Tag Archives: Forgiveness

A Mother’s Day Gift to my Sons

10 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in generations coming together, God's healing love, leaving a legacy, mother wounds, Mother's Day, the healing journey

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The last time I saw my mother alive was seven years ago over Mother’s Day weekend.  As I wrote in “Walking My Mother Home,” my story in Journeys to Mother Love, these trips back home were instrumental to my healing.

In 2012, during the editing process of the book, I decided to give the manuscript as a gift to my sons.  After my mother’s passing the year before, I’d had a heartfelt conversation with them. I tried to explain the significance of what had happened to me.  Now with the imminent publishing of the story “for the whole world to see,” it was time to give the boys more personal insight into my healing and my journey to mother love.

Here is an excerpt from that letter:

Dear Boys,

As Mother’s Day approached this week, I’ve been reminded many times that the last time I saw my mother alive was on Mother’s Day 2010. A lot has happened in our lives in the two years since then…

Since you are males, you will probably never understand the bond between a mother and daughter. But you will marry one day and will have to understand and be caring with your own wife and the relationship that she has with her mother. I hope and pray that I can have a loving relationship with my daughters-in-law too.

As you know, I didn’t have a close relationship with my mother, not so much by choice, but by natural consequence because of her mental illness. As my mother neared the end of her life though, God made it very clear to me that I needed closure and restoration with our relationship. The attached manuscript is that story.

What I hope and pray you will see in this story is the same thing I want others to see—how following God’s will for our lives, through the good and the bad, leads to amazing blessings.  I want you to embrace opportunities when God wants to use you. It won’t be easy. But that is where the biggest blessings come into play—when we are stretched beyond our comfort zone and have to rely on Him. He shows up when we lean on Him. We just have to trust Him.

So as I start on my writing journey, I wanted you to know that is exactly what I am doing. I am trusting that God is behind this and that He will use it.

I love you both dearly. I hope and pray that when you look back at your lives that you will remember that legacy that I want to leave for you. I want you to trust God and follow Him all the days of your life.

‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

With all my love,
Mom

My sons didn’t read my manuscript right away. They were teenage boys, after all. When they did, their words of love were a blessing back to me.

I have the same prayer for all who read my story and the other eight stories in Journeys to Mother Love. : May you be inspired by God to embrace forgiveness and healing in their mother/child relationships.  He will redeem your pain and give you peace.

~ Ardis A. Nelson

If Your Child is a Prodigal

05 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by in Alice Scott-Ferguson, challenges of motherhood, expectations, Free to Love, God as our parent, Guest Post, Parenting, reconciliation, the healing journey

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Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_-_The_Return_of_the_Prodigal_SonDo you know the pain of mothering a prodigal?

If ever a situation poured self-recrimination, regret, and remorse on a mother, it is this one. Whether or not we have contributed to the child leaving home, faith, church, and even in some cases, God, our child has made a decision that we must respect. — We must not chide ourselves over our children’s autonomous choices.

Mention of the mother is missing in the most famous account of a prodigal, told by Luke in his gospel. Most likely she was there, though. Author Henri Nouwen explains that he sees the mother in the hands of the father in Rembrandt’s painting of The Prodigal (above):

“The father’s left hand touching the son’s shoulder is strong and muscular. How different is the father’s right hand! It lies gently upon the son’s shoulder—to offer consolation and comfort. It is a mother’s hand.” (quoted from The Return of the Prodigal, Image Book, 1992)

One mother admitted that it was easier for her husband to accept their daughter’s return than it was for her. Her struggle exemplifies the unrealistic responsibility mothers tend to assume for the destiny of their children. “What will people say about me as a mother?”

The prodigal may represent one of the hardest trials of a mother’s heart. But after we have cried an ocean and wailed into the dark silence of the night, hope in God. He is the heavenly Parent and is willing to wait, knowing that we all must come to an end of our own self-sufficiency before we become truly dependent on Him and not ourselves.

Let the prodigal process have its way. It is far more important for your wandering child to find the Father, than for your child to make you look good.

