Understanding and Forgiveness goes hand in hand….Cree’s Blog

There is truly one thing that in order to move on from something is to ask God for understanding. I’m not saying that you accept the behavior of what you are asking God to help you understand. Try to understand the place in which what was done to you, came from. I hope that made sense. Let me give you an example of what I mean.

My dad come from a place where he had lots of brothers and sisters, and lots of cousins, uncles, aunts living under one roof. In order for him to eat dinner on any night, he had to BE in the house at the table when, dinner was done and ready to be served or he wouldn’t eat……because the food would be gone. The adults didn’t save food for the kids to eat, it was that if you were there, then you had a chance to eat. If you were outside playing, and you wasn’t hungry, then you take your chances as to if you were going to eat that night.

So…… when my dad married my mom and started a family, in our house, we ALWAYS had plenty of food. I can never think of a time when we went hungry, we NEVER had those days. All I remember was throwing out food at the end of the day, because we had too much. We would have so much food in the fridge, that we saved in bowls that after so long it had to be thrown in the garbage.

This type of behavior/mentality comes from the times when my dad was a kid, and went to bed hungry because there wasn’t enough food. He has told us plenty and many of times, that whenever he had a family that there would be plenty of food and that no one would go hungry. Well, my dad made good on that, because as I am 44 years old I can never remember going to be hungry. Never. As an adult I can UNDERSTAND where his mentality comes from when it comes to his children going to bed hungry.

I gave you an example of something that’s positive and through my fathers experience, it has allowed my family to never go hungry. Now, I’m going to give you a not so positive experience and example of UNDERSTANING the situation…. but NOT having to accept the behavior as your own.

When I was a young gurl in junior high, we use to always get our phone, lights and water cut off. I remember times when we had to go over to a family house to bathe until ours got turned back on. Having the phone disconnected was something I hated as a teen, and I made a promise to myself that I would NEVER go through that when I got grown and had a family. Did I understand why this was happening back then…..NO!!! But I do now understand that kind of mentality coming from how my mom and dad were both raised. Do I have to live that way?… HECKE NAW! LOL What I understand is that my dad came from a do or die family. He knew what it was like to go hungry, we didn’t. He knew what it was like to wear hand me downs, ….we didn’t. In my dad’s eyes, he looked at it this way…… our lights may be off today, but at least we have each other. Our lights are off today, but they will be back on next Monday, so in the meantime lets play games and talk to each other. We didn’t like that. I NOW UNDERSTAND where his strength to want to play games, and talk through the fact that our lights are off, IT’S BECAUSE he lived life much harder than we did.There were so many people living in one house, that all they had was each other even when they didnt have food to eat. In his mind it was bonding time…. but even today IN MY MIND….. THE LIGHTS WILL BE ON FOR THAT. LOL I don’t need my lights off to bond. But I Thank God, that I UNDERSTAND the mentality, BUT I WILL NEVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR live it, enjoy it, or desire to visit those days in my adult life. But I must say, it has taught me to pay my bills. I have the best credit when it comes to paying my bills. I try to pay off my bills when I get them and I get paid. I don’t ever want to look up and my services are being shut off, I have been through enough in my childhood days with that. I pay for my cell phone, 2 HOUSE PHONE NUMBERS, lights/gas, cable, Internet, and 6 CREDIT CARDS…YES 6. Just last month I called the cable company and told them that I would be late paying, she looked at my payment history and was like Ms. Walker, your history looks good. I was happy to hear that, so I HAVE TO look at my past and Thank God/parents for that, because what I’ve been through is NOT who I am today. I CHOSE TO BE POSITIVE, NOT TO DWELL ON THE PAST.

The big question…. am I upset with my parents about the conditions in which we as kids had to live? I use to be. Until I asked God for UNDERSTANDING. I needed to UNDERSTAND the place in which these types of conditions came from. Over the years, and I do mean years…… I had to go through my own experiences to UNDERSTAND how things could happen when you never planned them to be that way. Once God showed me that UNDERSTANDING had nothing to do with me ACCEPTING that way of LIFE for MYSELF…. then I was able to LIVE. Then I was able to FORGIVE. Understanding and Forgiveness GOES HAND IN HAND.