Honor your mother and father

[Grasshopper2000]

Sorry I have asked a few questions recently.

Anyway, the Bible says honor your mother and father, but how do you do that when your mother abused you as a child? I still see my mum although our relationship isn't particulalry good, but I would rather have no contact with her at all, but I know that wouldn't be right.

 

[Fire Angel]

Hi Grasshopper2000, Some years ago I asked the same question. A person told me I can honor my parents by living for Jesus, what we were created to do. i found peace in my heart doing this. Since than, Father God has become my Father and Mother. Because my parents did abuse me to. Once a parent abuses and does not change, I became an orphan, and my Father God took me up. Why not ask Him for you to.

 

[Grasshopper2000]

Thank you fire angel. My mum has changed as she doesn't abuse me now. She still tries to control my life and has no respect for me at all, which is part of the reason why I would be happy to have no contact with her at all. I'm asumming from your response you don't have contact with your mum? I would feel guilty doing that now as she doesn't still abuse me. But, I suppose I'm wondering how much of a relationship I need to have with her to still be 'honoring my parents' and to not be hurting her unessecarily. I hope that makes sense - I seem to have lots of thoughts going round my head at the moment!!

 

[Johnnz]

Where there is a general principle we must not let that override specific situations. We can't really honour an abusive, inadequate parent because their behaviour does not justify dong that. We can forgive, not talk about, try to keep the relationship going to some degree. But we must not pretend, or just try and suppress how we feel. That would be dishonest.

John
NZ

 

[Fire Angel]

Hi Grasshopper, Just love her. If she does not respect you at all and controls, saying thoughts words sounds like there could be abuse, depending on her reasons.
My parents were abusive, and very unhealthy for me. My mom died some years ago, but I could not be in their lives because of the abuse, they never changed.
Boundaries are healthy. There is a book that maybe good to read called Boundaires by Townsed

 

[DrFrank]

From a Christian perspective,forgiveness is much more important than honor.Contact with your mother can make total forgiveness,which will come over time with a softening of your memories,impossible because she still is engaging in parental misconduct.

Mark 11:26 (King James Version)

26But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.

It's very difficult living in a nation that is still fighting a war in Afghanistan 9 years after the New York City terrorist attack to retaliate against our "enemies" who Jesus has commanded us to love,to realize just how essential to salvation forgiveness is.

Until you have been able to forgive your mother completely for her past misconduct,it is essential that you eliminate contact with her to prevent any current misconduct from ripping open old wounds even if that limits your contact to the mailing of Christmas and birthday cards for a period of time.

FORGIVENESS IS THE BEST WAY TO HONOR YOUR MOTHER!

 

[Fire Angel]

Grasshopper, I agree with Dr. Frank is sharing on Forgiveness, but just love her, as Christ loves her. You could ask the Lord, to show you haw to love her. Even though in your heart you may feel you forgave her, there may still be area's that still have hurt there that forgiveness needs to flow.
I thought I had forgiven my mom, and went to a healing room to find out I still had unforgiveness towards my mom, I was shocked. So every day I went to the Lord and said, Lord I choose to forgive my mom. Than one day I was doing something and a release of tears came, and the forgiveness broke, I was release into forgiving my mom, and the Lord spoke to me concerning her, at her death bed she came to Jesus. Even sharing this now, my tears are following, this is one of the ways the Lord works. Try just choosing every day, a choice of your free will, and see what happens. When forgiveness is release, you will also feel the Joy of Lord. Bless you.

 

[Grasshopper2000]

Thank you for your replies.

What is forgiveness, how do I forgive and how do I know whether I have? These sound really silly questions - I'm a Christian so I should know what forgiveness is and I thought I did, but the more I think about it the less I know about it - if that makes any sense.

I used to think that I had forgiven my mum, but I realised that I hadn't I just thought that she believed she was doing the right thing and that the things she said and did were justified. So I blocked it out my mind and didn't really realise there was anything to forgive.

I have now realised that my mum was wrong and now I feel hatred towards her and part of me wants no relationship with her at all. Surely I haven't forgiven her if this is how I feel? Also, part of me doesn't actually want to forgive her and feel quite annoyed at the thought that I should forgive her. But, how then do I change my thoughts and forgive her?