Henri Nouwen says that we are all prodigals if we are looking for our approval and acceptance from anywhere other than God. That includes mothers. Are we looking for the commendation of the church, family, or community that we want to impress with our perfect family, while our prodigal causes us shame and embarrassment? Then we too are being profligate in terms of our relationship with our heavenly Father, since we are looking for our identity outside of Christ. When our self identity is extricated from that of our child’s, then we are freed to love enough to let them go. We can let our reputation slide and learn our own utter dependence on God while we wait for our prodigal child to learn it as well.

We have no need to pretend in order to gain either the approval of God or man. We have no need to hide our pain or the less than perfect places and people in our lives.

“Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not ‘mine,’ but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I am not going to go back on that” (Galatians 2).

Alice Scott-Ferguson is a Scottish-born freelance writer, author, and motivational speaker who lives in Arizona. She writes from her heart as a wife, mother, grandmother, and Christ-follower. Among other books, she is the author of Mothers Can’t Be Everywhere, But God Is : A Liberating Look at Motherhood, from which this post is extracted.

A Journey to Brother Love, Part 2

09 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by in confessing our need, emotional needs, encouraging each other, family gatherings, generational patterns, God's healing love, reconciliation, the healing journey

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With my brothers in 2014

My brother and I with our half-brother (center) in 2014

In the post, A Journey to Brother Love, Part 1, I shared how as an adult I was shocked to learn I had a half-brother. I only met him once, 18 years ago. The opportunity arose to meet him again recently. I didn’t want any regrets, so I traveled to see him.

From the moment we were reunited, my brother was friendly and open, even greeting me with a hug. It felt very welcoming. He is a charming and engaging man. Yet for me, the time spent together was surreal.

What do you say? How do you communicate with a brother who was raised by maternal grandparents since he was two years old because his mother died and he was abandoned by his father (my father)?

Does he even want relationship with me (us)? After all, we were the chosen family.

My parents were married for 17 years before they divorced. I was nine years old at the time. I had my own wounds. It took me years to work through them and forgive my father.

My brother is on his own journey of healing and forgiveness—as are each of us five siblings, from three different marriages. We share the same father and the same DNA, but we all have carried different wounds from the generational curse of abandonment in our family.

I don’t have any wounds related to my half-brother, only compassion for what he endured and experienced, not knowing his earthly father. He has had to come to terms with two dramatically different tales of his abandonment.

Where was he on the spectrum of forgiveness and healing, I wondered.

Except for one private conversation we had where he recounted to me the story of his miraculous reunion with my father after 52 years of separation, our conversations weren’t really about that. I listened as he talked about his previous marriage and painful trials with his adult children. Every time he talked I could see and hear my father in him. My half-brother wasn’t raised by him, but my father is unmistakably in his DNA.

At the end of our visit, I still didn’t have the answers I sought. So I invited him and his wife to walk me into the train station to say our goodbyes. I didn’t want any regrets. I prayed and let my heart lead the way.

The conversation that ensued was perfectly ordained by the Lord. It started off tearful for me as I admitted I am a sentimental person. I think we both said what we needed to say and cleared the air about our own personal father wounds. I already knew I wasn’t alone in my struggle to overcome my past, and I wanted him to know he wasn’t either.

The icing on the cake for me was being able to share with him my sense that our father was at peace in heaven. Shortly after Dad died, I had a poignant spiritual encounter in church while praying. Shortly after that, Dad acknowledged that he hadn’t “been there” for me. The veil had been lifted for him and his denial was gone. That encounter was very comforting to me, and I hoped sharing the memory with my brother would bring him some healing and closure also.

So was my family visit for my healing, or my brother’s healing? I think it was for us both.

My journey with my new-found brother is just beginning. It took my Journey to Mother Love followed by my Journey to Father Love to find it. When our journeys are bathed in our Heavenly Father’s love, it will end with healing and hope; because His DNA is what really binds us on our pathway to wholeness.

