No one ever cared for me like Jesus................
No one ever took the darkness from me like Jesus..............

The more difficult mom becomes to care for and manage daily, the deeper my sadness grows and I find myself wanting to curl up in a ball and weep.  Underneath a blanket so no one hears me and no one knows that I weep.

Yesterday Sheri told me I have begun the grieving process.  The relationship I always wanted with mum will never be actualized as I watcher her body fail and her mind sink further into dementia.  There are more more "bad"days.   Days that her eyes do not focus, she only mutter, she aimlessly rolls her chair around, she refuses nourishment, to get out of bed and to even transfer.  Then there is the occasional bright day.  Those days are days I begin to long for but they are interrupted by the mind and taken away abruptly or slowly through the afternoon.

Steve opened up some yesterday as I called him and told him what Sheri had said.  He too has a hole deep inside of him from a father who could not communicate and a mother who was emotionally absent.  Like me he has filled it with things that are not good and only rob us of our joy . . . .  he wishes to speak more freely about these things.  I just hope it is not too late to help him before he turns in the mess I have become.

Maybe in discovering together, we can work our way out of the shame and quilt.

"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks."
(JOHN 4:23)

If anyone is on the outside, she is. This Samaritan woman's promiscuous lifestyle has led her to five different husbands during her lifetime. Her mixed Samaritan blood also keeps her outside the pure Jewish circles that surround her. So she chooses to draw water during the hottest time of the day, when she is sure to encounter no one.

But certainly to her disappointment, someone is already there. A man. A Jew. A rabbi. It could not be worse. But the news He brings her is unlike any she has heard. He offers her water that will quench an eternal thirst. Yet perhaps even more surprising than this, He tells her that God the Father is seeking people who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.

What a shock this must have been for a woman used to being on the outside, to know that God Himself was looking for people like her - not to judge, not to condemn, not to punish, but for the purpose of worshiping Him. May God find what He seeks in us also!