Hi all,
Today we conclude this important series.
Finding 'my truth', 'protecting my peace'
Adult children who tell their parents these things are deceived into thinking they are protecting themselves, but in reality they are shoving their pain under another layer. Their minds become weaker as they run from those who challenge them. Real peace comes from learning how to navigate the difficulties of life. Strength comes through maturity and emotional maturity.
An emotionally healthy young person will realize...
...their parents weren't trying to control them, but to protect them. Parents speak from experience, having been hurt in the world, they have made mistakes and aren't perfect. At some point an adult child will realize it wasn't about control, but protection. Instead of pulling away from mom and dad, they will esteem them higher in their lives, pulling on their experiences good and bad.
What goes around comes around
The actions you take to your parents now is what your children will do to you. They will hear you say one thing, but will watch what you do, which is training. They will grow up to be just like you. You will be training them to avoid relatives who love them, to avoid conflict, to look for offense. You will one day experience the same alienation from your own children that you are now doing to them. Every missed birthday, every missed holiday that you now avoid with your parents, will be done to you. Is that what you want?
I said I would get back to this
On a larger scale, once mom and dad are dishonored in this way, your offense and refusal to deal with real issues spreads insidiously into your whole life. When I said previously the last 5 commandments are directly linked to honoring mom and dad, this is what I was talking about. Your life will be stolen from, your emotions will be stolen, your time will be stolen, your child-like faith will be stolen from you. Those you love will be unfaithful and betray you. You will want what others have when you see happy marriages and children, and successful live. You will find yourself the victim of those last 5 Commandments, for the command to avoid those sins are directly linked to honoring your parents.
My advice is therefore to stop the cycle you are creating.
Get off the merry-go-round before it is too late. Sit down with your parents to hear their side of things. Let them tell you their life story, before they knew the Lord, mistakes made before and after. Hear the burdens they carried for you that you never saw. Hear their pain. Hear how they have grown in life and the Lord. Parents, be vulnerable. Kids, realize they are flawed just like you, but are the only ones who love you in the way only parents can love their child. There is no one on planet earth who loves you in such a way.
You have to get to an age when you have to stop blaming your parents for everything. You have to stop replaying the same story over and over letting it excuse you for every choice you have made. Blaming your parents for your entire life is taking zero responsibility for your own growth. Healing isn’t cutting those who love you out of your life. You aren't healing by inflicting pain on your parents by not showing up for birthdays and holidays.
Reaction or response?
Popular culture which includes social media, trains people to react, when in fact a response is needed. A reaction is knee-jerk, emotional, and done without thinking things through. A response is done once a situation has been thought through with the purpose of a plan.
A response is measured. For instance, if a person reacts with an anger that is greater than the level of offense - something deeper is going on in them. For a child to react by completely ending all communication and contact with their parents, it is a reaction.
Now it is time to put on your big boy pants and respond. Not react, respond. Both parents and child in this study are adults. Be adults. Kids, this isn't social media where you can react and blow up like the kid you were having a tantrum. No, it is now time to sit face to face with mom and dad and respond - it will be a negotiation and you won't end up saying everything imagined saying (goes for mom and dad too). But you will be able to air enough to be at peace with the compromise.
Learn to control your reactions because they are your parents and they will make you angry, they will offer advice you don’t want, they will challenge you. Blaming your parents for your life circumstances is avoiding the facts of your own choices. You need to stop viewing any social media that feeds the breaking up of the relationship, and distance yourself from people who feed your hurts.
Give parents back their authority
Step back and allow a parent to step in, they offer options, experience, they add perspective. Allow them to step in before a crisis happens. Allow their opinions even if different, don't be threatened, be empowered - it's a matter of perspective.
The Prodigal son
The story of the Prodigal Son is found in Luke 15:11-32. Volumes have been written about him and his brother. The son asked for and received his inheritance early, and spent it all on lavish living. He ended up feeding pigs while working for a Gentile - something upright Jewish man would have done in that day.
While feeding the pigs and realizing they ate better than him, making him unclean on a level beneath pigs, Jesus said; 'he came to himself'. That moment is what every parent who has an adult child who has cut them out of their lives is looking for.
Paul's prayers of Ephesians 1:17-19 and 3:15-20
These are prayers asking the Father to work on the inside of people. He asks in 1:17-19 that the Father give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him that they may see the invitation He has extended.
In 3:15-20 he prays the Father will strengthen them in their inner man by His Spirit so they can know the love of Christ which is beyond knowing mentally. Paul also compared praying for someone like being in labor in Galatians 4:19:My little children, I am travailing in birth again until Christ be formed in you.
Parents - don't give up, pray along the lines of Paul's prayers, which weren't about seeing them do this or that, rather that they be changed from the inside out by the Father's Spirit.
Adult children - do the same for your parents. You have each been wrong.
Both parents and children will have to forgive each other, and realize that peace between them is more important than going over every single little thing that led to them cutting off contact. Jesus said forgiveness is a decision not an emotion:"When you stand praying, forgive if you have something against someone." Mark 11:25-26
Make the decision to lay all the justifications aside - mom, dad, child - and decide to forgive and move forward. Make steps to act on that decision. Be the bigger person. Take the initiative and then to the other, accept that initiative.
Emotions may take years to work through once a person has made the decision to forgive.
There will be times a horrible memory will come roaring back into your memory. The way to deal with it is that once you've worked through that emotion, you bring that emotion back to your decision to forgive. You will find once you go through all that anger again and bring it back to that decision, God will heal you. The memory will remain but the pain will be gone. That is how you know He has healed you.
There could be much more to say, but this is enough. New subject next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
cwowi.org and email me at [email protected]
Today we conclude this important series.