~ Ardis A. Nelson

A Journey to Brother Love, Part 1

09 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by in emotional needs, family gatherings, generational patterns, God's healing love, letting go of anger, reach out and touch, reconciliation, the healing journey

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1996 Reunion

With my father and brothers in 1996

Recently a new pathway of healing opened up to me: a “journey to brother love.”

My father married many times and had children from multiple wives—my siblings being the last. I grew up knowing about an older half-sister, but never met her. I didn’t know about a half-brother I had until 18 years ago when my father reunited with him after 52 years of separation.

I was in my early 30s, just starting my own family when my father called to tell me about my half-brother. It was an ‘Oprah’ type story of amazing coincidences that led to their reunion.

I felt like my world had been turned upside down.

My father invited me and another sibling to meet him. The half-brother lived across country and was making a trip to our area. I eagerly obliged, or maybe obeyed is a better word. This was in my pre-recovery days when I was still holding onto the past, carrying a lot of anger, and searching for my father’s love. Now I had to share that love with some long-lost family member.  My resentment must’ve leaked through in that one and only meeting.

My father remained in close contact with his new-found son over the years. They had several cross-country visits. I occasionally heard of their trips together. Each time I nursed my internal pangs: “But what about me?”

Since that time, I’ve spent many years of healing and recovery work to get to a place of forgiveness and love for my father. My dad even helped with some family history while I was working on the final draft of my story in Journeys to Mother Love. Unfortunately, he passed away a month before the book was released.

My half-brother couldn’t make it to our father’s memorial service. My stepmother (not his mother), ordered an autographed copy for me to send to my brother’s wife. I had experienced even more healing and forgiveness with my father wound with his passing. With that fresh perspective, I decided to send a letter to my brother, along with the book.

Here’s an excerpt from that letter: “I think each of his (my father’s) children carry a distinct Smith* mark in their DNA that we had to overcome as his children. And just because we had more physical time living with him, it doesn’t mean we didn’t carry familial scars. I say this to you in the hopes that you won’t let any of those feelings get in the way of continuing to stay connected with this family.”

Soon I received a nice note from his wife telling me how much she loved the book and that my story touched her as she grieved the recent loss of her mother. We continued our communications, but there was no direct response from my brother.

Then a few weeks ago I got a call from my stepmother that my half-brother and his wife were going to be in town. I was invited to come home for a visit. At first I declined due to an already full schedule. But thoughts of my brother and our disjointed family connection kept surfacing.

Did I need more healing or was it for my brother? I needed to know.

So I set aside my work and hopped on a train across the state.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post to find out how this Journey to Brother Love ends.

~ Ardis A. Nelson

*Surname changed to protect family privacy.

Thankful for Forgiveness and Healing

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by in confessing our need, forgiving mom, the healing journey

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Today I want to say how thankful I am for the grace of forgiveness. Forgiveness flows out of God’s heart of love. Undeserved but needed, it flows freely to me. It then lodges in my heart and changes me, overflowing to others.

Like a river of unconditional love, forgiveness washes into rocky spaces in relationships, cleansing away debris of bitterness, bringing newness and life.

Forgiveness is often a key to healing in relationships.

THE GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT

26 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by in challenges of motherhood, childhood memories, emotional needs, expectations, forgiving mom, forgiving yourself, generational patterns, God's healing love, Jesus on the cross, letting go of anger, rejecting lies, the healing journey

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flowers, mountain sillouette, and sunset

flowers, mountain silhouette, and sunset

The four of us sat in the dining room of the nursing home. Two of us had cars in the parking lot; we were free to leave any time. The other two occupied wheelchairs because their legs would not support the weight of their bodies and their minds would not support a plan as simple as how to exit the building.

I was one of the ones who would be leaving. Usually I am the only non-resident who is sitting at my mother’s table in the dining hall, but this day the daughter of another lady had come to visit. The two of us carried on a conversation between the bits and pieces of attention that we gave our mothers, those bits and pieces being all our mothers could receive.

