FEELING USED....Again.

I used to think that this was a pretty good picture of me. Apparently, this is not how most people see me.

Yeah, THIS is what they actually see when they look at me. Just another TOOL to be used. I know that a lot of the time I come off as a kind of crusty, hardshell exterior to a hard ass interior wrapped around the semblance of a Liberal heart. I guess that is sometimes true.  But I try really hard to live my life as a constant example to the young minds God blessed me with to mold and shape into true, good and productive humans; humans who have empathy for others and will, without a second thought, offer help to those in need, provided it does not leave their own family destitute. After all, charity DOES begin at home.

We do what we can to help families in need. And this is not a "please pat me on the back for being so generous" request. I don't think that this is anything to brag about. In fact, I don't really want to put that on here because I feel it now has taken away from any blessings that we may later be entitled to from God in the Hereafter. But without that statement, I can't explain why I feel like such a tool. When I help someone with either food, handed-down clothes that my kids can no longer fit, or money, etc, it is because I see that there is a need and we have the means to fill that need. It makes us more grateful to God for the things that He has blessed us with. I know that I'm more grateful every day that my husband is the one that God chose for me because he works hard and makes sacrifices for me and our kids; because he is grateful to God for all that we've earned and have been given.

But when one of the recipients of your generosity sends his/her kids over to your house to ask for a "spare curtain rod" that they noticed in your bedroom on one of their visits to your house where they wandered around nosing through stuff.............I'm left with the thought:  Really?! A spare curtain rod? I pay for those things by the meter and you want I should send one over to you? What's next? My curtains? My t.v.? Get the hell out of here!

I told her kids that I don't have a spare curtain rod and sent them home. But you know, after a day of the usual "usage" by my own kids with their constant barrage of "get me" and "I need" and "I want" and a huge dose of "he said" followed by "she hit," THIS was not a needed request at all. Ungrateful and greedy people make it difficult to be generous. This is probably going to be viewed by a lot of my readers as snarky on my part...and maybe they're right. But feelings are not right or wrong. They just ARE. And I'm feeling a little on the stabby side now so I'm hoping that this  person doesn't send her kids back over here. They don't know what Halloween is here, so I can't explain away the butcher knife. Can I?