Recently, I took a trip to Maine to visit my mother. I’ve always
been very close to her, but our relationship has been strained
since I joined a fundamentalist church and started working on
inner healing. This has involved pastoral counseling, which
included healing for sins, including general ones - both my
sins, sins of ancestors, sins committed against me, and my
sinful reactions to the people inflicting them. Healing of
memories has been a part of the process as well. It’s been a
wonderful process, and a grueling process, as I unlock the
layers of self.
This trip to Maine, my mother made an off-the-cuff comment that
I felt that I was an abused child. By her tone of voice, I could
tell she took this personally, and it bothered her greatly. I’m
assuming my attempts at getting help for myself, were to her, a
way of transferring blame onto her for my issues in my life.
That has never been my intent. At some point we all have to stop
blaming our parents, circumstances, and start taking
responsibility for our own problems and healing. I could see,
however, that I had shared too much with her about my process,
which I thought would be exciting to her, and she misinterpreted
it, partly, I believe, because of the differences in our
spiritual views.
After pondering this incident, and many others that had occurred
in my life, what I discovered was, that we’re all broken, as a
result of the sin committed first by Adam and Eve. We all make
mistakes and this affects not only ourselves, but our families.
Personally, I have adversely affected my children’s lives in
ways that may require them to seek psychotherapy or spiritual
counseling, and so did my mother, father, and their parents. We
can’t help it - we’re members of a fallen race.
Fortunately, we can find redemption, with the Lord’s help, with
forgiveness for ourselves, and by forgiving those who have
sinned against us. It’s easier to forgive when we look at it
from the words of Jesus, himself, in John 8:7, “He who is
without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first,” in
speaking of the woman caught in adultery. We are all sinners,
who am I to judge another when I too am a sinner. Judgment is
mentioned again as Luke quotes Jesus again in Luke 6:41, “And
why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not
perceive the plank in your own eye?” These perspectives help us
learn to forgive. Hurting people hurt others, and if we possess
our own degree of brokenness, we have hurt others as well. It
makes loving your enemies, and forgiving your parents when you
choose the perspective of Jesus.
I present myself to God, my Father, regularly, for forgiveness,
and He gives it to me, because He loves me unconditionally, even
in the broken state, before I’ve changed every wrong behavior or
attitude. He loves me right where I’m at. He may not love all
the behaviors, but He loves me just as much broken, as when we
are whole. If only all of us could embrace this unconditional
love for ourselves and others, but it is harder for us to do
without a little help from above. Unfortunately, we humans don’t
always get A’s in the course of life on unconditional love. Our
past wounds often cause us to take things personally, and we
react, not respond appropriately. I have been guilty of such
behaviors in the past, and boy, that has landed me in so much
trouble! I feel my mother is guilty of that with me, or is that
a judgment - if so, I’m sorry mother! I’ve been guilty of not
accepting her just as she is. I know in my heart that my mother
has always loved me, and still does. I don’t hate her for being
human and making mistakes in raising me. We’re all guilty in
making mistakes in our relationships with others. I do get upset
that she doesn’t understand that my desire for inner healing
isn’t a personal attack against her. I’ve made mistakes in
sharing too much of my healing process without realizing it
would be a trigger for her into feeling I was attacking her
parenting skills. My mother is a hurting person, I am a hurting
person. My mother needs my prayers not lack of forgiveness from
me. We also need to forgive and accept ourselves - broken
earthen vessels.
Occasionally, I still manage to beat myself up because I know my
mistakes, reactions and wrong choices have adversely affected
not only my life, but the life of my children. What I am
forgetting is that God is bigger than my mistakes, and He can
help both my, and my children recover from these mistakes, as I
can recover from my parents mistakes. Choosing a path to inner
healing isn’t transferring blame to parents or others, it’s the
opposite. It teaches us not to transfer blame, and stay stuck in
the past, but to accept responsibility for our own healing
process. It frees us from the past to live in the now, and yearn
for a more positive future.
Mom, I love you, and I don’t blame you for being a member of the
human race, and not being perfect. I couldn’t measure up to a
standard of perfection myself. As far as I know, Jesus Christ is
the only one that can lay claim to a perfectly sinless life.
But, through Him, we gain salvation for our sins, so we can go
to the Father, in Jesus’ name, perfected by His dying for our
sins. That is why God offers the gift of his forgiveness, and
his unconditional love. We just need to learn to demonstrate His
unconditional love wherever we can.
My Mom once said as she was being wheeled in for brain surgery,
that if she died, she would know she had lived a life where she
was loved. I know this is true for me too, and I know I was
loved by my mother, and still am. I think so many people need to
be showered with love to know God is real, and to feel His
unconditional love. If we can all just spread some love whenever
possible, whoa, how wonderful. We need to love our enemies,
because they are just broken vessels in need of more love too.
By demonstrating forgiveness and acceptance to others, and
forgiving and accepting ourselves, we can achieve the healing we
need, and discover who we really are. I am just a person in
search of self, with no masks or false selves. We are all want
unconditional love - we are starved for it! I have four pets
because they’re better at providing unconditional love than I
am. That’s why pet therapy is so effective, and people with pets
tend to live longer. Animals have perfected something we humans
haven’t, and we call ourselves a higher species? We can learn
from them, and small children. Even when we mistreat them, they
give us back their unconditional love, capable of no less. We
learn to be unforgiving and conditional in sharing our love.
Pets and children are such wonderful blessings from the Lord.
They can model unconditional love to us! Wow! God is good!
