Part 11

My grandpa was turning 70 in January of 1999.

My mother insisted that we needed to have a birthday party for him.

They really did not want to have the birthday.

She informed me that I was to make them.

I was not into that, so, I was not going to do that.

She did most of the work and organization for it,

inviting people, mainly old friends.

She got her sister-in-law to help her pull all this off,

ruling over the fact that my grandpa did NOT want to do this.

Of course, when she walked in the door, you would have thought that I was the whore of all whores.

One little thing that I did just for me was get my hair done.

I had found an excellent stylist in Salem and even went so far as getting some violet red highlights.

It was fun. 

My mother, of course, was appalled.

She set about cleaning my grandparents’ house,

utterly appalled at the lack of “cleanliness” which included cleaning out cupboards.

She has an issue with clean houses. 

She inspects them thoroughly,

none of them meeting her “standard” of cleanliness.

Somewhere in the weekend she informed me 

that my grandmother was disgusted with me. 

Supposedly my grandmother was disgusted with how I kept my room.

There was a dresser in the room which was full of my grandparents’ stuff.

The closet was also full of my grandparents’ stuff. 

It had been there about 9 months. 

I never once went through it, moved it, touched it, 

and certainly did not reorganize any of it to fit my stuff in.

I kept my personal items in a large container in the corner of a room, the 

majority of my clothes in a suitcase,

and I bought a little storage container with drawers to store a few things in. 

Nothing had ever been said to me about anything nor was it ever offered to me to clean out the closet to put my things in.

I immediately went to my grandmother about this accusation,

asking her if she was “displeased” with me and wanted me to “move out.” She told me “Oh no, honey, I love you. I am not displeased with you.”

I went back to my mother and told her what my grandmother 

had told me and that what she had said was not the truth.

She shut her mouth and didn't talk to me anymore.

For whatever odd reason she really, really wanted me living by myself.

When I had left the year before she told me that I could go live on the streets of Bend.

It was just one of those things that makes you go “Hmmmm, what is going on here?

Why is she acting like this?”

After the birthday party was all over, 

she told me that grandpa needed to send her a thank you card, 

and I was to make him do that.

Again, I told her no. 

 I was not going to do that. 

Grandpa had not wanted it to happen. 

She did it over his wishes,

and I was not going to make him say thank you for something that he did not want. 

We were moving into lent. 

 I didn't know anything about lent. 

I had actually never heard of it. 

One of the couples that came through every week at the thrift store 

came in one day with this ash marking on their foreheads.

I teasingly asked the guy if he had forgot to wash his face that day. 

He informed me that I “wasn't a very good Christian if I didn't know what lent was”.

I went home and told my grandpa what he had said.

My grandpa, who hated God, told me that I should have answered him

“that I was a good Christian just not a very good Catholic.”

I was completely taken aback by that statement 

not to mention it resonated deep in my soul.

As much as he hated God, he could see God in me.

In all my imperfection, he saw God. 

My grandpa had mentioned going to church growing up but somewhere, something happened, and he could just not get past the hurt which turned to hate for God. 

I have no clue what it was but an injustice of some sort, and instead of seeing how Satan wants to destroy our lives, he blamed God.

It is easy to do. Satan trips us up many times and he delights in deceiving us.

My grandpa is dead now.

I pray that he had made his reconciliation with God before he died. 

He may not have deserved it, from a human perspective.

He was an abuser and a very angry man.

But God still loved him.

And sent His Son (Jesus Christ) to die for his sins.

The other profound thing that I had noticed while I was there was Grandpa and Grandma hadn't drunk any alcohol. 

It was one day in February, almost a year since I had been there, 

that they had bought a case of beer and drank it. 

They had found out that day that their beloved dog had cancer, 

and they had to put him down.

I also was making plans to move on with my life.

I knew that I couldn't live with my grandparents forever, 

and I needed to go somewhere.

I wanted to go somewhere that I wanted to be, 

that I felt somewhat protected,

and I could continue to grow.

I had two choices before me:

one was going to Colorado, to work on a dude ranch through the summer but then having to find a place to go in the fall.

The other choice was going back on staff with the YWAM  group

I had taken my Discipleship Training School with.

The YWAM ministry I had been part of had moved to Wyoming at this point.

Now, I wasn't so sure about going back.

Something in my spirit was uneasy over the situation. 

The leader's wife had made a cutting remark to me, 

which she later apologized for, but I wasn't so sure.

My self-preservation instinct was high.

Going back there seemed more like a stable option to me though 

than going to Colorado.

I decided to go back to Wyoming.

I spent a week in Silver Lake saying my good-byes.

I planned on never returning again as I obviously was not wanted there. 

I said my good-byes. My time in Silver Lake was over.

I was moving into what I hoped would be a 

completely different season in my life.

A life without pain and sorrow

and one with love and rejoicing instead.