How far He will go -

The most amazing miracles that happened during our time of want, during the bankruptcy, the court case, and the time when we were paying off the court fine, happened where it counts most: on the inside.

We learned to depend on God - yes. Out of necessity. We saw some financial miracles happen during that time and since - yes. God knows our needs; that's not in question. But the biggest miracles can't be measured in a measuring cup or by dollar signs. These are the ones that happen in the heart. One of the biggest ones that happened - and perhaps one of the major reasons we had to go through all that - was in relation to my attitude toward my husband's mother.

What I'm about to say might sound harsh, but at the time before we went into bankruptcy it is really how I thought, what I truly believed about her.

I thought she was evil. Not the "Hannibal Lecter" kind of evil. More like the Hitler kind - the kind that really believed it was doing what it was doing for the greater good.

She had bipolar disorder. It is a horrible mental illness caused (in large part) by an inability of the body to extract lithium, a mineral salt, from foods like spinach, lettuce, leafy greens, etc. It meant that she had extreme highs and lows of mood - it used to be called manic-depressive psychosis. Sometimes, yes, it seemed as though she had lost touch with reality.

She took medication for it but she hated what it did to her: weight gain, kidney problems. She would sometimes flush it down the toilet when she was feeling on top of the world. Her better self knew it was not good to stop taking her medication, so usually she remembered that she had to take it. Without it - she was ... scary. Even with it, she still had highs and lows that were far more pronounced than most people's. When she was on a manic phase, she'd talk and talk and talk. Her mouth got her into more trouble. Indiscretion was her chief enemy then - she'd tell anybody anything, her deepest darkest secrets - or ours. When she was depressed - she'd talk and talk and talk - but this time it would be in bitterness, resentment, and frustration over her lot in life. Sometimes it was hard to tell if she was on one phase or the other.

As with most people with a chronic and overwhelming condition, sometimes she excused her erratic behavior with her condition. "I can't help it. It's just the way I am."

I got so sick of hearing her say that.

It seemed - to me - that she would lay awake at night thinking up ways to screw up our lives. Then after only 2 hours of sleep, she'd get out of bed at 5:30 a.m., (there should only be one 5:30 in a day and it's not the morning) call us - no - call my husband up on the phone and refuse to talk to me but only to him. Not even hello. "Is my SON there." I lost count of the times he would just lay in bed with the phone propped up against his ear, mumbling "mfff" into the pillow as she droned on and on incessantly about how hard her life was, how nobody appreciated her, how it was so difficult to have a handicapped child (whom she depersonalized by calling her "a Glenda" - like this: "You don't know what it is like to have a Glenda..."), how her husband never told her he loved her, etc., etc. Once she'd carried on her monologue for 45 minutes or more and the night's sleep had been thoroughly ruined for both of us, she'd hang up ... and the next morning it would start all over again.

That's when we got the answering machine. One with a 30-second cutoff.

Resentment built up in me as the years went by and she made no effort to change. She'd say horrible things, usually about her daughter, and when we'd confront her about them, it was, "I never said that. I would NEVER say that!!" But she did. And always, "It's my condition."

She'd do things for us, and then expect us to return the favor. At least that was how it seemed. I believed there were always strings attached to whatever she did. I began looking for ways to avoid being around her. My husband had learned long ago to just let her talk - she would only get worse if he contributed to the "conversation" by injecting some truth or confronting her about how indiscreet she could be about our own lives in front of complete strangers, and being an extreme extrovert as well as having bipolar disorder.

I remember distinctly my breaking point. I was having breakfast at a local restaurant with my family - my husband and my two small children. We were in a secluded spot so as to be away from view to people coming into the restaurant; we wanted this to be "our time." The door opened and in they walked. She got within line of sight and made a bee-line for us while her husband sat at the table across the room from us. I knew that she would sit down right next to us and monopolize our time, this one time when we just wanted to be the four of us. How dare she!

I felt trapped. I felt like this was our last bastion, and she had ruined it.

I lost it. I was curt, clipped, and very rude to her. After about ten minutes of my downright nasty attitude and my inexcusable behavior, she went back to her table to sit with her husband. She was perplexed. I was still fuming.

