Going Private--for my MIL

Some of you are still visiting with some regularity--thank you for caring and still stopping by every now and then, even when I'm not blogging as much!--and already noticed the little announcement at the top of the page.  And those of you who enjoy mega-posts--today you are in luck! Everyone else, you have been warned. ; )  Yes, the day has finally come.  I want to keep blogging, and to be able to share openly about whatever is on my heart and mind--and I want this blog to continue to feel like a safe space in which to do so. 

My main concern of course is my MIL.  When I first started blogging about our relationship, I thought it was healthier to do so with the knowledge that someday she might find the blog, and would then most definitely read it.  That thought gave me some necessary accountability, and really helped me choose my words and focus on the positive when I wrote about her and me.  But, this past Spring I started to write about me and MIL more, and with more detail and negativity.  Not that I think I've been more negative, but I have been more honest about what things have really been like for the past 18 years, which is itself negative--and which makes it all the better for anyone to appreciate how amazing things are now in comparison!  But as a result, I had three women whom I respect privately ask me if I thought it was wise to write so openly, knowing my MIL could find it.  I so appreciated their caring enough to gently question my wisdom and sensitivity.  And I listened.

You know, back when I started writing, things were pretty bad, and I did not share much of it.  What I did share, I figured if it was found by my MIL it might well make her upset (not because I was being untruthful or disrespectful, because I was really being careful not to be either, but just because I was writing about her/us at all--like finding out someone has been talking about you behind your back), but it could maybe then be an impetus for change in our relationship.  Our relationship was already so bad I really had nothing to lose, and she would not have realized then that she did have anything to lose.  So thinking about her finding the blog was a little scary, but I also felt that if it was found someday, it would likely be a relief, and maybe she would finally hear everything I have been thinking, feeling, and trying to share for years.  And maybe it would have helped her step outside of her own headspace for a bit, and help her see what her actions and words looked like from other people's point of view.  In other words, to help her see how unhealthy and sinful our relationship was--because maybe if she did not like what others saw, she would want to change that.

And let me just be brutally honest for a minute--I put up with so much crap over the past 18 years, that part of me was not overly concerned about her feelings.  She was always talking about everyone behind their backs all the time and saying much less hopeful and truthful things than I was, which understandably did not inspire me to be oversensitive to her potential feelings.   

But now. . . things are better. Miraculously so.  Our relationship has improved so much it is hard to believe.  It feels like God did His good work in me for years and years, slowly, with me fighting every step of the way because it hurt and didn't seem fair and I didn't want to do it and what about MY feelings, what about ME?  But He was persistent, and insistent that I change my heart, and grow up in Grace a bit.  He convicted me that He was calling me to LOVE my MIL (not in feelings, but in actions--doing what is loving), and so I have been slowly figuring out what that really means, and learning to depend upon Him to do it through me. 

And then it seems like He started His good work in my MIL at some point (maybe all along--only they know) and we have been seeing real fruit for going on two years now.  I think God had to grow me enough so I would recognize when MIL was growing, trying to be gracious--so I could get out of the way, and be a help and not a hindrance to it!  That does not mean the past 2 years have been all roses and sunshine--no, things have still been painful at times.  But the difference between ten or even six years ago and now is seriously staggering.

The Holy Spirit whispered to me years ago that someday my MIL would look back over the years and realize I had been a friend to her.  It was so hard to believe at the time--that was back when things were terrible, which is one way I know that was a word from God and not just my own imagination.  I could not have imagined it.  But now, things are slowly, slooooooowly starting to move in the direction of us being not just polite to one another (which for years seemed impossible) but even to be companionable with one another.  It will take a long time before anything remotely like friendship is realized--which is why I think the vision the Holy Spirit gave me was when she and I are both much older!--but I think it is now at least imaginable down the road.

Which brings me back to this post now, and the issue of making the blog private.  Before, I did not want to make my blog private just because of MIL, because it would seem like I was doing so out of fear, or from being sneaky--and I would rather my blog have been discovered by MIL than to feel like I was doing either.  But now my heart is in a different place, and I know God has entrusted me with the knowledge of just how fragile this growing relationship is, and that MIL is vulnerable--and I don't at ALL want to do anything to hurt this healing, to set back our growth!

So, I thought about keeping this blog public, but taking down anything having to do with MIL.  Hmmmmm.  There are some posts that never quite sat right with me, which I would be glad to un-publish; but there are too many other bits of our relationship story that are so heavily entwined with my own spiritual growth story, and I don't want to take them out.  God has used my MIL to grow me--as I have always said, jokingly (but not), "Nobody can send me faster to the foot of the cross than that woman!"  And ultimately, that is a good thing.  I believe He has used and is using me to grow her too.  The refining process has not been pretty, but it has so far proven fruitful, and I really and truly want to celebrate that. 

