|
3. Following the Spirit
In quiet moments late at night we often share about the day and I ask my husband Charlie why he puts up with me after some mishap or elevated exchange as we both live and work together; he states that it is not my brilliance, emotional intelligence, physique or beauty it is because of my spirituality. I really love that answer! It reminds me that in the sight of Almighty God each of us matters as if we were the only living person to have ever been borne.
We continue to adhere to recovery programs and started an ACOA {ACA} meeting out of our home on a twice monthly basis. We served dinner then facilitated a meeting with desert to follow the closing prayer. Although supper was served at seven often the last guests departed at two in the morning at the conclusion of many post meeting conversations initiated and exhausted in those sacred early mornings.
I had always lived my life in scarcity because sometimes my mother wouldn’t allow me to cash my paychecks and when I achieved something of value she would attempt to wrestle it away from me like a really nice home I fixed up and then she revoked our buy sell agreement and sold it to someone else. I was out thousands of dollars on one transaction alone! On weekends I would attend flea markets and sell vitamins and weight loss products and as an adult woman would hide my earnings in a safe place where my family couldn’t find them.
Upon the sale of my home and after my move to Las Vegas my Real Estate Agent called and asked if I wanted to invest the proceeds from the sale of my home back in the business controlled by my Mother. I said: “No” hung up the phone and never talked to him again. Even after I left town my mother was still working through her minions including my therapist to separate me from my cash preferring that I remain dependent and destitute in service to her.
Eventually I had to deal with the information that leaked to me that my settlement from the business would not be forthcoming and that I was on my own. I accepted that my mental health was more important than fighting with Jan over several hundred thousand dollars. It was also a way I could keep the commandment to honor my father and mother by not indulging her in a court sanctioned street fight.
Time and time again I was concerned with serving so many people in our home and not accepting any payment in return. My husband would say faith is letting go and letting God. He will not deprive his own children of food when they feed others.
I must admit though that my fear of financial insecurity has slowly abated over these last eleven years of our marriage and that we have never been deprived of our basic needs of shelter, heat, air conditioning, electricity, hot and cold running water, indoor plumbing, food and drink, beautiful pet and sister Chow Chow’s, and other non essential items like attending Catholic Mass, paying the bills for high speed internet, multiple cell phones and multiple simultaneous program recording capability & internet accessible direct TV receivers connected to multiple high def big screens the later equipped with 500 watts of stereo.
We play any of three guitars including one electric acoustic, standard church folk guitar and a left handed Johnson electric, one electric piano and work on two dell and two hp towers. Did I mention our great community work out room and pool privileges, conference room access and much more not necessarily in that order and all for the price of one tiny rent payment a month
A life of service has practical applications too! We decided after a number of events serving as warnings from the Lord to sell our home. The year was 2007 in Las Vegas. The real estate market had been slipping since 2005 but in a slow methodical way while almost all of our neighbors who bought into this community believed new highs in the market were just around the corner.
We endured a “bad neighbor” who for years hated that we hosted twice a month meetings, defaming us to the homeowners association stating that we were either hosting Amway parties or selling drugs out of our home. He just didn’t get the service connection in our lives. My husband even confronted him one evening as the neighbor “Larry” was writing down the license plate numbers of the vehicles of persons attending our anonymous ACOA dinner meeting.
My husband provided written rebuttals to the constant barrage of complaints leveled against us by Larry and sometimes worked until four in the morning to meet some pending association penalty deadline. He was very happy though that we were never fined once our researched replies were added to the complaint file. My husband also was required to attend a county ordered mediation with Larry or face jail time. They met one afternoon, at a County building facilitated by a mediator, for almost six hours yet no resolution was forthcoming and when the Mediator learned that Larry had contacted local Media Hack Darcy Spears to smear us went ballistic on Larry and ended the session.
Sleeping with Sirens-Feel-2013.1
|