Then, out of the blue, the other daughter made a statement. “This one,” she said, as she gestured with a sideways nod toward her mother. (“This one”! Had she just called her mother “this one”? I thought.) “Kept a perfect house,” the other daughter continued. “Beds had to be made every morning. Twice a year we had to clean everything from the ceilings to the floors.”

I looked at the woman’s mother. She is younger than my mother by 15-20 years, but oxygen tubes trailed from her nostrils. My mother, who is now 99 years old, was going strong 15-20 years ago. The lady with the oxygen tubes was oblivious to her daughter’s comment. My mind scanned its reservoir of information, searching for an appropriate response to the other daughter’s comment. (My knee-jerk reaction was, I wish my childhood home had been tidier; but I did not tell her that. My next thought was, I wonder if my children think I cared too much about the cleanliness and order? But, of course, I didn’t air that question either.) The moment passed for lack of feedback, and the conversation moved in another direction.

Soon the visit ended. It was time for my mother’s nap. I exited the building to my car in the parking lot. In the car on the way back to accomplish the rest of my list of errands, my thoughts were drawn back to the table in the dining hall. Is there anybody who wishes his or her childhood was different, and therefore, better?

It is impossible to make a perfect home, to be a perfect mother, or to be a perfect child. But that’s what our minds seem to be set on: Perfect. We really think we can accomplish perfect, or we can go through life “bent out of shape” because our childhood home was not the version of perfect we were longing to have. I know there are varying degrees of imperfection, and some people have huge hurdles to overcome.

However, we have a heavenly Father who covers us in grace. After Adam and Eve sinned, God covered them with the skins of animals. Those animals were the first creatures to know death. That act of love was a foreshadowing of the supreme act of covering with grace by the death of God’s Son, Jesus, on a cross.

God’s grace is the only way we can break the cycle of hurt—anger—hurt—anger—hurt. We might not be able to control very much in our lives, or accomplish a long list of achievements. But, we can accomplish—I believe—the greatest achievement. We can be the generation in our family that chooses to break those negative cycles for our family. We do this by forgiving and “covering each other with grace.”

~A.R. (Alice) Cecil

Inspiration for Your Journey ~ Only 99¢

10 Saturday May 2014

Posted by in encouraging each other, Mother's Day, the healing journey, Uncategorized

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Journeys-on-Kindle

Announcement!

You can buy our book Journeys to Mother Love on Kindle for only 99¢ during the next three days.

This is our Mother’s Day gift to our friends and followers. If you already have the kindle book, consider buying it as a gift for a friend.

Click to Journeys to Mother Love in the Kindle store here: http://amzn.com/B00905EDSQ

Blessings on your journey.

A Journey to Stepmother Love

09 Friday May 2014

Posted by in childhood memories, emotional needs, letting go of anger, stepmom relationship, the healing journey

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Step-mother-love-01I was nine years old when my parents divorced. I’ll never forget that day. After hearing the news, I ran into the woods behind our house and cried my eyes out. “Why? Why? Why?” I cried to God.

Those repressed memories surfaced a while back in a therapy session as I got in touch with the little Ardis who was hurting from the trauma of this event. I’ve processed this before, but this time I remembered something new. I remembered that I told my father I hated him. It became one of those pivotal moments in my life when I decided I had to be a BIG girl and stuff my emotions.

I surfaced from those woods, calm and collected. I WAS a big girl. But try as I might, that anger at what was going on between my parents was still there. Both of my parents soon remarried. I lived with my mother and stepfather thousands of miles away from my father, who had retained our family home as part of the divorce settlement. The only time I got to see him was on summer vacation periods. His remarriage was so short-lived that I never met his new wife and never even considered her a stepmother.

When I was 13 years old, another woman came into my father’s life, and he remarried again. Inside I’m sure I was devastated, although I never talked to my father about it. I was desperately searching and longing for his love and approval. After they wed, my summer visits were spent at her home. My days were long, lounging around the house watching soap operas, and taking care of her dog—not much fun for a teenage girl. Yet I continued to worship the ground my father walked on.

