Forgiving the Sins of our Fathers

"Families are definitely the training ground for forgiveness. At some point you forgive the people in your family for being stuck together in all this weirdness, and when you can do that, you can learn to forgive anyone... Not forgiving someone is like drinking rat poison and expecting the rats to die.” -- Anne Lamott

This article that appeared in Christianity Today, got me thinking.

When I was 19, I made a conscious decision to do two things.

Those two things, among other things, changed my life.

What were they?

1. I forgave my former school classmates for any wrongs or hurts they were involved in, directed to me.

2. I forgave my parents for any mistakes they had made involving me.

Now before you think that there are deep and dark secrets here...I need to tell you that...no, there are not.

School stuff?  I was just as annoying as the rest of my classmates....and probably more so.  I have had to make my own apologies through the years for that.

And parents?  Well, they were just two kids who got married, had a family...and were largely products of their own upbringing.

I still remember this quote by Mark Twain, on the blackboard when I entered my Grade 9 classroom for the first time...it stuck with me through all these years...

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

Believe me, I thought my parents were ignorant.

But even before 21, at 19...a light went on.

I forgave them...for things I thought were real and substantial  errors in my upbringing.

And then I saw through different eyes. My parents were smarter, kinder, wiser and more loving than I had ever realized.

It changed my life.  I had a new found respect for Mom & Dad.  Enough that a change in our relationship took place...from parent to child, to friend to friend.

It's funny.  I am not the only one who experienced that.

Scores of writers have documented the need for kids to forgive their parents. From Oprah to this great article by Craig Harper.

And why forgive? "Nursing resentments toward a parent does more than keep that parent in the doghouse. We get stuck there, too, forever the child, the victim, the have-not in the realm of love. Strange as it may seem, a grudge is a kind of clinging, a way of not separating, and when we hold a grudge against a parent, we are clinging not just to the parent, but more specifically to the bad part of the parent. It's as if we don't want to live our lives until we have this resolved and feel the security of their unconditional love. We do so for good reasons psychologically. But the result is just the opposite: We stay locked into the badness and we don't grow up." -Oprah.com

Now...do not get me wrong. In situations where there is serious wrongdoing on the part of a parent, it becomes more difficult...but it also becomes more imperative.

I forgave for what I perceived were hurts and wrongdoings. Some were probably legitimate, some where just my perceptions as a whiny, easily slighted teen-ager.

And school?  Well...we were all whiny easily slighted teen-agers.  And we were ruthless with each other. But it was time to move on.

But what it did?  It took a huge weight off my shoulders.  It allowed me to move on with my life...minus the baggage of hurt and bitterness.

As Lewis B. Smede, the late Professor of theology and ethics said: “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” 

So now I tell my own kids what I did.  In all our imperfections as a Dad, parent and husband, fellow student - forgiveness is a much needed aspect of our relationship.

It will set you free.

Just like it did for me.