I have been trying for some time to articulate exactly what Linda Mintle, Ph.D. said in this article about what forgiveness is not. This really explains it in a way that I hope most people will understand:
RE: Forgiveness is NOT:
1. Reconciliation. This takes the cooperation of two people (Reconciliation, however, is the heart of God -Matthew 5:24).
2. Condoning wrong behavior.
3. Minimizing what was done that was hurtful.
4. Pardoning the person; that’s God’s job. Your job is to be released from the power of the offense.
I have four daughters and it seems they each were parented by a different mother in their eyes. There is a quote in the book, "Her Daughter's Dream" by Francine Rivers that sums up, I think, how many mothers feel.
"I love every one of my children and I did the best I knew in raising them. I just wasn't always the mother they wanted."
And I think it was Joyce Meyers who said, "When I knew better, I did better." I am grateful to the Lord that I have learned and am still learning how to parent in different ways than I did when I was a teenage mother. By God's grace and forgiveness I am a different woman than when I started out and He gets the credit for it. As you pointed out some people forgive but don't always reconcile. But the hope for that is always in His heart and a mother's heart, too, for her family.
What a great article by Linda Mintle, Ph.D.
http://blogs.cbn.com/familymatters/archive/2011/03/10/what-does-it-mean-to-forgive.aspx
Donna Collins Tinsley is a sister among you, a sojourner, who writes a word of hope for mothers who have been affected by the pain of addiction in their loved ones lives. She prays for them also through Somebody's Mother Online Prayer Support Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/119408188089314/. She lives in Port Orange, FL and has been included in 20 book compilations, several magazines and online. She is a lover of the Lord Jesus Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment