Keeping Mom in Your Heart and Learning to Forgive

Today is a day we honor and celebrate our mothers. We buy them gifts to show our appreciation, take them out to dinner or make them breakfast. Sometimes we leave them with more mess to clean up once the celebrations are done.

Next month, we celebrate fathers in much the same way. However, for some people, whether they are adults or children, these two days, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, can be difficult.

If your parents have died, you miss them as the world around you takes the time to spend the day with their mothers or fathers. For children who grew up in an abusive atmosphere, honoring their parents can be difficult when they’ve proven they do not deserve the accolades.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my mom, but she was flawed. In some ways, she was just as abusive as my dad. But, she was also a victim.

I never blamed my mother for what happened in my childhood because she was abused by my father as well. He would beat her for seemingly nothing. I had always thought it was only when he was drunk, until I turned about 13 years old and saw him hitting her when he was stone cold sober.

I wasn’t in the same room at the time, but I saw what happened on the shadows of a wall. She had been lying in bed reading a book before going to sleep, as she often did. I don’t remember what their conversation was about, but I do vaguely remember him asking a question and she answered it.

It was a simple exchange with no animosity. However, I saw the shadows of him looming over her while she was in bed and proceed to beat her with his fist. It is a memory that is forever etched in my mind and on my soul.

My dad was a big guy, he may have only hit her two or three times, but he was strong and he never held back. So, knowing my mother had been beaten by my father, I never blamed her. At least, not until I was about 24, had moved to another state and was staying with my brother and his family.

They were living in the San Francisco Bay Area and I had moved out there upon his invitation. My brother said I needed to leave Kansas and see more of the world, expand my horizons. He was right, so I moved in with him, his pregnant wife and son.

Two months after moving in, they had their daughter. I was enchanted by this little baby. She was so beautiful and so dependent on everyone. It was then I started to become angry with my mother. I would have done anything to protect my nephew and niece, anything. So, I began to question why didn’t she protect me and my brother?

She was the breadwinner in our house because my dad would drink away his paycheck. She basically supported our family, made sure the house payment and utilities were paid and even made clothes when we were young so we could have something new to wear. She was my hero in many ways, but heroes generally have feet of clay. They are human too.

I was angry and resentful in many ways and still am in some respects. One day when we were alone, I finally asked my mom why she didn’t leave my dad and take us away. She asked me in return if I didn’t think she had been depressed and felt powerless to do anything and I realized she would have had to have been. Some of my anger dissipated, but not all of it.

She too had her moments when she was physically and verbally abusive. I won’t go into detail, but there are deep scars from both of my parents. I turned 54 last week and those scars still linger, I still feel anger and wonder why didn’t she do more to protect her children. To me, there are few satisfactory answers to that question.

The Bible says to “honor your father and mother” and I’ve always wondered how to do that when some parents do not deserve to be honored. When the Bible speaks about honoring your parents, it means honor them as you would honor God. It is a commandment which holds the promise of life going well and a long life if you obey this commandment (Ephesians 6: 1-3), which is the fifth out the 10 commandments.  

People always say respect has to be earned, but I disagree. I think you show people respect until they prove to you that they do not deserve your respect, but you still show them the same respect you want have shown to you. “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you” Matthew 7:12. In other words, be the bigger person and live your faith. While abusive parents have demonstrated they shouldn’t be respected, show it anyway.

Small children still love their parents until they start growing up and realize their parents may not be such great people. They start meeting friends whose parents don’t yell or hit them, which can be surprising when abuse is a “normal” part of their household because that’s all they’ve ever known.This realization may take a few years to understand, depending on the child’s age, and when they do, it can destroy their image of their parents.

It’s important to get to a state where you can forgive your parents, even if they are still abusive, for your sake, not theirs. However, that does not mean you are obligated to visit them or put up with their abuse, just don’t sink to their level. This is where forgiveness comes into play, but to arrive at a point where you can forgive your parents, you must start by forgiving yourself!

Abused children carry a lot of guilt because they have wondered what they did to deserve such treatment. As we get older, we know intellectually, that we were not the ones who were wrong. However, emotionally many of us still think there is something within us which deserved to be beaten, called names or told we would never be loved by anyone.

Forgiving yourself is the first step in the long process of healing and being able to forgive your parents. You need to realize you were not to blame, that you were a child who should have been protected and cherished. Even if your parents were raging alcoholics or drug addicts, that doesn’t excuse them for being abusive, it is never a reason to harm a child.

Forgiving yourself, realizing you were not to blame is so freeing because it allows you to move forward with your life and, someday, you will be able forgive your mother and/or father too.

Agents of Change

My mom used to say, “do something, even if it’s wrong.”

