Just a thought. . .
Honoring Parents, and other commands like do not divorce, etc. were written in the absence of abuse, or more accurately stated, the absence of evil. God is love and He is good, therefore, what He has to say pertains to those who are basically good and love and do not have the intention or desire to cause hurt & do evil. There is a huge world of difference between loving, imperfect and toxic narcissistic evil people. Those who do not understand the difference between imperfect and evil are either people who only had imperfect, not truly evil parents, or those (like I use to be) who really do have evil parents, yet are in a self-protecting, excuse making, denial state of mind (i.e.,"she can't help herself, not her fault, she had a bad childhood, she has a mental illness", etc.). The alternative, the truth, that our parent actually purposefully chooses to hurt us seems so unimaginable & too painful to accept that we grasp at any popular excuse that we can find to ease our minds & hearts, so that we can sleep at night. A parent who purposefully chooses to hurt their own child goes against basic nature to protect one's offspring. It is counterproductive to say the least. It is almost too much for the human soul to bare that your own parent, especially the woman who gave birth to you could be truly unremorseful, heartless, toxic, & evil.
(I have added the following paragraph to the original post in order to demonstrate the difference between the imperfect and evil parent).
Imagine two single women who are also single parents who decide to make money buy selling their bodies. Both choose to take drugs to numb themselves from the horrible life they chose. The imperfect parent eventually realizes that the life she has is damaging to herself and her children, in time stops her bad choices, is remorseful, asks forgiveness from her children & others who she has hurt, and leads a productive honorable life. The evil parent makes excuses for her life and is calloused to how her terrible choices hurt her children, never takes responsibility, blames her children for having to live the life of a drug addict & prostitute, verbally, emotionally & physically abuses her children and allows others to do the same, and not only sells herself, but her children as well to the highest bidder. The imperfect parent would protect her child if ever threatened and lay down her life for her child, in contrast to the evil parent who will lay down her child's life/feelings for her own gain. The imperfect parent is proud when her child succeeds and the evil parent is jealous & threatened by her child's successes and tries to sabotage her child's attempt at a better life. The imperfect parent brags about her child's accomplishments opposed to the evil parent's desire to put down or take away from her child especially when others are around, so that the evil parent looks better/smarter/more successful/talented than the child. The imperfect parent wants to put the spot light on and praise her child where the evil parent is extremely jealous & threatened by public praise/attention towards her child and will do what ever she can to take the attention away by causing some sort of a distraction (something that needs to be taken care of right away that only her child must do at this very moment, so that her child is physically taken away from the public attention, or she simply changes the focus to her and away from her child, or changes the the topic of discussion altogether). The imperfect parent can eventually admit when she has been wrong, be remorseful, apologize and ask forgiveness, and the evil parent is never wrong about anything & the expert at all things, and will triangulate and gaslight you to the point that you feel like you are the crazy one because your parent could never be so evil -- or could she? The imperfect parent cherishes her child where the evil parent abuses and uses her child and truly finds pleasure in her child's emotional/physical pain. The imperfect parent hates to see her child suffer in any way and the evil parent feels her best when you are at your worst. An evil parent you will know, when she treats you as her foe (see Sept. 09 post, Still A Work In Progress, original poem). If anyone else has an example to show the difference between an imperfect parent and toxic evil parent, please leave in the comments section.
God knows that we are imperfect and that there are those who choose to do abusive things that they later deeply regret. The key difference between imperfect and evil is the Remorseful Heart. The imperfect person truly has a remorseful heart which his/her changed behavior demonstrates and the evil person has a stone cold heart that lacks remorse and tries to blame others instead of taking full responsibility. Those of us who had a truly evil abusive parent know the difference between imperfect and evil and can understand the distinction between them. I believe that these commands were written in regards to loving & imperfect relationships and do not apply to abusive evil ones. God's love for us is unconditional; however, having a relationship with Him in Heaven is not. John 3:16 For God so loved the Earth that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him (Jesus) should not perish, but have ever lasting life. Thus whoever does not accept Jesus as his/her personal Savior will not have ever lasting life. God does put conditions/requirements on things. All paths do not lead to Heaven & God. Therefore, if a parent is to be honored, then s/he must act honorable and not abusive & evil. Does that mean that a parent has to be perfect? No of course not. This is where forgiveness comes into play. When a parent is truly remorseful, then a child can forgive a parent who changes. However, if a parent is not remorseful and sees no need to change a child is not forced/required/doomed/condemned to have an abusive, toxic relationship with an evil person that happens to be her parent. Matthew 10:34-39; tells us to separate from our parent and others. It says that Christ came to bring division. Surely separating from an abusive parent as well as an abusive spouse is what God has in mind here. God's love is perfect. In His love there is no abuse. His Love is so Amazing! Do you really think that a perfect loving parent would want His child to be put into harms way over and over again? No of course He wouldn't.