My stepmother treated me fairly. I don’t remember being mean or unruly with her. I never called her ‘mom’, only by her first name.  But to hear her tell of this time in my life, I get a very different story. It’s a story about an angry, lazy teen that didn’t do much of anything, and made her wishes and demands known to all within earshot.

The healing of that turbulent angry young teen took many years of deep spiritual growth and recovery work. And when my father passed away two years ago at the age of 94, I had already forgiven him and learned to accept that he could not give me the kind of love I had longed for.

But it was the love of his wife, my stepmother, which really helped to fill that hole in my heart.

Over recent years, we have spent countless hours on the phone, talking about adult women issues, and sharing our hearts. She has been a big supporter of my writing and always wants to hear about what is going on in my life.

Interestingly enough, what brought us together was the empathy and compassion we both received from an understanding of what it was like to live with my father. They were married 38 years.

As I got healing for my father wounds, I was able to come alongside her more as well. She endured long suffering as she cared for my father the last several years of his life. She sacrificed. She toiled. And when he passed, she asked me to write his eulogy, and gave me and my siblings carte blanche on how to run his memorial service. It was a huge gift to me.

My stepmother celebrated her 80th birthday recently, with a huge party of friends and family. While I barely knew any of them, my family and I traveled the 150 miles to celebrate with her. She’s been a pillar of strength for me to lean on these past several years. I owe her that much in return. After all, while I didn’t recognize it much over the years, she has been to some degree the mother I never had.

We had a rocky start, but this journey to stepmother love has been worth the wait. Happy Mother’s Day, MOM!

~ Ardis A. Nelson

Leaving a Legacy of Healing

25 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by in challenges of motherhood, emotional needs, forgiving mom, generational patterns, God's healing love, leaving a legacy, Parenting, the healing journey

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Evening Light on the Grasses

Lately I’ve been struck with reminders of the importance of legacy and purpose in our lives—most recently while attending a memorial service for someone I knew at church who died suddenly before Christmas. She was a vibrant part of our church community, serving in many capacities, but most notably as Lady Jellybean, a beloved clown in the children’s ministry. Her passing was a great loss to all who knew her.

This got me to thinking more about the legacy that I’m leaving. What will people say about me after I’m gone? How will my family remember me? I’m the first to admit that I don’t have it all together, that I am at times overwhelmed by all the irons I have in the fire, and even that I’ve fallen short of my kids’ or my husband’s expectations.

I came into marriage over thirty years ago carrying a lot of baggage from a turbulent and empty childhood. I didn’t have the kind of parents who modeled a godly marriage or who poured into my siblings and me in ways that bonded us on an emotional level. Quite the contrary, we didn’t know anything about emotional bonding.

It wasn’t until much later in life, when I re-dedicated my life to Christ, and started attending Bible studies, spiritual growth classes, and Celebrate Recovery, that I realized the damage I was causing in my own family and in myself.

As I started to understand things about myself, learned what I hadn’t received emotionally (or have modeled to me), I began to make changes in my parenting and my relationship with my husband—though both are still far from perfect. The point is, we can make changes in our lives that will affect the legacy we leave behind.

Case in point: although my mother was mentally ill all her life, I realized in her passing three years ago that she didn’t leave me a legacy of mental illness as I had feared she would. She left me a great legacy of faith by modeling that to me. I didn’t appreciate it when I was young, but see it now as a vibrant part of who I am.

Before my father passed away the following year, there was a great deal of healing between us as well. Those last few months gave both of us peace in his passing. Those are the memories that stand out to me now as I think of what he gave me. I attribute that to God’s work in me and my ability to forgive both of my parents early on in my recovery and healing process.

I am breaking the generational curse of dysfunction by modeling biblical principles with my sons. I wish I had known then—when my kids were young—what I know now. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they enter into the therapeutic process because of things I said or did out of my parenting and biblical ignorance.

My hope in all of this is that, when I’m dead and gone, my sons will remember that I had a heart for Jesus and that He became the foundation of my life. And when they decide to enter into the healing process, I hope and pray that they will embrace it with grace for themselves and their imperfect parents, along with embracing their Abba Father, who is the Healer of all wounds.

