Everyone, I would like to confess something. I know my whole Sarah's Knight persona thing may seem too cutesy at times to be thought of as at all serious, but it is true that I wish for more discipline and a personal AND Biblical sense of honor - much like a knight - in my life, and so if I may, I wish to remain accountable with all of you when I know I have drastically failed at it. (And of course it is also true that I hold being kind, complimentary, and chivalrous towards both girls my own age
and at extreme age ranges such as children and the elderly.)
Thus, I want to confess to you all that I have noticed something about myself as of late; living with my mother appears to have made it that recently I have lost nearly all sense of the fifth commandment, to honor my parents. At least in terms of my general and verbal attitude with her. And while of course she has, well, made it difficult oftentimes, that does not give me an excuse to just disobey the commandment to honor her. And it's just that lately I have found myself very defensive and short in tone around her - not yelling and swearing at her, thank the Lord that I would not go to that extreme - but still inexcusable. I have wondered, honestly, if many of the things she did in the past to my sister and I when we were children that were mistakes, have somehow remained painful memories in my heart without my realizing it and I am still taking my anger over it all out on her at times to this day, as though every time she opens her mouth and sounds the least bit intrusive, negative, or demanding, I remember the past when her words and actions had a much, MUCH great negative impact on me and I just automatically assume she intends to hurt me somehow with her words and I get very short with her in my response, not even giving her a real chance to talk. I thought any anger I might still feel in my heart over the distant past would be alleviated when I opened up to her a few months ago about those past things, by my just calmly and un-accusingly telling her about specific incidents where she really hurt me and they still haunt my memory, and she apologized briefly for them and everything was fine after that. But apparently there is a part of me that has not accepted that apology, and I find myself still punishing her for it sometimes in some twisted subconscious sense of balancing the scales when they do not need to be. And again, in any event, just because one's parents may not do everything right, doesn't mean that you have the right to disobey the fifth commandment. We are not to return evil for evil, regardless. And I am guilty of this, sometimes returning evil for intended good! It is not how a knight behaves towards his mother. It's not like she was a physically abusive tyrant who knew nothing about loving her child or anything. No, she still endured heavy labor to give birth to me 31 years ago in a Chattanooga hospital, and while she may be unnecessarily intrusive at times int he so-doing, she is also still giving me physical shelter for no cost right now at a time in my life when she has no obligation to.
I trust the majority of you here in the singles community as friends I can be open and honest with when I fail to meet both God's and my personal standards as a knight, so I just wanted to do that. I will try my best to change this for the future.