Also, I have had so many women share with me privately that they too have difficult relationships, and suffer in them.  And what I have realized is that lots of us do--but we never talk about it openly, because that would seem like complaining, or gossiping, or being malicious, or even just focusing on the negative, and those of us who are seriously desiring to please God are really trying not to do any of those things.  But this means that a lot of suffering goes on quietly, and women are at a loss for how to handle their feeling and frustrations and fears.  They could really use encouragement from other Christian women who are working through the same things--but since none of them talk about it, they don't realize they are not alone.  So I have always written in the hopes that doing so I might be able to bless someone else--and I think that has happened. 

I have always tried to write with honesty, but also respect for my MIL, and to focus on the positive.  I have been so thankful that in our whole long 18 +  years of relationship, I have never consciously sinned against MIL.  I have not lashed out in anger,  I have not said things in anger I wished I could take back, I have never tried to hurt her, I have never been glad when she was upset or hurt.  I have always tried my best to get along, to keep peace, to speak truth, to do what I can to help healing between us.  I have not done any of these things perfectly--let me say it plainer than that: I have messed up trying to do all of these things well.  BUT I have never knowingly sinned against my MIL. 

Well, to her face that is.  My biggest struggle has always been the sometimes constant thinking negative things about her.  THAT has been a huge issue for me--keeping my thought-life honoring to God.  In my own defense, it is hard to think positive things when you are yourself being force-fed a constant flow of over-the-top negative things.  For many years, I allowed my mind to be given over to the fear and worry and futile and pathetic desire to please and to dwell on all the hurtful and cruel words that had been spoken over me--and for a long time I had no control over my thoughts about my MIL.  I not only dwelled on the negative when I was with her, but when I was not with her too.  I would find myself multiple times a day nursing old wounds, or inventing conversations in which I was the victor and not the victim.  It would especially happen anytime I was doing any housework--since that was one thing that was always used by MIL to assert superiority over me, to point out my inadequacies, to lord bitter triumph over me when I inevitably failed to meet the inspection.  I realized my thought patterns had a terrible, sinful grip on me when I could not even wash the dishes without reliving or imagining negative things involving my MIL at least 20 times.  The negativity was taking over my mind--and that was crippling sin. 

And God is just now showing me another area in which I was sinning against her for all those years--I was nursing a grudge against her.  But both of these issues were not conscious sins against her, and for that I am grateful.

Over the course of many years I worked on changing those negative, sinful ways of thinking about my MIL, with God's wisdom and help, and that's why I was trying to be so careful not to sin against my MIL in what I wrote here in my blog.  I think I succeeded overall, until this past Spring.  I never said so at the time, but I fell into a dark place this past Spring.  Looking back, I see I was slipping into it even in early January, and it lasted until May.  Even after the big hold the darkness had on me was broken by God's mercy, the emotional and psychological effects of it lingered until just a few weeks ago. I think I am truly out from under it now--praise be to our Good Lord Jesus for delivering me--and I can look back now and see how I was a different person in some ways during that time.  I hid it somewhat well from the outside world, but one thing I noticed was that I was becoming more frank about how things were with my MIL here on my blog, and I was starting to write with more complaint and almost a tattling spirit.  I think I was so emotionally stricken that I stopped caring about writing carefully.  I still don't know if that ventured over into sin. . . . Was that gossip?  Was that slander?  Is it gossip anytime we mention someone else in our stories?  Is it sinful to be vulnerable in our hurting?   But I do know that it was not focusing on the positive, and was not written with the previous desire to be respectful.  I was walking wounded, and wrote out of that woundedness.

I am so thankful now that I feel healed.  Possibly in a really big, life-changing way--time will tell.  I think where I am now is an even a better place for growing in relationship with MIL.  So I want to be loving and respectful to her in anything I write.  But I also want the freedom to write my story--our story--as I feel led. 

So, it's time to make the blog private.  I realize that since I have been so sporadic in my blogging since last Spring there is a good chance that there are only a few of you still reading.  That's ok--it's good for my pride. It also makes it easier to not worry that I am depriving an appreciative world of the wealth of my insight.   (Typical blogger folly = assuming I have things to say, and everyone cares if I do or not! ; )  But those of you who are still around, I think I will need to add you manually to the approved reader list.  (Jessica, please do share any advice you have for me about this, since you have done it before.)   I do not want to assume any of you previous readers still want to be reading, so I will not add you unless you request (except for you, Mom ; )  So would you please email me at the address above (which I have added spaces to, to keep trolling spam programs from grabbing it--hope that works) if you would like me to add you?

My feelings will not be hurt if I don't get many requests.  This has never been a blog with a large readership, and now most of my old readers have moved on.  I started this blog simply as a way of sharing life with my mother, my best friend Susan, and my sisters.  Any of you who have joined my journey along the way--thank you for sharing some of it, and your presence has been a blessing to me. 

Much love to you all!

Blessed