dysfunctional

Parenting God’s Way

Parents aren’t perfect, and in many situations they aren’t even loving or nurturing. Neither my husband nor I had particularly nurturing mothers, and neither of us had any relationship with our fathers. And nowadays, there are so many dysfunctional families that many children are raising themselves, or in foster homes being raised by people other than their parents. They may not have much of a relationship with their own parents, or even with any parental figure that they can really trust.

However, if you are a parent or a substitute parent, you should be praying diligently for wisdom and guidance from God in order to do a good job of raising your child (or children) for the Lord. There are some specific guidelines in God’s Word that will help. Deuteronomy 6:6 and 7 are two of my favorite verses: “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” It seems to me that these verses are telling us that we should be living in a way that is pleasing to the Lord and teaching our children to do the same, both with words and actions.

Somehow, families have strayed so far from this teaching. I know many parents who quote Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Without being diligent to follow the above teaching, they expect their children to eventually follow the Lord, or they question why that didn’t happen to their children when they thought that they had “trained up their child in the way he should go.” However, Satan has deceived many parents by making them think they are actually training their children in the way they should go just by taking them to Sunday School and church, praying with them at mealtime and/or bedtime, and perhaps even having a short family devotional time.

Although doing those things are fine, just think about all the time that children spend away from their parents, either in a public (or even in a private school), and possibly taking music lessons, playing sports, maybe playing video games, watching television, or even just hanging out with others. I honestly believe that we need to start thinking differently about this, rather than going by what we have experienced ourselves, or see around us. If God wants parents “to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” from the time they rise up until the time they lie down, then there has to be some lifestyle changes within families. There really are resources out there that can be a help to parents who realize they need to make some changes. Contact me if you need some encouragement or ideas.

If you would like to read more on a similar topic, here is a link to another blog post: “God’s Formula for Raising Children in 2020” from Road Less Traveled Tours.

A Prayer for Healing Memories

As I was sorting through some old papers, and looking for things to recycle and throw away, I came across this prayer by Agnes Sanford. I had copied this into my journaling notebook when I was in college (and really struggling with our dysfunctional family situation). I thought it may be helpful to someone who is reading my blogs:

“Lord Jesus, I ask you to enter into this person who has need of your healing in the depths of the mind. I ask you to come, Lord, as a careful housekeeper might come into a house that has long been closed and neglected. Open all the windows and let in the fresh wind of your Spirit. Raise the shades, that the sunlight of Your love may fill this house of the soul. Where there is sunlight, there cannot be darkness. Therefore, I rejoice that as the light of Your love now fills this mansion of the soul, all darkness shall flee away. And indeed in Your Name I speak to that darkness gently telling it that it cannot abide here in this one whom you have redeemed upon your cross. Look and see, O Lord, whether there be any ugly pictures, take them down and give to this memory-house pictures of beauty and joy; so out of all the ugliness of the past make beauty. Transform old sorrows into the power to comfort others who have sorrowed. Heal old wounds by your redemptive love, and turn them mysteriously into a love that heals the wounds of others.

Go back, O Lord, through all the rooms of this memory-house. Open every closed door and look into every closet and bureau drawer and see if there be any dirty and broken things that are no longer needed in one’s present life, and if so, O Lord take them completely away. I give thanks! for this is the promise of the Scriptures: As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm103:12) Look, O Lord, upon any memories that may come up from the deep mind as those words are meditated upon, and in Thy mercy fulfill in this thy servant that forgiveness accomplished long ago on Calvary.

Go back even to the nursery in this memory-house — even to the years of childhood. Here, also, open windows long sealed and let in the gentle sunlight of Your love. Here, more than anywhere, Lord, make everything clean and beautiful within. Take a broom of mercy and sweep away all dirt from the floor of this memory-room, even the confusion and horror and the shame of ancient memories, perhaps of childish and uncomprehended sins, perhaps of the sins of the parents, those parents who should have been as God to this child, and were not.

Take a clean cloth, O Lord, and wash away all dust and wipe away every stain from the walls and from the furniture. Purge this Your child with hyssop, O Lord that the heart may be clean. Wash this one, that the soul (which was created in your own image and after your own likeness), may be whiter than snow. Look within the closets and under the furniture and see whether there be any broken and dirty toys, and old unclean rags of memory that are surely not needed any more at all in the adult life. And if so, O Lord, take them entirely away; gather them into your own redemptive love , that the burden of them may rest upon the soul no more.

Follow the soul of this Your child all the way back to the hour of birth and heal the soul even of the pain and the fear of being born into this darksome world. Restore in the soul that bright memory of your eternal being, that is not exactly memory, but which is rather an emanation, an unconscious infilling of the eternal radiance from which this one was born. And if even before birth the soul was shadowed by this human life and was darkened by the fears or sorrow of the human parents, then I pray that even those memories and impressions may be healed, so that this one may be restored to your original  pattern, the soul as free and as clean as though nothing had ever dimmed its shining. Thus, I pray, O Lord, that you will restore the soul as You made it to be and will quicken and awaken in it all those creative impulses and ideas that you have placed therein, so that whatever your purpose may be for its human pilgrimage, that purpose may be fulfilled.

‘He restores my soul,’ so said David long ago. ‘He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.’ (Psalm 23:3) I give thanks, O Lord, knowing that this healing of the soul is Your will and is the very purpose of the giving of Your life for us, and therefore, it is now being accomplished, and by faith, I set the seal upon it. Amen.”