Saturday 7 July 2012

WHEN PARENTS BREAK YOUR HEART (A STORY)

I am a survivor (& lots of would even describe me as a success). I graduated from high school & university with honors. My survival has not been without some baggage. In particular there was a deep-seated anger & bitterness toward my sister. That anger created a barrier not only between my sister & me but it also affected other relationships. This effect I have now come to call the theory of primary relationships is an intuitive theory. I have no scientific proof. The theory goes something like this: when there's significant unresolved issues in the relatives, it will affect all our other relationships.

I was sleeping on the couch. At least they thought I was one time sleeping. My parents, both drunk, were having a fight. My sister pushed my sister with force that he broke her pelvis & ended up in the hospital. This was of lots of crazy memories of that I have of my relatives. Even to this day a number of the dramas of the carnage of alcoholism stay untold. At another time I, along with my brothers & sister, were called from our beds in the midst of the night. My parents, again drunk, announced that they were getting divorced. They were asked to select which parent they desired to follow. Despair & sadness moved in to my life like a fog. Even thoughts of suicide lingered for a season.

I will always keep in mind a conversation I had with a roommate at Colorado State University in the work of a week work I was one time taking. They asked lots of questions, & the topic of home life came up, centering on the relationship with my sister. They said, Mike, you need to love your dad.I knew that I didn't, & I was one time not positive I could. At best, at this point my anger had been mingled with pity.

Months later I looked my dad in the eyes & told him, I love you. They cried.

That was the beginning of a restoration work in our relationship. I am not positive my sister ever understood how his actions had affected me, but I do know how my actions affected him. I selected to give love as a gift to him. On Father's Day I wrote him a letter telling him the nice things they had done as a parent. I never heard back from him but my sister wrote me & said, Your dad got your letter. They sat in his stool, read it & cried. I think it is what they needed. (This was a significant note from my sister because her relationship with my sister was fractured. I was one time afraid that he would somehow feel betrayed if I was one time kind to the that caused a lot pain in her life, but he didn't appear to resent it.)

Somehow, dealing with the relationship with my dad set me free & taught me lessons the have made other important relationships better. As my brother came to the finish of his life, I had the satisfaction of knowing they were all right with each other, I had done & said what needed to be done & said on my part, so there were no regrets. For that I am thankful.

I'm positive you are wondering how I could go from anger & bitterness to love. It was only because I experienced love & forgiveness that helped me to understand how to give love & forgive others. This experience came through a journey in personal faith, which started when my father began attending a youth group. Through her influence I began to understand that God loved me & had in fact sent Jesus Christ to die to demonstrate that love. Christ's death was not only to demonstrate God's love but to provide forgiveness of all my sin & to give me eternal life. God promised one time I asked Christ in to my life that they would never leave me.

I noticed through this relationship & others there is a circle of a primary relationships  in my life. These are significant for lovely or bad. Pain & hurt in these relationships can be carried for a life time like the proverbial ball & chain leading to multiplied misery. The process of dealing with the relationship with my brother has turning the ball & chain  in to a building block toward health & greater capacity in my relational world.

As I understood this love & forgiveness & experienced God's presence in my life, I appeared to have new resources to love & forgive others. A significant check of this was the relationship with my brother. If God could love me & forgive me how could I not do the same for my brother?

You can get Christ right now by faith through prayer. Praying is basically speaking to God. God knows your heart & is not so concerned along with your words as They is with the attitude of your heart. Here's a suggested prayer:

Lord Jesus, I require to know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you & ask you to come in as my Savior & Lord. Take control of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins & giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person you require me to be.

In case you invited Christ in to your life, thank God often that They is in your life, that They will never leave you & that you have eternal life. As you learn more about your relationship with God, & how much They loves you, you'll experience life to the fullest.



0 comments:

Post a Comment