Honor your mother and father?

As humans, we have difficulty letting go of the past. We have trouble forgiving others who have hurt us or who have hurt those we love. We feel justified in our anger or our refusal to reconcile. We carry our pain with us all the time; sometimes hiding it deep inside our hearts. It can be a barrier to trust, respect, and intimacy in other relationships. We may eventually reach a place of forgiveness. Despite the scars we bear on our hearts, we are able to find a place of peace, of healing, and of love. We can look back on the events of the past and see them as a marker of how far we’ve come and where we don’t want to return. But when this process of healing and forgiveness only takes place for us, and not the one who hurt us, it can make reconciliation impossible and even harmful. And the question then becomes, “How can I love this person and honor them when they continue to try to hurt me, themselves, or others?” And fear creeps in that they may put us back in the dark place of pain again if we allow them to be in our lives. It’s easier to walk away. It’s easier to ignore the phone calls or the emails. But it's not so easy when it's a member of our own family. Our mother or our father. It's one thing to cut off contact with an ex, it's quite another to do the same with someone who literally gave us life. It takes a lot more guts, love, and long-suffering to choose to honor that person in whatever small way we can. And then it's just a matter of letting your heart guide you into exactly what that looks like. Because it looks different for all of us.