For those of you who know me, please tell me if I’m ungrateful for things you do and say for and to me. I’ve had this accusation thrown at me more times than I care to remember, and it’s a lie (I hope) that I’m battling right now. Also, if we are having conversations, and you feel I’m not listening, and interrupting you and only interested in hearing myself talk, please tell me.

I met with Dad last night. I was very honest. I tried to be honest with love and humility. Apparently it didn’t come across that way. He was, quite bluntly, brutal. I’ve never had my dad respond to me in that manner. Of course I’ve been rehearsing our conversation over and over in my head, picking it apart piece by piece, word by word. Wondering if I said words with wrong motives and attitudes, thinking that maybe if I hadn’t said this, or maybe said that differently, his response would have been softer.

But I know. I know that he’s wrong. I know he knows he’s wrong. But unwilling to do the right thing. He says he’s not living with her. He won’t answer whether they are sleeping together, because he’s offended I would ask him that. He would dream of asking his parents that.

It was all about how I have know idea what he’s been through. He goes in circles with expressing self-pity, resentful of things, people and circumstances, unwilling to take responsibility for what choices he has made, accusing Michael and I of being ungrateful for the sacrifice he made at age 23 by taking full custody of us, instead of allowing us to go with Mom, but denying that’s what he meant when he expressed that though….on and on and on. Bottom line, it comes down to him. He’s misunderstood. He’s judged. He’s not everyone else walking the right road. He can’t cope (with what???). He refuses to see that reconciliation, or remaining in a place of willingness to be reconciled, with Dawn is the required and only option right now. He feels if he should be reconciling with anyone, it would be Carol.

It’s heartbreaking. He hurt me with several things he said, for sure. But mostly to watch him continue down this road of self-destruct…to be unwilling to admit his failures with humility. It’s ok for him to say he has not one positive memory from childhood, but when I express disappointment and hurt over how his actions hurt me, I’m ungrateful. It is absolutely incredible in a negative way, to see how much he has changed in such a short time. He was so beautifully broken before God in the fall….he is so hardened now.

I’m exhausted. And emotional. And stunned.

God, more than ever, I need GRACE.