Happy Mother's Day
My mom recently went through a very serious surgery. She very nearly died but she did lose her leg due to complications.
I was very sheltered and homeschooled until sophomore year of highschool. 5 days a week in church and missions etc. I deconstructed through college and while working abroad in Asia over about 8 years always a work in progress.
My mother refuses to believe I'm an atheist, among other things. She thinks I'm just mad at God or something. We've only had oblique conversations about it several years ago.
I only see my parents once a month or so for holidays, birthdays and such and it's always an exercise in forbearance. As I don't want to ruin the time we have together but they always start preaching about one thing or another as if we're all in agreement.
Well. I visited my mom in the physical rehab hospital for mother's day and chose to sit and smile and nod and quote Bible verses with her while she spoke of her near death experience and how her purpose was to be a better Christian and she would no longer be consuming secular media. (She's an avid reader of fantasy and fiction in general) She talked about the visions she saw as she sat alone in her hospital bed. She went on to talk about how she was a better Christian than some of her friends who are deeply judgemental and lack love (this is bitterly ironic for so many reasons) she kicked my sister out for spending the night at her boyfriend's before marriage, she called my brother disgusting and often speaks vehemently about his tattoos and how off putting they are. (They're very normal tattoos) I could go on and on but anyway.
3 hours of this near death experience and the wonders of God and the meaning behind her suffering.
I think it was, in part a poorly disguised attempt to gauge my "faith" and evangelize me.
It was deeply upsetting. I feel a deep sadness for her pain and her fear of her "loving" god. It was apparent in her desperate attempts to explain why her situation was all part of God's plan. I'm embarrassed at her hypocrisy and her blindness to it. I feel grief that we will never be close and that she will never know me because she is too afraid to understand things as they are and not as she wants them to be.
Just wanted to share...