Five months ago in September when my housemate D. asked if her 24 year old son B. could move into our living room my gut reaction was NO WAY! Over the past 8 months of living with D, I had only heard bad stories about him and knew how terrified she was of him. She was actually afraid for her physical safety when he was around and I thought she was too afraid to say no to him.
I had a lot of questions, how long would he be staying? She assured me that he would start looking for a job right away. I told I expected him to pay rent of at least $200 and he needed to clean up after himself and do chores as well. I agreed to him staying for 3 months.
B. slowly moved in and over the weeks brought in more and more things. He either slept all day or sat in front of his computer or playing his guitar. It did not look like he was looking for a job. I would find his dirty dishes in the sink and dirty pans on the stove making it hard to prepare food.
I was becoming agitated, by the third month he was unable to pay his $200 and exclaimed that it was too high for rent in a living room. Come to find out he was out of the money and had to rely upon his mom D. to pay the rent.
He wasn’t looking for a job, and i was becoming worked up because my expectations where not being met. I was raised with the attitude that you need to work and sustain yourself. It was eating me up that he wasn’t even looking for a job and mooching off his mother, and taking over the living room that i didn’t even feel comfortable going into anymore because It had become his room. he has the biggest room in the house, with the best sun light and a door that goes to the patio and he’s not even paying rent.
Christmas comes and goes. I am feeling a nervous anxiety about the amount of clutter that is building up in the house . ( Remember that one year ago I moved in with D. who is a classic hoarder and cleaned up the place upon her request. This took us 5 months to extricate the living room. Until April prior, we had no space in living room for another person to sit on the couch much less have room occupy). For the past year there was a pile of D.’s boxes and belongings stacked in front the of the pantry area, making it difficult to get to our food. I had made several requests for this pile to be dealt with.
By the end of December I can’t stand being in my house. I don’t like that Ben is there. Fortunately I leave for 3 weeks and go to Seattle to record a new album with the Tiptons. I stay with some friends in a nice home that is clean and tidy. No piles of stuff blocking my way to the pantry in there house.
When I came home, I had a melt down. It was B. or me. I was going to make D. choose between the two of us. I didn’t move into the the house with the agreement that I would loose the living room that I had worked so hard to have in the first place. It was not my idea to live with her son age 24 who refuses to get a job and contribute.
Then I had a wake up call.
I didn’t want to move out of my house. I realized that D. wasn’t ever going to kick her son out. She would take a second job and get a new housemate before kicking him out onto the street. And I realized how much I love my house. I worked to hard to be hear to walk away. I don’t make enough money to get my own place anyway.
I prayed about it. Was I to move out? I didn’t want to move out. I realized that i really like where I live and I like living with D. and B. was easy to live with too, he never says anything to me. It’s kinda great. It’s like he’s not there almost. What was eating away at my was my own expectation of things.
As I prayed about it the Lord reminded me that he has always provided a way for me. I have lived off the generosity of others myself for times in the past. I don’t know what B. needs or what he has been through. Maybe he really can’t work right now. Maybe it’s all just too much for him. Maybe he is special needs. I have no idea what he needs. So the the Lord let me know that I am to help provide for him right now. That I needed to pray for my enemies and love those that I dont understand. The other thing, is the Lord told me not to look into the living room. Just pretend there is a divider up and I can’t even to in. The Lord put it in me to let that be Ben’s space. Give up ownership of this house and what I thought it could be. Give up what I thought was ‘mine’ that somehow I earned. The Lord reminded me that we are all beggard unto the Lord. So i let it go.
The last thing I did was not so cool. I was eaten up with the pile in front of the pantry. So when D. was out on a business trip, I put her bed up on raisers and shoved all her stuff in under the bed and rearranged the dinning area and cleaned it up to be functional. This was not so good for D. as she felt that I had crossed a boundary. I agreed. I did. I had also been asking her for a year to clean it up.
Several months ago I had started praying for more charity to enter my heart. I guess this is how the Lord is showing me to love my enemy. After all, Christ atoned for B. too.
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