 

[Fire Angel]

Hi Grasshopper, Forgiveness is a choice in your heart. When I thought I had forgiven my mom, and found out there was more unforgiveness, I was shocked. I made a choice in my will, each day and asked the Lord I choose to forgive her, and in time, a long time the forgiveness came. Forgiving another human being, releases them to God, but it also releases you to, so God is free to work in your life more. See in one area you may of forgiven your mom, to find there is another area that still has unforgiviness. Try not to be hard on your self. I just went to the Lord every morning before getting up and release my mom to the Lord and asking the Lord help me forgive her, until one day the forgiveness came and it broke me free to.

 

[Jeshurun30]

Don't forgive her. What she did to you was horrible. Learn that God will punish her. And trust in Him to do it. Ask for Him to have mercy on HER. And tell Him you wish she could be forgiven for what she did. But she probably won't. People who do such things are warped and sinning and should be rejected. If you live with her still, learn how to fight from the inside, with faith, knowing that YOU did nothing wrong, and were LIED TO, AND wronged. Stand up for yourself, even in the face of death. Cling to the cross and wait on Christ to come back. Because He is...and very soon. Do not let what someone else did to you keep you in bondage. Ask Christ to open your eyes and give you wisdom and clarity of thought to see through the lies of the enemy. And pray without ceasing. Read the word. STAY IN THE WORD. And praise God a lot. I know this all seems like a tall order, but if you are to overcome the devil, antichrist, and false prophet, you are going to need to do such things and win. I know it seems hard, because we all fear death. But if you trust in Christ, He promised whatever you ask in His name He will do. So you can literally pray to Him that He never lets anyone hurt you, and no one will, if you only believe it is true and trust Him about it. Then just live. Wait on Him. After you do these things, you will feel the anger towards her subside and be able to start loving her back by just praying that she be forgiven. But the Bible says if anyone causes a little child to sin, it would be better for them if a millstone were hung about their neck and they were thrown into the ocean. What she did was vile, and meant to destroy you. You must trust in Christ and let HIM do the saving. Just wait on Him and know that there are other true Christians and people who are going through what YOU went through. And they too can reach a place of freedom and happiness and be saved, if they will believe and wait and endure. Hope that helps.

Matthew

 

[blast]

"But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sin"
Matthew 6:15

I have sinned against God in numerous, countless ways yet he chooses to forgive me, in fact he says that he will remember my sins no more. I find it easier to forgive when I do it the way God does it, not count it against the person any longer, draw a line under it in one sense.

But yes, it doesn't mean you don't have boundaries and I don't believe God wants us in unhealthy situations all the time or for people to draw us into temptation (to sin against them per se). Considering many people are compelled to cut ties with sinful, unbelievers once they are so saved so they won't cause them to stumble, to an extent this may apply to abusers who are still in one sense abusive.

However their sin does not, I believe, make us sinning against them permissible and we are called to walk in love not hate and there are many examples in the New Testament of how we are to treat those who persecute us.

If an abuser does not change and repent of what they did to you among other things and accept Christ, what will happen to them will be so much worse that what anyone else could ever do to them.

Therefore I think the ideal situation is to reach a point where the person is actually able to ask you for forgiveness and that only comes with God. For many perhaps this may not happen, but you can only do your part while praying for the their part to manifest.

This can be a difficult and complex process but ultimately you forgive for your own sake and because it's the right thing to do because Jesus died a terrible death for God to be able to forgive you and he demands we do the same.

Where would any of us be without God's forgiveness.

*Jeshrun, i'm worried that you don't think it's important to at least try to forgive.

 

[Singermom]

My mother-in-law abused my husband. She had 3 children: she treated her two daughters like little princesses, giving them whatever they wanted, but he was literally the family slave. For years he worked his hind end off to try to "prove himself" to her, thinking that it was something HE did to cause her to treat him like that. It wasn't until she had grandchildren that his eyes were really opened. She has 6 grandchildren: 7 granddaughters and 1 "good-for-nothing" grandson.

You see the pattern.

We have talked long and hard about it. He had finally come to the conclusion that there is nothing he can do to prove himself, except just live his life as an honorable person, husband and father. He has forgiven her. He would acknowledge her birthdays, Mother's Day and Christmas. If she contacted him, he would be polite and civil. He would keep the lines of communication open, but not go above and beyond.

It wasn't until our youngest was about 2 or 3 that she started to turn around. I'm pretty sure it's mostly because she wants to know her granddaughters, but she now send us occasional e-mails and, when we asked for some family photos (he had NONE of his baby pictures, and our older daughter needed one for an AWANA project), she sent pages.

Remember that forgiveness is for the forgiver...not the forgiven.

I remember something Nicky Gumbel once said: "You can forgive someone, but it doesn't mean that you take them out for ice cream."