“Lord my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me.” Psalm 30:2, NIV

~ Ardis A. Nelson

Role-Reversal and Emotional Baggage

21 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by in confessing our need, emotional needs, feeling inadequate, forgiving mom, frustration to freedom, God's healing love, letting go of anger, mother wounds, the healing journey

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Loritta Slayton

Loritta, author of the story “White Knuckles”

Loritta Slayton tells another story of mother-daughter role reversal.

“Little by little,” Loritta says, “more of those decisions that limited Mom’s independence were required…. Quite independent her entire life, this change was hard for her. I found it challenging to lead in the face of her resistance and frustration. I hated the friction it caused.”

Loritta’s upbringing wasn’t characterized by warm or demonstrative affection and trust. White-knuckled anger took hold of Loritta as the responsibility for her aging mother (and then her mother-in-law as well!) fell to her. Loritta says, “Mom had ways of bringing out my lack of patience…. I had emotional baggage to deal with and I didn’t know how.”

Loritta’s story, “White Knuckles,” is the last story in the book, Journeys to Mother Love, for a reason. She has a strong testimony of relational healing that hinged on forgiveness toward her mother and obedience to the Lord. The conclusion to her story makes a fitting conclusion to the entire book:

“And so I hope that you, the reader, will be encouraged to give God permission to loosen your fingers from any ‘white-knuckled’ grip. May you be encouraged to say, ‘yes.’ May you experience the joy of finding freedom in any relationship where you’ve let your emotions rule over your heart and life. … Don’t wait. Give God permission now and start your journey to freedom and love.”

Thank you, Loritta, for your example to us of honesty and courage and faith.

~Catherine Lawton

Is Mother’s Day Painful for You?

08 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in encouraging each other, feeling inadequate, forgiving mom, forgiving yourself, God as our parent, the healing journey

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flowers

How many of us, if we were really honest, would admit that we don’t look forward to Mother’s Day? We dread this day devoted to celebrating mothers. It conjures up feelings of inadequacies in our own parenting or maybe how we didn’t live up to the expectations our parents had for us. Maybe it even reminds us of the shame or condemnation we felt at the hands of our parents—especially our mothers.

Mother’s Day isn’t always about bouquets of flowers or a box of chocolates for mom. Sometimes it is filled with bitter memories of a childhood loss due to abusive parents, a longing for the birth mother we never knew, or regrets from things we said or did that can’t be taken back. Maybe your mother has died and you miss her presence in your life.

Those kinds of painful memories can also leave us questioning God or turning our back on him. Ultimately, I think, Mother’s Day can leave us yearning for something more.

What is that something more? It is the filling of the hole in our heart left by unforgiveness and broken dreams. How do we fill it? Maybe we turn to alcohol, drugs or sexual fantasizing; or maybe it is to acceptable forms of addictions like busyness and people pleasing—whatever it takes to make the ache go away. Haven’t we all done it or experienced it to some degree?

To all of you daughters and mothers who are in a painful place this Mother’s Day, I empathize with you; for I used to be there too. Don’t give up hope. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV).

We can choose how we want to react to all of these circumstances. We can choose to walk in the light and hope of Christ, or we can choose to walk in the doom and gloom of the past. The past doesn’t need to define us. We have a choice.

As believers, we belong to the family of God, the body of Christ. If we don’t have a mother who bonded with us or nurtured us in loving ways, we can still get that kind of nurturing from our spiritual family and friends. Our family of birth does not have to define us. It is Christ and the family of God that define our identity.

Every day can be a day to celebrate mothers, if we view it from God’s perspective. Choose joy.

Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you (2 Corinthians 13:11, NLT).

