There are a lot of posts throughout the thread talking about telling the mother to tell the daughter she needs to forgive, and that's it's a sin not to forgive, etc. I was not directing this at all at your post. My point was bringing this up to the daughter isn't something I think would be good for her since she is the victim.
And this is why I brought up Biblically defining terms.
What is forgiveness? When is it required? When is it not required? Forgiveness is predicated upon repentance. God does not forgive the unrepentant. What is true repentance? All of these are important questions concerning the OP.
Let's not be hypocrites:
23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin,
and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
Mercy does not exist without justice. Since when did the victims' anger become a worse sin than rape; that people will tell victims they will lose their salvation if they don't forgive?
Scripture only commands us to forgive other people who are redeemed. "If your brother sins...." Is this person a believer? We don't know that unless we see evidence of genuine repentance in their lives. (Which brings us back to what is genuine repentance?) Genuine repentance produces real turning from sin on the part of the perpetrator! No victim blaming! No excuse making! Willing to go to any lengths to change.
I went into a domestic violence shelter with my son when he was 5. The hardest thing I ever had to do confess to the CPS worker that I had trouble controlling my own anger. Yeah, my husband needed help but so did I! I was guilty of physically abusing my son too.
I used to hit him with wooden spoons and in the weeks coming up to the incident that sent us to the shelter; I was beginning to come to the epiphany that not only was this not working; it was only making my child more resistant, angrier and bitter. I'd gotten rid of the spoons; but I knew I still needed to tackle how I dealt with my own frustration. And no matter what I did. I could not hit my son. I knew that. That would send me in the wrong direction.
So when I told the CPS case worker that I had this problem. She'd asked me if I'd hit my son since coming back from the shelter? Which had been about a week and 1/2 prior. I said no. She took a look at him and saw that there were no marks on him. So the worker said: "You're in individual counseling yourself correct?" I said: "Yeah." She said: "Go to your therapist, write up a safety plan and bring it back to me the next time I come. If you do this; I won't remove your son from your custody." I did that; yet I remained accountable to them and the case remained "open" for the next 18 months.
That was OK though. I
knew I had to change. That was
my responsibility! Nobody else's. It made no impact on my son if the God I claimed could redeem sinners made no change in me. "I'm sorry son." is meaningless if I kept hitting him. This had to stop.
I had to change!
I went to parenting classes, therapy, read books on child development, studied the Bible on these passages that people
claim require corporal punishment of children. NOW THAT WAS AN EYE OPENER! Those passages aren't actually advocating hitting children. The "rod of instruction" is an instrument that teaches the intended lesson for the student. If we want a child to learn what is acceptable behavior, we need to teach them that; not hit them because they did it wrong. One can't amend something without instruction.
Shortly after I'd started this journey with CPS; my son got upset and yelled at me about something. (I think he was aggravated and throwing his Duplo blocks. I told him to stop. He threw the ones in his hands on the floor and they hit me.) So I explained to him about apologizing. He stood there looking blankly at me. Then like 10 minutes later; something else happened and I yelled at him. I stopped and stood there and looked at him. He said: "Mommy... sorry?" And the light went on. If he was going to genuinely internalize these lessons I was trying to teach. I had to have the humility to demonstrate them myself. So I apologized to him and the next time he got upset and threw his Duplo blocks; he apologized back.
We got consistent at apologizing to each other when I came to the conviction that I had to acknowledge to my son that I understood that the way I had been disciplining him was wrong.
We had to move out of our apartment and while I was cleaning and packing, I found one of the wooden spoons in his room. I didn't want to get rid of it because I knew it was important that he witnessed me acknowledging spoon in possession that I was determined to change. So I wrote a couple of Bible verses on this spoon:
"Render not evil with evil but overcome evil with good"
"For as you've done unto the least of these; you've done it unto me."
And I put it away, until I figured out what I was going to do.
