I had a rule in our home as the children were growing up. You couldn’t talk about a family member unless they were present in the room. I grew up with a huge amount of distrust of people in general. I thought people were talking about me because I grew up in a home where people were freely talked about. I saw people being spoken to kindly and then ripped apart when they left. It was my normal. I always thought people were lying to me because I saw that words and actions were hugely disconnected. I didn’t realize this at all. I thought everyone was like us.
When Rick and I married, I said something all the time. No matter what I asked or how he answered, I would say, “Now tell me the truth.” I never believed what he said. He is very honest and always has been. However, I saw life through a frame of dishonesty. Our children carry the atmosphere of their homes everywhere they go. People who grow up in tension filled homes create tension. People who grow up with prideful parents walk in pride. People who grow up feeling loved and safe with Spirit-filled parents (not religious parents) walk in humble confidence. It matters greatly what our children are soaked in every single day.
If you have little children at present and wonder what you are like…look at them. Listen to them. They are you. Good, bad, or ugly; they tell our story.
When Rick and I moved to North Carolina shortly after our remarriage, I didn’t like being around his family because they were so nice to each other. I was bored because they didn’t gossip or tear each other apart. His mom would ask his dad if he would like a cup of coffee and he would kindly answer with something like, “Yes, I would love that.” She would cheerfully go make him one and we would all sit and chat. I wondered when they were going to start being normal and quit pretending. I found out they were normal…I was the abnormal one.
My family said, “I love you” all the time and didn’t mean it. Rick’s family rarely said those words but their love and loyalty to each other ran deep. They had nothing to prove because they were who they were. It nearly killed me. There is something horrible about being around “real” when you are fake. You feel exposed and no one likes to feel naked (ask Adam and Eve).
God slowly started to shape me by being around a healthy family. If you don’t have one and you are jacked up, ask God to give you one to hang out with. I often say I am who I am because of Jesus and Memaw (Rick’s mom).
God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.
Psalm 68:6
To stay unhealthy as a child of God is a choice. He will go to any length to make us emotionally healthy if we will only humble ourselves and be willing to be vulnerable. The hard part about childhood wounds is they usually come with a defensive and hardened heart. I believe many saved people will stay emotionally crippled until they die. They are constantly drowning in the sea of life. The horrible part of that reality is…drowning people will drown the people who try to rescue them without meaning to. I see it all the time. That scripture says “the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.” Hard hearts produce rebellion in children. Rebellion equals a life of loneliness. Hard hearts don’t let people in.
Watchman Nee is a spiritual hero of mine. God used him to shape the Chinese church and his writings have profoundly affected millions of people all over the world. He spent the last 20 years of his life in prison for his faith. How did he come to Christ at sixteen years of age? The answer may surprise you. In the Chinese culture a parent never apologized to a child. His mother’s faith was nominal during his formative years. However, she went to a revival meeting and wholeheartedly gave herself to God. She was so moved by the meeting that she went home and apologized to her son for an unjust beating (his heart had grown hard because of this). This amazed him so much that he decided to attend some of the meetings. He ended up going home and giving his life to Christ.
God saved his soul through a mother who did pretty much everything wrong and then gave herself to God and admitted her wrongs.
He was sixteen so you would have thought it was too late. Never! God would do miracles in our homes if we would only do business with Him. There are adults all over this world who God would radically touch if parents would go to them, tell them the truth, and beg for forgiveness. When I hear parents make excuses or get defensive when their children are damaged because of them, I want to scream. God would pour through you and into your child (teenager or adult) if you would let Him.
Hurt people hurt people; it’s true.
But if one person will get up and break the cycle, generations would be blessed. I have seen adult mom’s apologize to their children for not giving them a life full of God’s Spirit. I have seen souls saved because this door was opened. Admitting we are wrong is only hard at the beginning. When we start to feel the love and power of God coursing through our veins, we get a good addiction to transparency and truth.
When we uncover our mess, Jesus will cover us with His robe of righteousness. Parents think they will lose their children’s respect if they admit their whole lives were pointless as they pursued everything but God. They have no idea that their children need this to happen more than they need anything else in life.
I had the privilege of leading my 70+ year old stepdad to Christ. He got to go to heaven but I remember him saying, “What has my life meant up until now?” His whole life had been self-serving in most ways. He drank a lot, got angry if you interrupted his football game or woke him up during a nap. Don’t get me wrong, he had some great qualities also, but his life added no real value to us because it was void of the only life that mattered; the life of God.
Who cares if you have a home, food, and clothing when the Holy Spirit is not there.
The last part of his life was precious to us. He was a spiritual baby when he died, but like Watchman Nee’s mother, he learned to apologize. God let him live long enough to bring so much healing to me and my sister.
If you are listening to this and you have no peace with your adult children, ask God if you need to humble yourself and apologize. For the love of all that’s holy don’t put a “but” in your apology. To say, “I’m sorry but…” negates everything you have said.
None of us have an excuse for not seeking God and knowing Him.
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Romans 1:20
As soon as we became aware of our surroundings, we became guilty of shutting the God of heaven out of our lives. We are all hostile toward God. It’s the reason God had to send a flood only a few pages into the Bible. Our hostility (though we try to hide it) fuels the hostility already at work in the hearts of our littles.
The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Genesis 6:5
Parents, that’s what we are up against. We have the greatest calling on our lives in the universe. We should get to God, get healed, and let His healing flow into the lives of our children every single day we are alive. We can’t afford to have bad days. People can disagree with me but life and death flows from us. Moses said it best.
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life….
Deuteronomy 30:19-20
One day can change everything. God says over and over again to choose to do things TODAY. None of us are promised tomorrow. One day in His Presence would do more to heal you and your family than a thousand years of self effort.
Stay hurt if you want to but all your excuses will flee on the day you see your Savior. He died not only to save us from hell, but to save us from every single thing that has ever touched us.
The Holy Spirit that lived through Jesus from the stable to His resurrection lives in us. Tell me something He can’t do.
