I have learned a hard truth about myself: I am an enabler.
It hurts me too much to watch those I love to go through hard things and not try to rescue them. It hurts my heart deeply and disturbs my ability to enjoy my own life even when it is filled with good things. It also creates anxiety within me to see my loved one’s struggle and not try to fix it. The fear that it may ruin their life and thereby affect my life in a negative way. I know this is selfish and in the long run, harmful and not helpful anyone I care for.
Caring vs Carrying is an explanation I heard about that fits very well. I am trying to carry their challenges as if they are my own. It’s hard not to do, when in the not-too-distant past, my whole focus was their wellbeing of other lives. Now that my kids and siblings are adults, it’s very hard to watch life throw its blows and beat them down without intervening.
“We are not our children’s savior”. If the first explanation hit home, this one hit it out of the park. Am I trying to be the savior that my children turn to whenever things are hard, rather than have them look to God to build their strength, wisdom and discernment? I have always believed my personal faith is what has helped me most in this life, yet am I denying them this same skill by intervening when I should not.
The truth is, I do not want to be responsible for their lives. At this point in my own life, I want to focus on myself and my husband once again. I am in a good place. I have paid my dues and did hard things and want to enjoy the fruit of all my labor. I can feel the pressure of time running out with every day that passes. Yet I am haunted with thoughts of “Did I not raise them well enough”? “Did I not teach them all they needed to know to be successful in life”? Have I been selfish with my resources and not shared what was needed?
An example from my own life when it was discovered my youngest brother had a severe addiction problem. We were both adults at the time; I am older by 7 years. It was my first time dealing with such a complex family situation and it was causing a lot of stress in our lives and major disruption in his own life. I remember telling our mother, “Well enough is enough, I am going to fix this right now”. Looking back, I see how naïve that statement was. It took many Alon meetings and some additional counseling for me to learn that I cannot change or control anyone but myself. That hurt me because although I knew it to be true, I knew exactly what he needed to do to fix everything. He just needed to do it. I could see the path to freedom clearly when he could not. Yet, it just doesn’t work that way. That was a very painful lesson in my life.
Even looking back at raising my own children, I see I jumped in too soon to save them from the painful lessons. Lessons that had they been learned early in life would have been helpful tools to have as they grew and had more at stake.
At this point in life, I know I have to I have to stop trying to rescue anyone and only offer help when asked. Even with all my resources I could not save my brother from his choices. An extremely painful life lesson.
“All things work together for the good of those called according to His purpose” .
I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for all of our lives. Its our job to discover it and complete it as service to God.
My loved ones are smart, fully able to do all things and are greatly loved.
Hopefully that will be enough.