Finding 'my truth', 'protecting my peace'
Adult children who tell their parents these things are deceived into thinking they are protecting themselves, but in reality they are shoving their pain under another layer. Their minds become weaker as they run from those who challenge them. Real peace comes from learning how to navigate the difficulties of life. Strength comes through maturity and emotional maturity.
An emotionally healthy young person will realize...
...their parents weren't trying to control them, but to protect them. Parents speak from experience, having been hurt in the world, they have made mistakes and aren't perfect. At some point an adult child will realize it wasn't about control, but protection. Instead of pulling away from mom and dad, they will esteem them higher in their lives, pulling on their experiences good and bad.
What goes around comes around
The actions you take to your parents now is what your children will do to you. They will hear you say one thing, but will watch what you do, which is training. They will grow up to be just like you. You will be training them to avoid relatives who love them, to avoid conflict, to look for offense. You will one day experience the same alienation from your own children that you are now doing to them. Every missed birthday, every missed holiday that you now avoid with your parents, will be done to you. Is that what you want?
I said I would get back to this
On a larger scale, once mom and dad are dishonored in this way, your offense and refusal to deal with real issues spreads insidiously into your whole life. When I said previously the last 5 commandments are directly linked to honoring mom and dad, this is what I was talking about. Your life will be stolen from, your emotions will be stolen, your time will be stolen, your child-like faith will be stolen from you. Those you love will be unfaithful and betray you. You will want what others have when you see happy marriages and children, and successful live. You will find yourself the victim of those last 5 Commandments, for the command to avoid those sins are directly linked to honoring your parents.
My advice is therefore to stop the cycle you are creating.
Get off the merry-go-round before it is too late. Sit down with your parents to hear their side of things. Let them tell you their life story, before they knew the Lord, mistakes made before and after. Hear the burdens they carried for you that you never saw. Hear their pain. Hear how they have grown in life and the Lord. Parents, be vulnerable. Kids, realize they are flawed just like you, but are the only ones who love you in the way only parents can love their child. There is no one on planet earth who loves you in such a way.
You have to get to an age when you have to stop blaming your parents for everything. You have to stop replaying the same story over and over letting it excuse you for every choice you have made. Blaming your parents for your entire life is taking zero responsibility for your own growth. Healing isn’t cutting those who love you out of your life. You aren't healing by inflicting pain on your parents by not showing up for birthdays and holidays.
Reaction or response?
Popular culture which includes social media, trains people to react, when in fact a response is needed. A reaction is knee-jerk, emotional, and done without thinking things through. A response is done once a situation has been thought through with the purpose of a plan.
A response is measured. For instance, if a person reacts with an anger that is greater than the level of offense - something deeper is going on in them. For a child to react by completely ending all communication and contact with their parents, it is a reaction.
Now it is time to put on your big boy pants and respond. Not react, respond. Both parents and child in this study are adults. Be adults. Kids, this isn't social media where you can react and blow up like the kid you were having a tantrum. No, it is now time to sit face to face with mom and dad and respond - it will be a negotiation and you won't end up saying everything imagined saying (goes for mom and dad too). But you will be able to air enough to be at peace with the compromise.
Learn to control your reactions because they are your parents and they will make you angry, they will offer advice you don’t want, they will challenge you. Blaming your parents for your life circumstances is avoiding the facts of your own choices. You need to stop viewing any social media that feeds the breaking up of the relationship, and distance yourself from people who feed your hurts.
Give parents back their authority
Step back and allow a parent to step in, they offer options, experience, they add perspective. Allow them to step in before a crisis happens. Allow their opinions even if different, don't be threatened, be empowered - it's a matter of perspective.
The Prodigal son
The story of the Prodigal Son is found in Luke 15:11-32. Volumes have been written about him and his brother. The son asked for and received his inheritance early, and spent it all on lavish living. He ended up feeding pigs while working for a Gentile - something upright Jewish man would have done in that day.
While feeding the pigs and realizing they ate better than him, making him unclean on a level beneath pigs, Jesus said; 'he came to himself'. That moment is what every parent who has an adult child who has cut them out of their lives is looking for.
Paul's prayers of Ephesians 1:17-19 and 3:15-20
These are prayers asking the Father to work on the inside of people. He asks in 1:17-19 that the Father give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him that they may see the invitation He has extended.
In 3:15-20 he prays the Father will strengthen them in their inner man by His Spirit so they can know the love of Christ which is beyond knowing mentally. Paul also compared praying for someone like being in labor in Galatians 4:19:My little children, I am travailing in birth again until Christ be formed in you.
Parents - don't give up, pray along the lines of Paul's prayers, which weren't about seeing them do this or that, rather that they be changed from the inside out by the Father's Spirit.
Adult children - do the same for your parents. You have each been wrong.
Both parents and children will have to forgive each other, and realize that peace between them is more important than going over every single little thing that led to them cutting off contact. Jesus said forgiveness is a decision not an emotion:"When you stand praying, forgive if you have something against someone." Mark 11:25-26
Make the decision to lay all the justifications aside - mom, dad, child - and decide to forgive and move forward. Make steps to act on that decision. Be the bigger person. Take the initiative and then to the other, accept that initiative.
Emotions may take years to work through once a person has made the decision to forgive.
There will be times a horrible memory will come roaring back into your memory. The way to deal with it is that once you've worked through that emotion, you bring that emotion back to your decision to forgive. You will find once you go through all that anger again and bring it back to that decision, God will heal you. The memory will remain but the pain will be gone. That is how you know He has healed you.
There could be much more to say, but this is enough. New subject next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
cwowi.org and email me at [email protected]
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