A friend came over last night and cleaned. She had also come over and cleaned last Friday. Another friend is coming over on Thursday to clean. Yet another friend is here right now, cleaning my entire house. My brother gave me some money to pay for some cleaning.
I posted a blog entry on Thursday, Feb 2nd, called "What Was Once Done Out of Goodness has Stopped." Then I shared it on Facebook. In my post, I lamented about how people used to clean my house but then the service stopped. Some people responded to my words. I'm sure that many people read my post but didn't respond.
(Some people say things and some people don't. Just because a person doesn't say something doesn't mean they don't care. I know a lot of people care but don't take the next step and say or show it. It's the people who do take the next step, but aren't genuine, that are hurtful.)
Bryan said on Facebook that he wished he was here to help me. Another friend said the same thing. Yet another friend said she'd come over and help me. Her daughter, emailed me and said she'd like to come over and help me on Saturday.
I had allowed my feelings to get hurt when people told me that my church would no longer help me. It hurt when they said that I should seek help from the city. Their words shocked me. I wasn't expecting to hear them and my exposed feelings got hurt. I trusted them and my bare, vulnerable feelings got stomped on by their unhappy news.
One friend had told me that I acted codependent when I didn't say what I needed but expected people to read my mind. They said that my church taught people to be codependent.
Their statements bothered me and I wondered if they were true. I realized they weren't. I didn't expect people to read my mind, I expected them to have good behavior. I sought help from people in my church after my family (Per and Andrew) did what they could but I needed more. People in my church knew about me being sick and needing help. I knew they talked about giving service and being charitable and that's what I expected them to be - for as long as I needed. They helped me for a while but then stopped. When they stopped, it hurt my feelings because I thought they would help me for as long as I needed. This experience taught me to separate my church organization from its people. I truly know that my church's doctrines are perfect but its people aren't. (This is a well known statement in my church: "The church is perfect but the people aren't".)
When I posted about my feelings getting hurt because the service suddenly stopped, my friends and family responded. I had sought help from my family first, then from my church, then from everyone. I am not codependent. I say what I need. Maybe some people in the church are codependent - but my church doesn't teach and has never taught that. On the contrary, it teaches a person to give of themselves and be charitable. People used to do that for as long as needed. Now they only do it for the short term. They do what's easy and don't do what isn't. A good leader could inspire them to be more but that isn't the case where I live.
My friend said it's the first time I've said what I need, and if she would have known that I needed help she would have been here sooner. The statement about saying what I need is true - and false. It's false because I've said what I need - to people in my church. It's true - because I haven't said it to everyone.
Now that I've posted what I did, I've realized that people, both inside and outside the church, want to help me. I only sought help from people in the church. I won't bash my church because I love it, but I know that not only people in my church care about me.
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