Yes, I know, God did put Jesus in harms way, because it was Jesus' destiny. Jesus suffered for the sins of the world because He is the Savior -- not us. Jesus was emotionally & physically slaughtered for sinners, so we don't have to be. It is not our destiny, nor our responsibility to save our evil parents, spouse, family members or friends. Not even God can/will save an evil person who is unwilling to change--so why do some people think or act like they are better than God? Why do they think they can do something that God will not do? God never tells us to lay our life down for an evil/toxic person. In fact He tells us to stay away & rebuke evil. Imagine your beautiful little daughter comes home from school with tears in her eyes. She tells you how her "friend" at school has been verbally & physically abusive towards her. You comfort her and explain to her that it wasn't her fault that this "friend" is abusive and that some people choose to be mean & do evil things which makes them our enemy and not our friend anymore. There are many scriptures that tell us to identify something as either good or bad and take the appropriate actions (read articles Are They Good or Bad? They Get Worse Not Better With Time, and By Their Fruits You Will Know Them). After numerous failed principal/parental interventions the abusive child continues to be a threat to your daughter. This enemy of your child has no remorse and no motivation to change her abusive evil ways. This mean abusive person may say everything you want & need to hear (which implies insight & remorse), but her abusive behavior never truly changes -- so what do you do? How many times must your child be slapped in the face before you have her end this toxic abusive relationship with the mean girl? When does your daughter get to fight back and protect herself from this enemy's attacks, do you condemn her to a life of doormat and personal punching bag? Of course you don't. You have your Beautiful Daughter end the abusive relationship with the mean girl ASAP (As Soon As Possible). You want to protect your child from evil doers at all costs -- it is a parental instinct that God created us to use. God is the perfect loving parent. We are created in His image and He wants to protect His children from evil just like we want to protect our children from evil, toxic, abusive people. Therefore, if God wants to protect His children from evil, and is no respecter of person, then why do some people believe that God wants us to honor evil abusive parents? God is perfect and would not contradict Himself, by saying rebuke evil at one time and honor it at another. Homework assignment, research the word reprobate in the Bible. I just discovered that you will have to use the old King James version, because the others have left it out. At least this is what I just found out after going to the Biblegateway.com -- the word reprobate literally got lost in translation! Read all scriptures you can find on it read the old King James version and switch it with another version to compare the difference.
- Jeremiah 6:30
Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them.
- Romans 1:28
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
- 2 Corinthians 13:5
Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye bereprobates?
- 2 Corinthians 13:6
But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates.
- 2 Corinthians 13:7
Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates.
- 2 Timothy 3:8
Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
- Titus 1:16
They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.
Reprobate is a new word that I learned about last year thanks to the Luke 17:3 Ministries. Google reprobate, I just did. Basically reprobates are people without moral scruples/a conscious. That is why they continue to say & do abusive, evil things. Reprobates are destined to eternal damnation; "God reprobated the unrepenting sinner". No where have I found that reprobates/evil people are infertile, thus it is logical that reprobates/evil people have children. What would God have us do with the reprobate parent? Remember, in Matthew 10:34-39; God says to separate from a parent--surely this is an abusive, toxic reprobate parent that He is referring to. Notice this scripture is from the New Testiment? It is very simple, God wants us to stay away from evil. Not have extremely low contact with it -- stay away from it. So what about the commandment to Honor Thy Mother & Father?