~ Ardis A. Nelson

It’s Not too Late to Forgive

21 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by in confessing our need, leaving a legacy, letting go of anger, reconciliation, the healing journey

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Ardis and her dad

Ardis with her dad soon before his death

Like a scab ripped from the skin, my wound was exposed again. Why would I deliberately enter into that wound again? How could I think that it was really healed? A recent post, “I Forgive You,” by Catherine Lawton was the catalyst that prompted me to take another look. That, and the fact that I spent Holy Week last year caring for my 93-year-old father, sent my mind back to the months preceding his death.

Catherine’s post reminded me of how the words and actions of forgiveness were not something that was modeled to me when I was growing up. Tears weren’t allowed either. We were taught to ‘buck it up’ and move on. Reading that post took me back to the letter I had written my father a year before he died. My grief at that time was still fresh from my mother’s passing, and my healing was making me bold in things of the heart. After reading Catherine’s post I pulled out that year-old letter.

Re-reading the letter to my father brought the pain of the wound to the surface. Tears overcame me as I read the words I had penned to him about my inner healing. I knew he had worried about me in the past, concerned that I would develop mental illness like my mother. He had told me that he was ‘watching me’ for signs. So I wrote the letter to reassure him that I was okay.

I’ll share a part of the letter to hopefully inspire others to forgive their parents. I sent this letter with no expectations from him in return. I just wrote what I felt the Lord laid on my heart to tell him:

“I won’t know all God’s purposes until I am in Heaven, too. But here on this earth and in this time, I have received incredible healing and much peace…. That is what I want for you, Dad. I thought it was important for you to know that Mom forgave you [before she died]. I want you to know that I forgive you also. I know you did the best you could under the circumstances. Even if you do have regrets about any of these family things, I know that, as a Smith,* it would be incredibly difficult for you to admit it. We Smiths always think we are so right. I guess if I had one regret in my upbringing it would be that I didn’t learn how to forgive others and to say “I’m sorry.” Those words would’ve helped me let go of so much of my anger and resentments years ago…

“…It’s not too late for you, Dad. You can do this. You can release all your ‘rightness’ and no-regrets thinking to the Lord. You can leave this family with a legacy of forgiveness. I hope and pray the Lord will bless you and keep you in His love for all your remaining days.

“I love you.

“Ardis”

My father never mentioned this letter to me or anything that was in it, but my stepmother told me he read and re-read it many times. I believe it sank into his heart, bridged the distance between us, and eventually gave him the ability to go in peace. Risking his rejection and ridicule by expressing my heart was worth it.

How about you? Is there someone to whom you need to say “I forgive you” while there is still time?

~ Ardis A. Nelson

*Surname changed to protect family privacy.

“I Forgive You”

07 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by in childhood memories, confessing our need, forgiving mom, God's healing love, letting go of anger, the healing journey

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"Forgiveness 3" by Carlos Latuff.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In every close relationship we can get our feelings hurt. At those times—when we hurt each other in big and small ways—two little words make a huge difference: “I’m sorry.” Have you said “I’m sorry” recently to your best friend? to your spouse? to your child? to your parent?

Then a sweet, healing balm is applied to the wound when three simple but powerful words are spoken back: “I forgive you.”

Nine Women Tell their Stories of Forgiveness & Healing … That’s the subtitle of our book, and for good reason. Healing and forgiveness go together. In fact, I can confidently say that relational healing won’t happen without forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the turning point in all the stories in Journeys to Mother Love.

During this season of Lent, I am going to meditate on the forgiveness provided for me by Jesus on the cross. He forgave freely, unconditionally, forever. Jesus was mocked, misunderstood, abused, rejected. Yet he said, “Father, forgive them.”

He was despised and rejected … a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering…. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows … and by his wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53: 3-6)

 
Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Can we not bring our offenses, hurts, and rejections to Jesus?

Because Jesus forgives, we must. Because he did, we can.

Forgive. Then live in a heart attitude of forgiveness. Slights, rejections, offenses will come—sometimes unexpectedly, catching us off-guard. I’m asking the Lord to help me recognize those feelings when they come, then help me give the offense and the feelings to Jesus immediately. He knows my thoughts and feelings already. I can simply let it go. In faith. With love. Because there are much bigger things at stake than my hurt feelings. Because it’s so much more important how the Lord sees me than how others see me. Because he gave his life and shed his precious blood so that forgiveness could happen. Because fellowship, relationship, wholeness are so important to the Lord and so wonderful to experience.