Well, Easter was coming up and on Good Friday; I took my son (and the spoon) to a monastery near us which made bread. "Monk bread" is sold in our local grocery stores and was also delivered to the shelter we'd been in. My son liked their cinnamon swirl bread.
So we went into the vestibule of the "visitors area" of the monastery. They had a "bread room" there where visitors could buy bread and also jam that the monks would make. We were the only ones in the visitor's center. There was a service going on. We could hear the monks singing.
I sat there for probably about 10 minutes before I gathered up the courage to take the wooden spoon out of my purse. My son became visibly scared. I asked him if he remembered what this was? He said: "It's a no no stick."
And at that point I did the best I could to explain to him that we were here at this monastery because this was Good Friday; the day Jesus died. Jesus died to take away sin. And part of taking away sin, meant a big word called repentance. He was listening (as best he could) and I tried to explain that Jesus coming back from the dead; in two days, means that if we say we believe, that is suppose to demonstrate in us the power to change. God doesn't just save us; He changes us. He was still with me and seemed to be trying to grasp what I was telling him. I told him: "Mom's been working real hard to not hit you when I get mad and I haven't hit you." He nodded acknowledging that was true. "But you need to know that I know that what I did was wrong. And I'm going to do everything I have to to fix this." I asked him what he thought we should do with the stick. He made a comment about hiding it under a bush and pointed out the window. I told him I was thinking of burning it. I don't know if he heard me? He was getting antsy and wandered off toward the bread room.
I sat there for a couple of minutes. I could hear him talking to one of the monks. He as asking were their cash register was. So I got up and went in and explained to the monk that my son has Autism and he likes to look at the serial numbers on dollar bills. The monk laughed and asked us what we were doing for Easter? Did we want to come to their sunrise service. I told the monk I had no idea what we were doing for Easter. We weren't even Catholic but we came up here because I wanted to explain something to my son about Jesus dying. I pulled the stick out of my purse and told the monk we'd gotten out of a shelter not too long ago. CPS was following us and I was trying to change a lot of things to make life better for my son. I said to the monk that I wanted my son to understand that God the Father is a far better parent than I have been.
In the course of this conversation; my son had grabbed the spoon and was wandering around trying to find a place to hide it. When he wouldn't come back with the spoon, the monk picked up a loaf of bread, walked over to my son and said: "If you give me the spoon, I'll give you the loaf of bread." My son kind of looked at him. He said: "We'll put it in the fire and burn it to make more bread." And my son handed him the spoon. He took the loaf of bread, with a big grin on his face. I stood there and cried. The monk wished us peace, a Happy Easter. He patted my shoulder; told me they'd pray for us at their next prayer time and left.
I took my son, loaded him up in the car; all happy with his loaf of bread in his hands and eventually we went home.
Something changed in my son after that. He wasn't afraid of God any more.
Something changed in me after that. I became a better mother. There were still some times I got frustrated. My kitchen appliances were on the receiving end of a sailor's tongue lashing on a few occasions; but I never hit my son again and never "lost it" at him. That was 12 years ago.
Today, we hold each other accountable and give space to learn life lessons we need to learn. We still get frustrated and still apologize; but have also learned to use humor to alleviate life's mundane annoyances. I'm good at making up alternate nonsense verses to songs. My son shares his funny YouTube videos and goofy things that happened while gaming with his friends. I listen to his needs and ideas and don't make decisions involving him without his input. Developmentally in some ways, he's maybe about 11 or 12 years old; but he's also kind of an "old soul".
He became a believer at about 9 years old. (That's when he told me he wanted to be baptized.) The fortitude of his faith has been tested on many occasions. The kid has some serious chronic medical issues. We both have been through a lot and at 17; he's as ready as any 17 year old would ever be to die. He says he's looking forward to seeing Jesus and "meeting God".
All this is a result of the work of God Who demonstrated to both myself and my son what HIS power to bring about repentance can do to repair broken relationships!
