How to help others and ourselves

[Lilbrother]

Hi brothers and sisters.
As a newcomer on this forum, I must say have a lot on my mind. So I thought I might share some thoughts with you, and I kindly ask for your indulgence and your insight.
(N.B. I will have to post my question in two parts, due to space restrictions)

You see, I am a remorseful sinner.
I have not grown in a faithful christian family, and becoming a catholic has been my own choice, or should I say, my calling, as an adult, even though I received the sacrament of christening as a baby, My grandmother is a christian, but she has never practised too much, although she was the one who insisted that we be christened, my cousins and I, as children. Anyway I never heard she talk too much about God.
My parents have spent most of their life rejecting God, and even I, for a long time, have been questioning His wisdom and His judgment, out of ignorance or narcissism.

Some say that newly converted believers “are more catholic than the pope”, and in a way, I sometimes observe that my faith can be very “epidermal”. So, gradually, it has been taking more space in my life, although I don’t pray enough, and sometimes find myself in situations where I’m sad or disoriented and don’t have the reflex of calling to God for help. My bad.

So I ask myself questions. And I go far. I think I came in this website today because last night, I was granted what I believe was a vision of Heaven. I saw something. A situation. I can’t tell for sure if it was me welcoming them, or them welcoming me, but I saw my parents in Heaven. Someone’s arrival to the kingdom of God. Us together there. A vision I wish with all my heart to become true. Maybe it was an answer to my worries, in regards to the eternity of my beloved one’s souls.

You see, my mother is a social worker. She is someone entirely devoted to helping others, and for that reason, she’s more christian in acts than me and most people. She is loved and respected by many people in need, elderly, disabled people, people who had accidents and cannot work anymore… Yet, I guess she has been long lost in her private life. For years, I heard she say that she worshipped Satan. My apologies if that comes as a shock to some. To her, the beast was the one who offered freedom and independence, the values she had been cherishing throughout her very hard life. She has fought hard to survive, and many times she told me that she had not given up on life only because of me.
Through discussions, I came to explain to her that the “one” she thought she was worshipping, in the way she described Him, was God himself. Not the other one.
God is the One who gave us our freedom. The way I understand God, He is not as much the “ban”, as the necessity which underlies the ban. I used a metaphor of breathing : “I could choose to stop breathing, to make use of that radical possibility of my freewill. But nobody in their right mind would think of doing that, of course.”
I think she got it.

 

[Lilbrother]

Apparently, the example of my conversion to christianity was the only thing that could make my mother change her mind, gradually.
Not so long ago, she even asked me to take her to the church, but hasn’t dared to go yet, because of my stepfather, a good man who also had his fair share of suffering and may yet still be stuck in a very rational attitude. I love him so much, and hope that he can also see what God offers him at some point.

You see, the importance of forgiveness was brought back to my attention recently. And it is a big issue in my family. My mother was a battered child, and she has never forgiven my grandparents for that. She, her brother and their five sisters were almost all abused. Those were terrifying times, and my mother is still traumatised. For a long time she blamed God for “not answering her prayers” as a child. I told her that God, even if she could not see it, is the reason why she did not give up, the reason why she didn’t follow her friend who died from drug overdose, or why she didn’t end her life to avoid another day of violence. I don’t think she had ever thought of it that way. Life has a way of giving us the impression that we survive on our own strength. It can harden many people’s hearts.
All this being said (I hope I didn’t talk too much), what remains now, at the center of a major fracture in my family is resentment. My mother still needs to achieve forgiveness. I pray for that. She hasn’t paid a visit to my grandparents for many years. She says her absence when they need her is he way of taking revenge. This makes me very sad.

And we all know the importance of forgiveness.
As for my grandparents themselves, I love them immensely, in spite of their history that I can’t allow myself to judge (awful parents often seem to make excellent grandparents). I try to at least have them make amend for their mistakes. Not to me of course. But you know, to whoever is interested. It’s not easy, as people tend to forget, or bury the wounds of the past so deeply that they won’t resurface.

So, maybe the dream I had last night was meant to ease my mind. I don’t know. These people are good people, believe me, they all did their share of good deeds. I also tend to think that I’m worth something, in spite of my flaws, my mistakes, since God continuously sends me signs of His Love no matter what.
I don’t really know where I was going with this topic but, I needed to share it with christian people who can understand my feelings. I wish to save the souls of my parents and grandparents almost more than I wish to save my own. They are everything I have in this world. I don’t always know the words I should pronounce though, to help them see the Love of God.