I realize some wounds are so deep we hardly know how to face them, how to deal with them, or even exactly what or who we need to forgive. Perhaps the other person is not saying “I’m sorry.” But our unforgiving spirit is causing us pain and keeping us from a life of joyful wholeness.

As a child I heard my preacher father give the sermon illustration of a festering boil, full of pus and painful to touch. Such a sore place causes misery and anguish until you are willing to have it lanced open and drained of the poisonous, pressuring pus. Or what about a person who had a broken arm that wasn’t set properly and grew together wrong, awkward and painful? It must be re-broken and set properly so it can knit together in harmony and heal, so the arm will move freely without pain.

I don’t want to let poisonous reactions, angry pressure, out-of-kilter attitudes, or pus-like resentment fester in my soul and cause anguish in my relationships.

Lord, give me the grace to say and mean, “I forgive you.”

~Catherine Lawton

Mourning Their Loss

12 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by in encouraging each other, God's healing love, healing after abortion, reach out and touch, the healing journey

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Alpine mountains and meadow

(Photo: C. Lawton)

I attended a fund raising event last night for our local pregnancy care clinic which has the mission of erasing the perceived need for abortion, through education and support in an unplanned pregnancy. Of the many moving testimonies, one that resonated with me was an essay entitled “6 Students Absent.” In it, a teacher recounts sitting at her desk and observing her class. She goes through each student, telling his or her strengths—this one is a talented artist, this one is a friend to everyone, that one is a beautiful singer. Then she comes to the six who are absent—the students that never were, because of abortion. She mourns their loss and the fact that the world will never know them or their talents. How sad and how true.

From a mother’s perspective, I can relate to the void she was alluding to. I have felt that void every day for my lost daughter. Because God has redeemed my choice to abort so many years ago, I no longer feel condemned, but the void has never left me. There is a missing piece of my heart just as there was a missing seat in that classroom. This void is what fuels me to share my story. My heart’s desire is that a mother will be spared a broken heart, and a child who might never have been known, will be known.

Thank goodness I serve a God who is big enough to forgive any sin and to heal every hurt. I look forward to the day when I can meet my precious Holly in heaven and that void in my mother heart is finally filled.

If you would like more on this topic, please visit my blog: http://singobarrenwoman.wordpress.com/

~ Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

Forgiving is For Giving

14 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in confessing our need, encouraging each other, the healing journey

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When I sat down to write a post on the subject of forgiveness, this is what came to me:

an upward trail through trees and rocks

(Photo: C. Lawton)

Forgiveness is an essential part of our journeys. It’s not a destination at which we arrive, or a side path through a flowery meadow, or a grueling test of our grit where we must climb over slippery, jagged rocks; it is something we carry with us, essential for the entire upward journey. It is a burden so light, it almost carries us over trail and meadow and rock. It is a cloak.

This cloak is made of gossamer fibers perfectly spun, from a spotless lamb. The cloak is freely given but we each must first feel our need for it. The Giver waits for us to ask. Then, when this covering is wrapped around our shoulders, it somehow gives lightness to our feet, puts invigorating air into our lungs, and brings clarity to our vision. The old coldness, cramping, and complaining are gone. The squint of the eyes and the clenched fists gave way to accepting eyes and open hands.

It is made with grace, and like the Elven cloaks given to the Hobbits, it protects us from evil predators and attacks from the enemy of our souls. And even though it is light as a feather, it keeps us warm on harsh, cold nights.

(Photo credit: ARendle)

When you have this wonderful cloak, you share it with others. It is amazingly expandable and can be extended to other weary travelers so they can find warmth and safety and acceptance. If you’ve truly received it, you can’t not share it.

The journey can be rough and scarring. How healing it is to receive and give forgiveness from our fellow travelers—mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter.

~ Catherine Lawton