I always thought it was a silly saying because if I did something wrong, then I would get in trouble with my parents, my teachers or, depending on what I did, the police. Of course, that’s not what she was saying. She meant do something, take some type of action, instead of waiting for something to happen.

It’s taken me many years to understand what she meant, mainly because I was too busy with work, school and trying to have a life outside of work and school. Then, when school was finished, I was too busy working, volunteering at church and trying to help members of my family. After that, when I no longer had those responsibilities, I just sat and did nothing.

I think I’m just now understanding what she meant and I’m nearly 54-years-old. I still catch myself sitting around and doing nothing, but I’m trying to change, but change is darn hard. Sometimes I don’t know which direction to take, but I’m finally trying to embrace my mother’s words and “do something, even if I think it’s wrong.”

I think we Christians fall into the same trap. We pray for something to happen, but we don’t put in the effort for it to happen. A new career isn’t going to fall in your lap, money doesn’t rain from the sky and your children are not going to become properly behaved ladies and gentlemen overnight. It is important to pray, but you need to “do something” as well.

“You pray for the hungry. Then you go out and feed them. That’s how prayer works.”

I love that quote from Pope Francis because I think it says exactly what God has tried/is trying to convey to us. The Bible is all about taking action and not waiting for something to happen.

From Genesis through the New Testament, God has commanded his believers to “do something,” to take action and to obey his orders. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son to obey God. Moses took action when he began to lead God’s people to the promised land. Jesus commanded the disciples to go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them and teaching them. He didn’t say stay in the temple and wait for them to come to you.

“Go do something, even if it’s wrong.”

We are God’s hands on earth and if our hands (and hearts and minds) are not working to help the needy, the sick, the lonely and others around us, then what good are we as Christians?

If you can’t donate money, donate time, even if you just take a lonely widowed neighbor dinner on occasion or have a cup of coffee with a friend who is struggling. It may seem like a small thing, but to someone, it could change their life.

Saying One Thing, Doing Another and Fooling the People

I had prepared to write a post about judging others, but almost 500 words into it, it wasn’t going anywhere. I still have it saved on my computer, so maybe I will clean it up someday and post it, but not today.

Let’s talk politics.

I am curious why people who call themselves Christians, and claim America is a “Christian nation,” can support politicians who think it is okay to cut funding to hungry, poor children and elderly people? It is literally everything Jesus preached against and did.

When a multitude of people went to hear Jesus speak, a story in Luke 9:12-17 which we know as “the feeding of the 5,000,” the very first thing he did was make sure people were fed. He didn’t admonish those gathered for not bringing their own food and let them do without, but instead, he instructed the disciples to gather the food they had brought, which amounted to two fishes and five loaves of bread, and prayed over it. It was then divided and shared with everyone gathered and was able to sated their hunger. He did this before he spoke to them, it wasn’t their reward for hearing him out because he knew they were hungry, but they wanted to stay hear what Jesus had to say.

Let’s look at those actions with what is happening today in America, the richest country in the world. The country which is supposed to be blessed by God, the supposed leaders of the free world. This “Christian nation” is allowing people to go hungry, to be homeless and to go without life sustaining healthcare.

Yeah, I’ve heard the arguments about how it isn’t the government’s responsibility to feed, house and give people healthcare, but I disagree and my reasons why may pop up on this blog in the future. My beef right now is that people who call themselves Christians, which means followers of Christ, do not reflect his values nor practice what he preached.

Christians are supposed to imitate Christ, not demonstrate the hard hearts of the world. Instead, those identifying themselves as the Christian right, many of them in “Evangelical” denominations, keep voting people to office who simply do not reflect Christian values. They may say they are Christians, or conveniently convert during elections…yeah, I’m looking at you Trump, but they do not walk the walk.

In Matthew 7: 15-20, the Bible says to beware of false prophets who dress in sheep’s clothing because they are really hungry wolves. It says we will know these false prophets by their fruits, or actions. If this is true, then we seem to have a lot of false prophets in office.

These people, mostly Republicans, have fooled the masses by saying what people want to hear, but now they are willing to let people die or survive on cat food due to their arrogance. If we are to know them by their actions, I’m not impressed.

They are arrogant, self-important and cruel in their actions and people are falling for it, especially right-wing Christians. Have believers fallen so far they are willing to hurt innocents among them to get their own way or stay in power?

Remember what happened to another city whose people acted in such a manner. If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, go to Ezekiel 16:49.

Jesus said, what you do for the least among you, you do for me. If you believe we are a Christian nation, then America is failing this test.

As always, share your thoughts, but do not share your malevolence. What I consider abusive posts will be deleted.