through troubled times. Such is the case for Jill in Baggage burdens.

How can the Lord’s blessings be missed? Jill’s parents, the Lord’s warped image bearers, succeed in preparing Jill to continually look for danger, betrayals.

Fear of her drunken father drives Jill to seize fate. Safety can only be achieved by running away, initially, from her mother and father and later from Dave, a want-to-be boyfriend. Like stepping into quicksand, struggling actions trap her into more challenging circumstances, circumstances that she can’t handle herself, circumstances that demand assistance from others. If Jill had already given her heart to the Lord, she might very well have questioned him–– Why is there only one set of footprints during my most troublesome times? Since Jill only possessed a general knowledge of the Lord and not a personal relationship with him, she is spared the notion ––she is not worthy to be loved.

Jill experiences several church settings where God’s imperfect image bearers, acting in love, in their own way, offer a degree of support when she is in need. Church-attending families, friends and strangers, all flawed agents of God, make it difficult for Jill to see God’s love in action. As a result, for most of her life, she feels like she feels alone, struggling to survive.

Characters in the novel represent a wide range of faith-walk believers. At times their love is only a flickering flame. At other times their expression of the Lord’s teaching is like a bright flash of lightening, seen for a moment, then gone. 

One of the main beliefs underwriting Jill’s story is that God will finish the work he has started with his children. For Jill’s mother and grandmother, trusting that the Lord will continue to care for the runaway child sustains them. A second conviction is that those blinded by faith in self-reliance, are unlikely see God’s love in their lives. Blessings are triumphs of self-will. Only when events become overwhelming as they did in Jill’s life, can the Lord’s messengers experience a receptive ear.  Until then Jill’s friends and family undergo disappointment and hurt feelings.

When you read about Jill’s actions, I wonder how long could you continue to stand by her.

Branded

Branded

Branding, a practice of the old west, involved burning of an identification mark into the skin of cattle. A temporary searing pain for the animal and a long lasting mark of ownership has given way to modern, less painful identification labels. At least that ranching activity could claim a worthwhile purpose for its old practice.

Individuals are branded! The activity, sexual assaults, a broken nose, ribs, or arms, can have a life-long lasting effect. While the physical wounds may heal, the psychological scars that a person carries are not only unseen, but can be debilitating. Painful memories give way to apparent unreasonable behaviors. Subsequent criticism or embarrassment leads to isolation. Treatment and healing prolongs the person’s agony.

Apparent unreasonable actions arise from pain. How severe must a pain be to cause one to make decisions that aren’t in their best interest? Difficult to imagine? Possibly. Two experiences have shown me that being branded by a past pain can muddle one’s thinking.

One night, while getting out of bed to use the toilet, I raised my legs slightly to swing to the floor. Piercing back pain froze me. Movement of any part of my body in any direction was impossible. Paralyzed, I questioned how long I could hold that position. Already the weight of my

legs were demanding relief. Like a person in a burning building facing the prospect of running through the flames to survive, I let my legs sink to the mattress and almost fainted. Never did I, or have I, experienced arresting pain like that. Short of cutting the nerve, I can’t imagine anything eliminating the pain. So, when my arthritic specialist tells me not to worry; he can manage the pain, I don’t believe him. He doesn’t know how excoriating pain can be. Illogical that I can’t take comfort from this highly respected expert? My head says yes, but my indelibly

imprinted memory tells me living for more than the minute than I did with that pain would be impossible. Expecting to consciously live with it is not likely.

The year before my back trouble I met a person who’d been branded by abuse. Teen home life had been so terrible that running away from the rest of the family and friends seemed the only alternative. Such are the circumstances of Jill, in my novel, Baggage burdens. Sparked by the prospect of having to return to a painful, hellish home, Jill moves to another province. She gets married, for security, to change her surname, to avoid being easily found. Again she leaves those who are closest to her, those who can help her most. Understandably, a marriage not based in love, will struggle. Her choices of fleeing in the face of potential trouble, or exercising strong control over those around her, a behavior she learned from her problem drinking father, is counter productive. They are her survival tactics to avoid expected pain.

Do you have a painful past experience that limits your actions?