Hi JayCee and thanks for sharing.
Forgiving yourself is the only way forward. Guilt is simply the choice to block out some portion of the Love which God has for us; we block it because we feel we do not deserve it.
Your guilt is of a very common type - thinking that you should have known something which you, in fact, did not know; and that you should have acted on that knowledge you did not have.
We're all human. This means we have "a tiny candle" to illuminate reality, and can only make our decisions on the tiny bit of information we have at any given time.
When you hired the cousin, based on everything you knew at that time, were you trying to harm your mom? Or did you think this would be a good and helpful thing for her, to have someone in the family, someone she knows and gets along well, take care of her?
So, if you made your decision based on the understanding you had at that time, how could you have possibly made a different decision? You couldn't have - without knowing the future. Think about it: if we rewound time back to when you decided to hire the cousin, you would have made the same decision every single time, because it made sense to you at that time. How could you have decided differently? You would have had to have been someone else, with different facts or a different perspective.
Now that you do know the future, you would decide differently. But that's not an option for any human being. God made us blind so that we'd fall into various holes, and learn to love each other and ourselves anyway. So God's not mad at you - he expected this. Your mom is fine now - do you believe that? And being on the other side and knowing your intentions, she does not blame you for anything. If anything, I'm sure she appreciates tremendously that you did so much for her.
At this point the only one deciding that you're not worthy of feeling OK is you, dear JayCee. Why is this necessary?
Imagine for a moment that you have a very good friend who went through this - tried to help his parent beyond his capacity, got sick, thought he found someone who he sincerely thought would be a good caregiver, but turned out not to be. Now feels guilty and comes to you telling you how awful he feels. What would you
tell him? Those are the things you should tell yourself.
Anyway, forgiveness is the only way forward. Everything is fine now, so find love for your mom, love for yourself, and just let it go. You learned something from the experience. Nothing more is needed or possible.
Forgiving yourself is the only way forward. Guilt is simply the choice to block out some portion of the Love which God has for us; we block it because we feel we do not deserve it.
Your guilt is of a very common type - thinking that you should have known something which you, in fact, did not know; and that you should have acted on that knowledge you did not have.
We're all human. This means we have "a tiny candle" to illuminate reality, and can only make our decisions on the tiny bit of information we have at any given time.
When you hired the cousin, based on everything you knew at that time, were you trying to harm your mom? Or did you think this would be a good and helpful thing for her, to have someone in the family, someone she knows and gets along well, take care of her?
So, if you made your decision based on the understanding you had at that time, how could you have possibly made a different decision? You couldn't have - without knowing the future. Think about it: if we rewound time back to when you decided to hire the cousin, you would have made the same decision every single time, because it made sense to you at that time. How could you have decided differently? You would have had to have been someone else, with different facts or a different perspective.
Now that you do know the future, you would decide differently. But that's not an option for any human being. God made us blind so that we'd fall into various holes, and learn to love each other and ourselves anyway. So God's not mad at you - he expected this. Your mom is fine now - do you believe that? And being on the other side and knowing your intentions, she does not blame you for anything. If anything, I'm sure she appreciates tremendously that you did so much for her.
At this point the only one deciding that you're not worthy of feeling OK is you, dear JayCee. Why is this necessary?
Imagine for a moment that you have a very good friend who went through this - tried to help his parent beyond his capacity, got sick, thought he found someone who he sincerely thought would be a good caregiver, but turned out not to be. Now feels guilty and comes to you telling you how awful he feels. What would you
tell him? Those are the things you should tell yourself.
Anyway, forgiveness is the only way forward. Everything is fine now, so find love for your mom, love for yourself, and just let it go. You learned something from the experience. Nothing more is needed or possible.
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