How much do you love your children?

The other day I was at the beach here in Newfoundland, at a place where there is a brook that, through a pond, empties out into the sea. At that place there is a shallow, but strong current. A young boy got caught up in it. I was watching, and before I even started to realize he was in danger and not merely playing, his mother came hurtling past me and jumped fully clothed into the water to rescue him.

She was in no real danger herself, but I had the impression it would not have made any difference, she would have jumped in anyway. Such is a mother's love for her child. How about you, how much would you be willing to risk to save your child? When our kids are ill, most of us would gladly exchange our health for our child's illness. We hate to see our children suffering. So how much do you love your children? Here is the challenge: Are you willing to be made whole? Let me say it slightly differently, are you willing to do the hard work of recovery in your personal life and in your relationships (see “Do you want to be made whole” 27th July 2010)? Because if you are not, you can be sure that you will be leaving your children with all the problems you have and then some.

There is a poem by Philip Larkin, that I will change slightly:

They mess you up, your mum and dad,
they may not mean to, but they do,
they load you down with all their sins
and add some others just for you.

He goes on to explain that of course they were messed up too. I have come to the realization that, though we will never be perfect, what we can do is to leave our children with the example of dealing with our stuff. When we do not deal with our issues, stuffing them under the carpet, what finishes up under the carpet is a monster. And if we cannot deal with the issues when they are small enough to push under the rug, how will we deal with the monster we have created by putting off dealing with them? Remember the default is for our children to fall into the same patterns. In order not to, they need to be more mature than we are. Where will they learn this?

And when we deal with our stuff we will have more influence with our children. We will be able to share (hopefully with gentleness and humility) the experience of breakthrough. When they see this, and they will eventually, they will be much more likely to deal with their stuff, and hence come to breakthrough themselves. But how can we expect them to deal with their stuff when we have not been willing to deal with ours?

I have seen it over and over, parents who truly love their children, but are not willing to go for marriage counseling, not willing to change, stuck in blaming the other, deaf to each others pain. We do love our children, but in the midst of all of this it is far too easy to close our eyes to the impact our life choices, and in particular our relationship choices, have on our children. Modern research is showing that adult children of divorce (or the equivalent) suffer from life long trauma because of it. We don't want to see it, because if we do, then we just might have to do something about it.

There is a relevant warning, in the midst of the 10 commandments (Exodus 20:5), “The sins of the fathers (and mothers) are visited (impact severely and devastatingly) upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me (demonstrating this by disobeying the commandments I have given)”. The words in brackets are mine. The next verse tells how to reverse this trend (see 15th August 2010). But the point I want to make here, is that the Lord knows that if and when we start to fully understand the extent to which our poor choices negatively impact our children, then we will be a lot more motivated to do something about our “stuff”. Paul in Colossians 1:9 prays that the Colossians would be “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding”. The point is that most of us, if we saw things as they really are, would be willing to move heaven and earth to change what needs to be changed. And such change is always towards wholeness and righteousness, and walking in love and Biblical integrity. To repeat a phrase I use often, these things are not only good and right and proper, they are smart, and they are loving.

We give up far too easily on relationships. We change churches at the drop of a hat, as we do “significant others”. And a very big part of the problem is that we are not willing to deal with our stuff. Most times we don't even see it. It is called denial. We see the other person's baggage, but many times not our own. When we do not deal with our stuff, our relationship interactions inevitably develop in dysfunctional ways. The Scripture commands two things in this context, love and respect (see Ephesians 5:25-32). I often hear “But I don't love him (her) anymore”. But the Scripture tells us to “love one another” (1 John 4:7). Are you tempted to ask me “Are you deaf, I just told you, I don't love him”? Well no I am not deaf, I am simply telling that when the feelings of love have gone, the commandment to love kicks in. We are told “let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18). The love with which we are commanded to love is not simply a command to feel love! When we commit to love, the feelings will eventually follow (return).

What are the alternatives, and what are we teaching our children when we give up on our relationships? Are we not by example teaching “If a relationship is not working, trash it”? The divorce rates of adult children of divorce are much higher than that of the general population. Don't take my word for it check it out!

And what are we teaching them about attitudes? The second of the two commands I mentioned above is to respect one another to “esteem others better than ourselves” (Philippians 2:3). They say attitudes are caught rather than taught. What about our attitudes to our significant other? If you do not respect your spouse, how will your daughter or son respect his or her's. Yes they do have a choice, but the default (most of the time) is that such attitudes are caught and repeated.

When things get really bad, most of us need help. More likely than not, most times without even realizing it, we have trained each other to deal with each other, in the ways that we do. We do it through conflict avoidance, manipulative anger or punishing silences. We do it through control, because we don't know of any other way to do it. We get stuck in reaction to reaction to reaction. We need to let God (often with the help of a counselor) back into our relationships. When a relationship is not working, we will need to renegotiate it. It works best when both of us are willing to do it. We can start by confessing to each other, that we have not loved as we should, we have bad attitudes and have held each other in disrespect. Many times in a relationship break down, a radical disrespect can be found in one or the other partners. What the one who exhibits such disrespect does not usually realize, is that their attitude plays a significant role in keeping the other one stuck.

I know of no better place to see this than the movie “When a man loves a woman” with Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia. Meg plays the role of the alcoholic wife, who eventually goes to detox. She tells him, “If you ever leave me I will die”. When she comes out of detox, she throws him our of the house. Watch the movie and observe his attitude, and you will see what I am talking about. Let me say this. The faults are never one sided, never! We don't see it of course, Andy Garcia did not in the movie!

So do you love your children? Do you love them enough to do the hard work of making your relationships work, of renegotiating the relationship according to Biblical norms? I don't pretend that it is easy. You might find out that you are not as innocent in terms of blame as you imagine yourself to be. One person told me recently “I did not realize how selfish I am until I got married”. There is much hope for that marriage. This doing the necessary hard work in relationships is not common, but you can be sure of one thing, the emotional health of our children (future children) is as stake. We will never be perfect, but we what we can do, is leave them with the example of entering into recovery. It is the perhaps the most significant thing we can do, it is perhaps the best way to love them.

The good thing with God by the way, is that it is never too late to start. While we yet have breath, it is not too late to claim His promises, in particular that He will “visit” the blessings of His steadfast love and mercy on the children's children's children of those who turn to Him and obey His commandments (Exodus 20:6). This promise is, perhaps even especially, for those of us who have failed. More explicitly He will, when we turn to Him, start the process of restoration. He will restore the “years the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25). What is left when a plague of locus has gone through, looks like total destruction, but He is still able to restore. With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible! He is waiting for us to turn and to obey.