Tuesday, October 1, 2013 -- Honouring Our Parents -- Even When They Struggle
Tuesday October 1, 2013
Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God will give you. (Exodus 20:12 NLT)
What are we to do when our parents are strugglers themselves.
How can we view their lives with honour?
1) Realize that they too are made in the image of God and created for good work by God.
2) Admit that talents and abilities we may have were inherited through the DNA of our parents.
3) However flawed their methods, our parents had good intentions and desires for us.
4) In some instances we may need to learn to empathize with mental illness in our parents or their own brokenness from abuse they suffered, even though they passed more of that on to us.
5) We certainly need to learn to walk in forgiveness and acceptance of our parents even as we establish some healthy boundaries if they are still walking in unhealthy life practices.
How can we view their lives with honour?
1) Realize that they too are made in the image of God and created for good work by God.
2) Admit that talents and abilities we may have were inherited through the DNA of our parents.
3) However flawed their methods, our parents had good intentions and desires for us.
4) In some instances we may need to learn to empathize with mental illness in our parents or their own brokenness from abuse they suffered, even though they passed more of that on to us.
5) We certainly need to learn to walk in forgiveness and acceptance of our parents even as we establish some healthy boundaries if they are still walking in unhealthy life practices.
How do we do all that if they hurt us badly and let us down, or even abandoned or rejected us? God, who has loved us through the ugliness of our lives in addiction, wants now to pour that love through us to others, including our parents. We have to ground ourselves in the same kind of loving and trusting relationship with God that Jesus displayed. We do that best by first accepting our own identity as a masterpiece created in God’s image. We need to live rooted and established in our relationship with God accepting the truth that we are valued and loved unconditionally. We need to receive healing and forgiveness daily and allow God to restore us from the inside out. Out of our solid relationship with God we can then love, honour, and value others unconditionally, even as God has so loved us.
So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” (John 13:34-35 NLT)
This loving and honouring others, in response to God’s love and honouring of us, includes our treatment of our parents. We need to show our respect and loving care for them in this life, or, if they are gone from this life, in our memories and way of speaking about them to others. This is God’s plan for a full and long life for us in recovery. Will we enter into that plan today?
©2013 Partners in Hope
More information on this and other related topics @ www.partnersinhope.ca/resources
Audio for Tuesday, October 1, 2013 -- Honouring Our Parents -- Even When They Struggle
Recent Meditations
Giving Hope
Partners in Hope is supported wholly by our friends and community. We are thankful to everyone who partners with us to help bring hope to the discouraged, hurting, and hopeless.