While perusing Facebook this week, I’ve read many messages by friends honoring their moms in observation of Mother’s Day. A mother’s boundless love is a beautiful, indescribable blessing.

Mother’s Day was intended to be a special day on which individuals would spend time with their moms, enjoying their company and telling them how much they were loved. West Virginia native Anna Jarvis, who established the occasion in 1908 as a tribute to her own mother, was dismayed by the commercialization of Mother’s Day after it was proclaimed a holiday in 1914.

Despite Anna’s disappointment that gifts and cards often replaced time and companionship, her legacy is an annual occasion of joy for many families. Even those who mourn for mothers who have passed away find comfort in the beauty with which these precious ladies completed the lives of their children and grandchildren. Despite the loss, the love remains.

But there is another perspective regarding Mother’s Day.

For some, the word “mother” is synonymous with abuse. Far from epitomizing the generous and caring woman of Proverbs 31, there are mothers who make life miserable for their children. How do those who survived years of abuse as children cope with the emotional and spiritual residue as adults?

I am not a psychologist capable of addressing the devastating effects, deeply ingrained, caused by lifetime of cruelty that some humans are capable of inflicting. But on Mother’s Day, when a nation of people are dedicating love and honor to all of the wonderful moms who truly deserve it, I would like to share encouragement with those who do not have a positive parental relationship.

When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me. ~ Psalm 27:10

The same God whose word commands children to honor their father and their mother knew that parents would not always be honorable. How can you honor the person who physically and verbally abused you throughout your life?

You do this by honoring God as your Father. Adults who came from abusive parents tend to automatically assign the qualities of those parents to God and view Him as the spiritual equivalent of the abusive human mother and father. While this is understandable, it is nevertheless a lie. God’s love is overwhelming and pure beyond what the human mind can comprehend. You can trust God not to hurt you. You can go to God and tell him everything – everything – and know that He loves you and invites you to trust Him and honor Him with your presence and your confidence.

You can view your parents as individuals with a past. Always remember this: the abuse you endured isn’t about you at all. It never was. Abusers are human beings with damaged souls who, finding no good in themselves, set out to destroy the good in others. You are the collateral damage of your mother’s or father’s wounded past. In no way does this justify what they did to you. But it offers you the potentially healing perspective of realizing that they hated themselves far more than they ever hated you; that at one time, they, too, were innocent children; and that whatever happened to mutate the children they were into the monsters they became took place long before you were even conceived.

You can be thankful that you are who God says you are, not who they said you were! God says you are beloved. God says you are blessed. God says you are you are a jewel; you are the apple of His eye; you are beautiful; you are His child! Believe Him!

You can make certain that the abuse goes no further than your parents. The Bible relates some interesting things about generational curses. We see it all around us: drug addictions, criminal behavior, physical abuse, poverty, for only a few examples. Children grow to adulthood surrounded by family members who practice those behaviors, only to raise their own children in those same situations, and then their children’s children continue that same path on through the generations. It is almost certain that the parents who abused you were themselves abused at some point in their lives. They passed their abuse on to you. Make sure it stops here. You won’t mean to hurt anyone else, but like any other behavior learned during childhood, abuse can become automatic, independent of thought or intent until the damage has been done. Speak with a counselor, a pastor, a psychologist, if necessary. Another person’s insight can help you make peace with your past and lay those nightmares to rest and ensure that you don’t unintentionally pass them on to the next generation.

You can forgive them. Forgiveness isn’t a feeling. It isn’t telling the abuser that what he or she did was okay, because punishment and reprieve are God’s business. Forgiveness doesn’t mean promising that you will never remember those circumstances with anger. Forgiveness doesn’t even mean you will continue a relationship with the abuser. 

Forgiveness is a choice. It is something you choose to do in order to release yourself from the self-destructive bitterness, anger, and desire for revenge that are the residue of being brutally and deliberately hurt by another person.

Forgiveness is also a form of acceptance. What happened, happened. No amount of anger or vengeance will change that. Punishing abusers or watching them suffer in retaliation will not change what has already been done and will not erase the hurt they caused. The scars will always be there.

Forgiveness frees you of a burden you were never intended to carry. Give your hurt and the individual who caused it to God and leave any judgment and consequences up to Him while you move forward into the abundant life He has prepared for you to receive. As difficult or impossible as forgiveness might feel, God can lead you through the process as you pray for His very present help each day. He knows how you feel. He knows why you feel that way. He understands completely. This is why He makes it possible for you to choose to forgive others just as He forgives you.

You can celebrate the strong and beautiful women who are blessings to you!  Those women who are mother figures, sisters, dear friends – uplifting, encouraging, inspiring role models who believe in you and help you to believe in yourself – Mother’s Day is an excellent time to let them know how much you treasure their love and their positive influence on your life.

You can celebrate your own children.  Whether you have children of your own or interact with the children of other family members and friends, imagine your dream mom, the mother you wish you’d had. Be that mom to all of the children in your life.

To all moms with human children, moms with fur children, and mom figures to other children, all of whom live out a positive influence to guide the next generation – Happy Mother’s Day, today and every day!

Go farther with God!

Psalm 17:8-9 NKJV
Psalm 45:10-11 NKJV
Psalm 46:1 NKJV
Malachi 3:17 NKJV
Romans 8:15-16 NJKV
Ephesians 6:1-4 NKJV