Using your God-given gifts..

Oh, I screamed at my mother today! She worked on my nerves until I could not contain my composure. The more I tried to pander to her whims, the more agitated she seemed to become. Each time I take her to what used to be her home of 52 years, she became a gibbering wreck, howling and bawling like a baby. Granted, because I had to move furniture out, bag up clothes, shoes, bric a brac, it is an unsightly picture. Reminding her that material things will not go with her to heaven, she ignores this and starts raining down curses on whom she thinks has stolen her things. I should have listened to my brother, who flatly refused her requests to hide some of her things in his home. I did it, and now I regret it, because she thinks I've thrown them away. I didn't of course, but neither do I know where they went. I dropped her off, without so much as a good-bye...I headed for my home, looking forward to a glass of red wine. I went in to a local store to buy a corkscrew. Got home, tried to open the bottle, but the cork just splintered so I gave up. did some pilates and now this...

You know, maybe it is dementia - a friend saw me looking distraught in town shotly after dropping my mother off - he said, you're losing her, just remember although she looks the same, she isn't the same any more...
I just wish she wouldn't take me with her....I feel like I've been assaulted each time I try to help her....I really should not look for a thank you, because I know I won't get it...

It's late, I'm up with my daughter, sitting watching 'Sleuth' with Michael Caine and Jude Law. It's a time for me to connect with my daughter. We talk about boyfriends and fathers - I tell her my view, she tells me her's. You need to learn how to slow down, mother, she said.
Slow down. Today, my mother nearly burned down the property she recently moved into. I had gone to take her out, for some fresh air, she had flustered about her flat, while I waited in my car outside, car engine idling, hobbled out to the car and I drove away with Ooooohs, and Aaaargh! every few yards. I got half a mile before she pleaded with me to take her back. Which I did. When I opened the door with my mother keys, I heard the fire alarm going, then I saw one of the friendlier residents of the property running upstairs. She called to me from the first floor landing, 'I think there's smoke coming from your mum's flat'. I couldn't compute the scenario quick enough to react, so I sauntered toward to flat, turned the corner along the corridor, to see a fireman's boot kick the door in. Black Smoke poured into the corridor from the flat. I just stood dumbfounded. Four other fireman passed me and started pushing me toward the exit, where my mother stood, transfixed, looking confused. When the first fireman who entered the flat came out, with a burned pressure cooker, I knew she had done what she swore she had not. She then nearly collapsed and started bawling, oh, please don't tell (my sister), she'll surely think I should be put in a home'. I didn't tell her, but she was on her way to visit mum with her new boyfriend. After the fireman fanned the smoke out with a huge fan, which made such a rattle, they had to warn the neighbours, they put bright dots on all the controls on the cooker at fault - it really was a faulty cooker, but it was a cooker nonetheless according to the landlord - and gave my mum an egg timer, they left. When my sister arrived, she did break down and cry and my mother acted like she was 12 years old again. Her new boyfriend, well I don't know what he thought....what an introduction to the family!
Even in all of this, I could see God's hand - it must have been Him that impressed my mother to go back to the flat. I was indignant, she was insistent. And her good sense prevailed. Got to hand it to my mother, she doesn't do things by half.

Three weeks have gone by since my last entry.  I have been notified that I have passed my assessors A1 course.  Although the internal verifier had told me I had, I didn't have anything to prove it.  Now I can call myself an assessor!  Although I don't have the same energy as I had when I was twenty or thirty, or even forty, I am grateful to God for preserving enough of my brainpower to make it possible to still work.  I am so far behind in the grand scheme of things that I doubt I shall ever retire.  I think I'll just keel over, like many of us will one day.

Although financially, I am no further forward I am hopeful of more work and more experience doing the assessing.  Most of my time at present has been with my mother, who seems to call me several times a day for one thing or another. I then have to drop or leave what I doing, to see what's worrying her.  One thing is sure, my mother's osteo-arthritis is her main agony; not her heart, or her lungs or her head for that matter.  My brother recently came home for christmas and remarked she was as sharp as ever. I've been running myself ragged for nothing.  So now, I'm taking charge.  I've told her I will visit Mondays and Friday, but no more calling when she likes.  My work has suffered immeasurably in the past.  I can't let it happen again.

I am working for me too.  Working for other people has been distressing, disappointing, nerve-racking.  Most days, the tension was unbearable.  This way, I can work for me.  I have learned to live on less than the minimum wage, so anything more would be a bonus fo rmyself and the children, who are wonderfully understanding and patient.  The wonderful lady who is my mentor knows my dream of setting up and running a successful centre in South Africa.  I am even planning on going out there later this year.  I have nothing, no deposit, no finances to speak of.  But then, I had no car until it appeared one day.  I prayed for a car and now I have one, new to me.  I know that's how my faith works.  So the air fare and spends for not just South Africa, but Ghana will come.  I have a wish to meet my ancestors, wherever they are, God knows.  In the far flung reaches of this world, they're there.  Now that meeting would be awesome.  And to meet them before my mother passes away or even me, is one of my prayers.

I was listening to a sermond on the English, well European, Reformation.  It was inspiring.  When I consider that those pioneers were younger than me when they decided to take a stand.  All they had was the bible, and the truths it held and they ran with that torch, until the day they passed away, never swerving or flinching.  I felt humbled, but also energized.  I spoke to my daughter about it, those were days of conflict.  I feel that is when truth is at its brightest.

But what I want to know is this.  Why were all the Reformers white?  Were they the only race of people who were given the truth?  Where are the Indian, Chinese, African Reformers?  Where was the world as we know it?   Please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be difficult, just enquiring.  When God said 'go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature...' was it just the disciples and his apostles given this commission?  I can see the effect globally. Every corner of the globe has access to his truths.  Perhaps there is more light to come, just as when the Pilgrim Fathers came after Wycliff, Calvin, Knox and the rest.

Anyway, I'd better get some rest, had a full day and it way way past my bedtime. Good night me.

 Tonight is early Sunday morning.  I have just sat and watched a Transformers film. It's been a year since my last entry.  It is 8 January 2012.  I have been working as a Training Adviser for four months now. A miracle of grace was  given to me when the Deputy Manager offered me the post.  I am to increase the numbers of candidates taking QCFs Level 2 and level 3 in health and social care.  I am away most of the week, coming home only weekends.  My mother is in South Africa until February.  It has been a welcomed release for me, and there's a lot I have to achieve without much guidance, but I am grateful I have a chance to work at something.  I know that I cannot begin to work unless I have God beside me. So much can go wrong otherwise. I'll write more tomorrow, I'm tired now.