No Such Thing As Living in the Past

@DrHenryCloud: There's no such thing as living in the past. There is only creating the past in the present. Create something new instead.....now.

Wednesday afternoon on the drive toward Asheville we received a call from the police, this time it was both the constable and the police who called.  After a bit of a respite from accusations by my father, they have started again.  He claimed we had unscrewed the windows and came inside the house and chloroformed him in order to steal his wallet and his money.   I am noticing that his story has taken a different bent, away from the official stock and bank story since the facts proved him wrong and now is on a personal level, his possessions in the house.  There isn't an official inquiry for that...he thinks they should take him at his word...except, we aren't even in the vicinity. Thankfully, we are in North Caroline again when this has happened.  I talked to one officer and told the same true story that I have told other officers and officials just like him, I have not seen nor spoken to my father since March 27, 2012.  Each time when the truth is so clearly evident, people dealing with him are so baffled because he is so convincing until they partner his story against the truth.  With his repeated phone calls to authorities he keeps himself on their radar.  Not the thing he wants and is so afraid that we are doing to him when the truth is obviously we aren't going over there.  

I truly believe he cannot fathom that we don't need his money or stock or possessions and that is a part of his anxiety and paranoia.  That is the treasure of his heart and his value that he uses to love or whatever he calls his definition of love.  It is sad that he has turned into the person that he has despised all his life, his mother.  She played people off of each other all the time.  She played favorites.  The world revolved around her and she stopped people from enjoying activities because if she didn't want to do it, no one got to do it.  She simply kept everyone off kilter.  She made promises she would not and could not keep.  Most of the time any gift or kindness had a hook to it and she wasn't afraid to pull that hook any time to her benefit.  Her illnesses and aches trumped anyone near or far.   There is the picture of my father who has taken all these things and added his own mean mark and anger to them.  

Thus, @DrHenryCloud: There's no such thing as living in the past. There is only creating the past in the present. Create something new instead.....now.   This is a good word from Dr Cloud.  This has been my desire  to break the chain and not live in the present past.  When these kind of things happened before with my father it used to take weeks to overcome the hurt and begin to move on.  As time goes by, the time of hurt grows to be less and less.  So Wednesday when the phone call came and after the conversation, it was mere minutes of 'how could he?'   In fact I think Roy stayed miffed longer than I did which surprised me.  

Roy has often said don't let people and the past define who you are today and he is not a professional counselor but a lawyer and CPA.  We have encouraged one another in our journey together to believe God who makes all things new...His mercies and compassion are new every morning.  There were those days that we had to say to ourselves it is morning somewhere in the world when we had failed in our own mornings and dashed outside of His new mercies or totally ignored them.   

These days I am all about creating something new instead...now.  The Psalms are filled with the words sing unto The Lord a new song.  A new song, not the old tired song of nobody knows the trouble I've seen or why me or they done me wrong....create something new...now!  Create a clean heart in me and renew in me a right spirit....new, now.  Faith is looking forward, fear and bondage comes from always looking back.   Self absorbtion comes from looking within too much and too long.  

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I wrote the above several weeks ago and held onto it.  Roy called me this evening and my father had left a message.  Again, he sounds normal, has a normal cadence to his conversation and then he gets spiteful.   Doug had told me several weeks ago that my father was putting together some boxes of pictures and such for me.  My father has sold his house and blessedly will be moving into assisted living.  So on this phone message he goes into this I am at his house all the time sitting in his living room and I should have taken the boxes already.  If I don't come get them he is having Salvation Army pick them up.  Poor Roy, he is having to deal with this and will have to find a courier or a mover to pick up the boxes and have them delivered to us at home.  So, he is talking to Doug right now getting any particulars he needs to know.  You see, I do want the pictures and who knows what else will be in those boxes.  I can only imagine....or maybe he has defaced the pictures, who knows.  Tonight, after a wonderful day, coming home tired and then hearing this stuff has wearied me just a bit.  This morning for my quiet time I read Psalm 27 verse 10, even if my father and mother abandon me, The Lord will hold me close.  Then David asks God to not let him fall into his enemies hands and he closes with this very well loved and quoted verse, I would have despaired unless I believed I would see the goodness of The Lord in the land of the living.  Wait patiently for The Lord.  

Psalm 120- I look up to the mountains does my help come from there?  My help comes from The Lord who made heaven and earth.