Children of Evil Parents are exempt from honoring evil parents in the traditional way that our society thinks about honoring, because we are to honor & respect good imperfect parents and rebuke evil & evil parents do not have an exemption from this rule. Just because they are someone's parent doesn't mean they get away with being evil towards their children &/or other people. There is great news! We can honor them in different ways.
How do we honor abusive, evil, reprobate, toxic parents?
We honor them by not returning the abuse that they gave to us.
We honor them by not wanting to destroy their lives, but to improve it/change it/transform it through Christ.
We honor them by praying for their salvation and for their break though.
We honor them by stop trying to save them, or change them, that it is Christ's job.
We honor them by letting go and letting God work a miracle.
We honor them by realizing that our enabling behavior & failure to give the ultimate consequence of no contact is getting in God's way.
We honor them by not enabling them to continue their abuse with us or with others.
We honor them by insisting that they get the professional help that they need, before they have anymore contact with us & our family members.
We honor them by remaining in a No Contact status and not being tempted to break it "for the kids sake" during birthday, holidays, or any other special occasion for this would send a mixed message & defeat the purpose of No Contact.
We honor them by giving them clear boundaries and consequences if they are not remorseful and repent/turn from/change/end their abusive behavior, OR we will have nothing to do with them.
We honor them by reversing the curse, in that we will not allow their abusive legacy to continue to our children.
We honor them by returning honor to the family's reputation & creating an awesome legacy for future generations.
Do you know another way we can honor our evil parents?
Share it with us & leave it on the comments section.
Just like there are two different kinds of families, loving/imperfect families and abusive/toxic families, there are two different kinds of honoring, honoring the loving parent and honoring the abusive one (as mentioned above). Both kinds of honoring parents should be equally respected because they come from love. When we honor abusive, evil, toxic, reprobate parents, as mentioned above, we are in fact fulfilling this commandment and need not feel any guilt that we can not do the other kind of honoring-it was not our choice to make. God blessed us with free will and it was our parents choice to be loving or abusive, therefore that places them in one category of honoring or another. Just as God says, I have put life (love/good) and death (hate/evil) before you -- choose life/love! Life/love is a choice and if we don't choose it then we get the natural consequence of our selection which is death. Death of a relationship with God and with others. God can not make people choose life/love and neither can we. The full responsibility of the death of a relationship lies on the abusive, evil, toxic, reprobate parent and no one else. A person should not be made to feel less of a Christian because she can not honor her evil parent in the exact same way a person who had a loving or imperfect parent. God says to rebuke evil--not honor it! We need to stop digging into one another, as the enemy would have us do, and start digging into scripture and stop ignoring what God says about people who are evil with a cold calloused unremorseful/unrepentful heart.
May the Lord bless you were ever you are at on your Life Journey.
There comes a time in our Healing Journey to Move On from the Pain of the Past. Moving On is a Process too that begins with little steps or small movements from a Crawl to a Walk to a Run. We will all reach this point in our own time in our own way. For me it is about having a Future that is Larger, Greater, and more Powerful than the Past. It is about having a Vision, a Mission, and a Dream much Much MUCH Bigger than myself. Here is my Small Movement focusing on Restoring Hope by Giving Dreams Wings,
If this chapter in my Life has made a positive impact or the Story of Self-Care is like Riding a Bike has blessed you, or any other chapters in the Journey of Letting Go has brought helpful insight, a deeper understanding, or made a positive difference and you would like to also Share It Forward and Help bring Hope any donation will help to change one Life at a time. No donation is too small, and every bit helps. And the Lord will say to us, Thank You for giving Me Hope, and we will say to Him, Lord when were you without Hope? And the Lord will say when you restored hope by Giving Dreams Wings what you did for them, you did for Me. Thank You & GOD bless your Compassionate Heart, Generous Soul, and Loving Spirit. Our Dream List includes raising funds for a Giving Dreams Wings website to better promote our Programs, Find Sponsors & Partners, and Share how Restoring Hope is Transforming Lives, which is the Vision & Mission of Giving Dreams Wings.
Please pray for Giving Dreams Wings and [SHARE] our Facebook page with your Friends & Family and encourage them to do the same, and we can all help Restore Hope by Giving Dreams Wings.