Having a conversation with my adult daughter is like walking on a razor blade. Some days I am wearing combat boots and it is quite comfortable and today I must have been out of my mind and ventured out there bare footed....again!!!  We started out ..or should I say I started out quite innocently talking about my beloved grandson who I watch for her daily since she has found no one else who can since finding her  job which works odds hours of the day and evening.  The term "oh Mom will do it" seems to be oh to familiar in my daughters vocabulary...both to her duties and also to give away to her friends. It seems I am so talented that she is either proud of what I can do or thinks I have nothing better to do with my days than to help her and her friends out with their kids and projects or she is trying to keep me busy so I will not feel old and useless as she as averted to a few times in conversation.  My delema is finding the balance, the boundary and the dignity to stand up and say I think this is not what I really want to do.  I have always had a hard time saying NO...not only to her but to anyone.... I always want to be an example of giving and giving and giving and going the extra mile... Until I am exhausted and burnt out.  I have been learning over the past 10 years or so that my miles are not always to give to others ....they sometimes are to give to me in order that I have to give to other when God asks me to give to others (?).  Another words I need to hear His voice and follow Him and not anyone else. So in terms of this conversation....I said something that made her cry.  I was direct, emotionless (she said) and uncaring (she said) , and made her feel like crap right before she had to go to work.  Thanks alot MOM!!!

So now I feel like crap, and have been crying ever since....but the truth be told....what I said was the absolute truth. I am so sorry that she feels this way about my delivery,  that I am direct and unemotional.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I love her and her son more than life and would give mine up for them. In fact I do on many occasions. But she only sees the way I speak and try to control her, or change her. How I "make" her feel.  Oh how I wish my mother were alive today so I could tell her that I messed up so bad in my life because of sin and not because of the way she was with me.  I used to yell and fight and tell her horrible things and do and say and act wickedly in front of her to make her think that it was something she did to make me rebel like that.  The way she left my dad, the alcohol she drank the parties, my step dad the way she beat me, something...and yes it mattered...But it is sin that separated me from God not her. Sin made me wicked and evil and put drugs into my veins not her....I loved her and wanted her attention and love back.

   And I know when my daughter is yelling at me and crying and hurting there is that little girl that is saying deep inside ....but mommy something is wrong and I don't know what to do and I need you to fix it and I don't know how to ask.....mommy I love you and need a hug....