Forgiving Your Parents
This note is not for everyone. It’s only for those who need it.
What we hear on the news about what awful things some parents do to their children, is sometimes almost unbelievable. It is also very hard to understand, and many are often left with questions that do not have answers.
I guess I was pretty shaken years ago, when I found that scripture that asks, “Will a mother forsake her suckling child?” The answer was yes, sometimes it happens.
I think that verse was for some of us who know this in reality, to assure us that no matter what happens in our lives, the LORD will be there for us, even if our family is not.
To those who have or had wonderful godly parents, never forget just how blessed you truly are. For certain, it is the desire of every child to have a warm and loving home, a place of safety and acceptance, to have parents that really love one another and work together.
Perhaps there is nothing worse than a home where the parents continually fight one another and have awful fights and disagreements. The horror a child experiences in the midst of such turmoil and confusion is only fully realized by those who have been through it.
It can rob a child of hope and I am here to tell you that it can cause that child to question God deeply, to doubt His love. There is that unending question, Why?
The harm that is done to that child’s mind is often irrevocable and whether we can face and address the issue honestly and openly in our society, it can cause those children to repeat the same behavior in their own relationships.
Many of us are taught as the morays of our culture teach us that these things should remain hidden at all costs.
It’s not about blaming, it’s about facing the truth and working it out. To be real, some children grew up with lousy folks as parents and have lived in all kinds of hell which they had to keep secret.
I’m not going to say this also happens in the homes of those who seem to be faithful church goers. The point here is, just what does a child do when they grow up with all of this madness in their mind and heart.
Who do you tell. Keep it to yourself, keep it to yourself. Many are so fortunate that they find loving and kind mates later on that help to heal those cracks and produce love and happiness in their own offspring.
Sadly, too many from this background seek out the same kind who mistreat them in the same way.
It takes a lot of work. Some keep hurting their children til the day they depart this earth. Forgiving those people can be one of the greatest obstacles a person can ever face.
“Honor thy father and mother.” How in the world can you honor parents who have been so hateful, manipulative and downright mean? How do you honor someone who beats you up all the time, both physically and emotionally?
Again, it takes a lot of work. It is a hard dose to love someone you feel doesn’t really love you and to keep your head up and appear like everything is fine.
To see others with what appears to be loving and kind homes and you do not is painful. It is even harder to hear someone praise your people when what those people saw was not at all reality.
And if you dare speak the truth, you will surely be cast in their eyes as a nasty, ungrateful and vicious child with no respect.
By the way, secrets can kill. It’s been said that the truth can set you free but it can also make you a lot of enemies. And who can you really trust with this stuff anyway. Who would believe you?
You know, saying “father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing” came along a lot later after many years of wrestling with it.
You learn with much study and labor to look back at your parents family of origin and see just what kinds of things they faced in their younger lives and how their parents treated them. The picture is often the same.
Honoring your parents, even in the toughest of circumstance is something you do for yourself. It can make you or break you as a person. (LORD we need a lot of healing on this subject)
If you truly want to get on with your life, you must one day come to this conclusion: “They did the best they could with the cards they were dealt.” Forgiveness in this area does not come easily.
The trauma can go and come, forgiveness can go and come. It has to be healed. If people get tired of me saying that I can’t help it.
If the Church had been real and faced some of these issues, many would not still be carrying these hurts and being hindered from living the fully free and happy life we were intended.
It didn’t have to be about digging in other people’s problems or family difficulties but teaching healing for all of our emotional problems, no matter what the source was.
There’s been a lot of sick church people and there still are. Religion can often be a mask and a smoke screen for covering real problems in people’s homes.
We can often take a lot of wrong doing from others that we do not really deserve because we were programmed to do that and allow ourselves to be mistreated because that seems normal to us.
One way to start is to go back in the makeup of your parents and deliberately and carefully choose the good things about them and what was right. Like, you have a wonderful talent because it was passed on to you.
You have very nice hair and eyes and intellect because you inherited it from them. Like I said, work at it. Know this, we often do not have the strength to forgive on our own.
We just don’t. Most often, it will take God to help us make this journey. The truth is, one day you just get tired of carrying all this around. The desire to be free becomes greater than the need to keep hurting about it.
I want to share this last thought…..
I went to the piano to sing tonight and make a video to share the song “Someone to Care.” That was my intention.
What actually came forth was an old song my mother and father used to sing together so many years ago, “the Keys to the Kingdom.”
As I started singing, the Holy Ghost began to fall on me and the anointing of the Spirit tapped me on the shoulder. I was so moved that by the time I finished the song, the Spirit wrapped me up and I was weeping and speaking in other tongues for some time.
Only He knows how much I needed that. Some rough things have happened these past days that were so intense I could not even shed a tear.
There was so much tension and old thoughts of past hurts had returned with a vengeance. Jesus helped me to reach back and pull out the good, a vision of two people who sung and that it blessed so many others.
For the first time, my new video camera didn’t work. The only part it caught was the very end, the sound of someone weeping and speaking in tongues in a powerful way. It was for me alone. “When trumpets ring out in the morning, and you step where angels have trod…”
We love. One day, we will learn to think on the good things, celebrate those days that were good, laugh about some of the funny things and forget the rest.
When old heartbreaks come knocking on our door, we can say, no thank you, I gave you up a long time ago. I have many things to thank my parents for.
I can choose to dwell on those things. Everything does not have to be all good or all bad. It can simply be what it was. It’s what I do with it that matters today.
I can do that today. You see, He never forsakes. Never!
First published: March 9, 2011.
~ Robert Blackburn
Thank you. This really spoke to my heart.
I really think this could be simply titled forgiveness as it can apply to many different of relationships. Thanks for the article.
Omg, just wanted to cry.This is definitely for me. Thank you so much brother.
This message is definitely for me. I can remember growing up in a God fearing household, in which I had love for both parents, a loving mother who was humble, meek and compassionate to all. But my father had love for God, but was controlling, had insecurities, in which he demanded I greeting when he came home from work everyday, in which I had to meet him outside as he pulled into the driveway. He received more chastisements on the rear end then I can count, for some things I didn’t do or commit.
Actually for quite some time I was afraid of my father in which everything that he did concerning me, whether it was verbal abuse or close to being physically abused, I was confused in the beginning as to why he treated me like he did, then confusion turned into somewhat resentment, which turned into fierce anger. This changed my life as I begin to get older, embracing so called love from the streets, it made act out, channeling that anger into street battles, willing to handle business by all means necessary if I felt it was called for.
I still had love for the Lord, but couldn’t understand why God who I love dearly allowed me to experience the deep hurts that I went through, as child, in the church and on the streets, up until now experiencing pain that would have driven most people insane, depressed, suicidal or hateful. I could go on, but I will say this message helped me more than you know to begin the rest of the healing process within myself and life.