We all hope that our parents are the ideal role models and treat us with respect, but unfortunately, that's not always the case. Some kids grow up with mothers and fathers that can cause their children harm with the way they behave. All parents are human, which means they have their flaws, but some have deeper psychological issues that end up affecting how they treat their children. Relationships with parents are the first relationship can have a ripple effect later in our life. How’s your relationship with your parents or your children?
Mine? My father and I were in good relationship although he passed away so young. But the relationship with my mother was not desirable. I was very afraid of my mother and tried to make her love me although she thought she loved me. After long engagement with a psycho-therapist and my own long struggles with my deep wounds and hurt, I finally come to realize that the source of pain and suffering is related to my mother. It took a long time and many efforts to turn them into my blessings.
With the eyes of relationship with my mother, I discovered a wonderful healing story.
(Mark 9:14-29)
A father brings to Jesus his son who is possessed by an evil spirit. The boy hurts himself severely. Jesus recognizes that the son’s sickness is somehow connected with his father’s attitude. The boy might have low self-esteem by his father’s verbal abuse and repress his emotions. The boy might be ignored or frequently compared to other kids. We don’t know how the father treats his boy but we clearly know that the boy is possessed by the evil spirit and hurting himself now: "It (the evil spirit) has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him.” The father has never really believed in his son. The father now begs to Jesus in tears, “I believe, help my unbelief!”
(9:24)
Remember once Jesus was treated as “out of his mind” by his family. Jesus knows all the complications in the relationships between parents and children and unravels them. Jesus teaches us to believe in ourselves as the children of God whom God pleases with. Jesus also asks all the parents to believe in them and let them be themselves as God created, not projecting parent’s own suppressed passions and unfulfilled their dreams on to them.
Reflection:
What positive roots do you owe to your parents? What has wounded and hurt you? Are you repeating what your experienced in your childhood? Today, we offer our own inner child and our loving children to Jesus, for him to heal the hurts that we got from our parents and we have done to our children.
Pastor Seok-Hwan
