A Painful Mother's Day?

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!

Isaiah 49:15 NIV

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This is the season when many celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. We want to acknowledge that for some of us, those days may not bring about pleasant memories. You may have had abusive parents. You may not even know your father or mother. Maybe your parents were physically present in the home but you felt like you were invisible. Maybe your life would have been much easier if one of your parents weren’t around at all.

Mother wounds and father wounds are one of the leading contributors to sexual and relational brokenness. God intended mothers to provide us with a “sense of being”, that feeling that we are loved and our needs are taken care of. Fathers are intended to empower us to embrace the identity and purpose that God created us to express. Proverbs 22:6 NKJV tells us to “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.” If that is true, then what about the opposite? What if we train up a child in the way he or she should not go? The truth is that broken mothers and fathers inflict deep wounds in the hearts of their children. Sometimes we try to numb our pain through sexual sin. Sometimes the wounds draw us into unhealthy relationships. Raising up a child in a way he should not go has its painful effects. It inflicts deep wounds.

The good news is that our Heavenly Father can heal those wounds. Psalm 27:10 NKJV reads “When my father and my mother forsake me, Then the Lord will take care of me.” God isn’t like our earthly parents. He is safe. He is kind. He is empowering. He loves us so much that while we were still sinners, Jesus willingly sacrificed Himself on the cross… not only to cleanse us from the sins that we committed, but to heal our hearts from the sins that were committed against us. Healing and transformation are huge in the heart of our Heavenly Father. They are huge in the heart of our Savior as well.