Tough Love

What do you do when you have a family member who needs help, and who is not able to help himself or herself? Perhaps the person has a mental illness or is in generational poverty, unable to get a job. Imagine you know someone like this and then consider the situations beneath.

What do you do if you know the person has a drinking problem, or takes drugs, and then asks you for money? You know that any amount of money you provide will probably be used to buy alcohol or drugs, and not food. No matter how much money you provide, it never seems to be enough. What do you do when requests for help become demands and include ludicrous threats of blackmail?

Sometimes you don't hear from the person for many weeks, especially when you say you have no money to give, and then you get a phone call months later and the person says, "I love you, can we be siblings again?", and in the very next breath asks for an outrageous amount of money to pay for rent or food or bills that are long overdue. You wonder why the person seems to only call when they need money or something from you.

You consider allowing the person to stay with you, as you feel sorry for his or her plight, yet on pondering the situation, you harden your heart, as you remember the countless times before that the person has arrived home late and a fighting match has ensued and you and your family have feared for your safety.

You have always answered the phone when the person calls and you are friendly, and you offer advice and a shoulder to lean on, yet when the person starts yelling at you the last few times he or she has called, you avoid answering the phone. When you change your phone number, you make sure the person does not know your new number.

Contact between you ends and the memory of this person fades into the distance as years tick by and you feel free of a burden. Many years later, you hear the person has died alone in a field with no money or food or shelter. How do you feel? Is it a relief? Are you racked by guilt? Does anyone around you know about your errant family member, or has it been a closely guarded secret? Do you hope no-one finds out?

The Bible says to help the poor and to help your own flesh and blood: "Isn't it to distribute your bread to the hungry, and that you bring the poor who are cast out to your house? When you see the naked, that you cover him; and that you not hide yourself from your own flesh?" (Isaiah 58: 7 WEB)

The Bible also says one must not hold back discipline from a child or person who does wrong, and could the person spoken about above be equated with someone who needs discipline in the withholding of money or assistance?: "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." (Proverbs 13:24 KJV)

Perhaps what these verses mean is to keep in contact with the person you know, but to withhold any material assistance you might have provided to the person, as a form of discipline, if the person does not allow himself or herself to be helped, and does not change behaviour. What do you think?