My husband was silent for a few minutes. Then he spoke; his voice sounded hurt, bewildered. "Why did you do that? She didn't do anything to you just now. All she did was she happened to come into the same place you were in. She didn't know you were going to be here. What in the world is wrong with you?"

I opened my mouth - but nothing came out. I was without excuse. I had been wrong to attack her like that, and I knew it. And it was at that point that I knew that whatever her motivations were, I was the one with the problem. It bothered me - all that day.

I wanted everything to be all right. I wanted to feel what I knew I SHOULD feel for her. But I couldn't get past the hate, the hurt, the preconceived notions. I couldn't get past all the horrible things she had said to both of us, about us, about her own daughter - in front of her, no less. I could see it was ripping me apart to hold onto this. But I couldn't bring myself to be open to seeing her in a different light.

God put His finger right on that very thing that made me squirm. I wanted to do what He wanted me to do. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it. However - because of how important my relationship with HIM was, I was willing to be made willing... and so I prayed, "Lord, whatever it takes - I want to be willing to let this go."

Within a few months, we sat in a bankruptcy trustee's office.

God had to let everything be taken from us. The pain was so deep, He had to start from scratch so that I could see how wrong I had been regarding my beliefs about her.

The woman I thought was so evil turned out to be one of my - our - strongest allies. The other ally we had was her daughter Glenda, who had been in our corner from the get-go (see my August 3, 2010 post.) My mother-in-law took it upon herself to buy about 50 to 60 dollars' worth of groceries (meat, no less) for us every week - and she kept it up throughout the bankruptcy period. She knew we could never pay her back. She didn't care. She never once asked for anything in return. That spoke volumes to me. She didn't know she was preaching that kind of sermon to me. She just lived it. At every turn, she never ceased to amaze me.

During that nine months and beyond, I had a lot of humble pie to eat, and I ate it alone - nobody knew. Even as we had to deal with the court case and the fine, she stood solidly behind us and refused to believe what the paper said, refused to believe that my husband intended to defraud the government, and kept on just giving and giving. Even when Glenda died in 1999, she kept her heart open to us, and as we helped her go through Glenda's things in the weeks after the funeral, she gave to us out of those items things that she believed would be special to us. And at last, when she realized that we could finally accept financial help, she took what little she had and made sure that we would be provided for in such a way that we knew we didn't ever have to pay her back.

I remember an incident that happened shortly before she passed away that illustrated to me just how much my thinking had changed - in fact, it shocked me when I thought about it afterward.

She'd already had the first heart attack. I had been to her house where there was a meeting going on between the members of the family to decide "what to do with Mom." I heard the words, "institutional care." I was told to leave, just take the children and go - I wasn't part of this decision. That stung. But I left and decided to go to the hospital to see the person they were all talking about. I found myself strangely looking forward to seeing her.

She was so glad to see me, as I knew she would be. I remember seeing a half-eaten meal on her tray. It wasn't like her not to eat. Anyway, I told her ... and I meant it ... that I liked to come and see her because she was always so pleased to see me. Then I said that I had just been at the house and was made to feel like I wasn't welcome there, that nobody wanted me around.

She fixed her gaze on me. There was fire in her eyes. "Well - that's THEIR loss," she snapped.

I was speechless. I didn't know what to say - and I doubt if I could have said anything at all even if I had tried. The last hurdle was gone. I knew that she had been generous all those times because ... she was just generous; giving was her way. And when she wondered why I treated her so badly after all she had done for us, it wasn't a guilt trip. She really was befuddled by it. In those moments, as the children played quietly at the foot of her hospital bed and the clock ticked in the background, I knew I had been so very wrong. So very wrong.

I reached out for her hand. She took it and squeezed it. "Will you do something for me?" she asked. "Will you make sure that that son of mine comes in here to see me? I miss him." I told her I would be able to bring him in, on the coming Monday evening.

She had a second heart attack in the hospital on Monday afternoon, the day I was to bring my husband in to see her, and she passed away before they could revive her.

And I grieved. I grieved for all of the lost time I had wasted being angry with her, all of the special times we could have had if she had been around longer, now that I'd just figured it all out. The resentments had fizzled and disappeared. Love and forgiveness reigned; in fact, it had already happened without me realizing it.

And when I realized (a few days later) just how generous she was, and just what great lengths God went to in order to answer my prayer ...

I sobbed.