Ephesians 6:1-4
Advice for Loving Families
1Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2"Honor your father and mother"—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3"that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth." 4Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Colossians 3:20-21
Advice for Loving Families
20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.
21 Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.
God tells our fathers to not to exasperate their children...God's Word tells us to raise a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it...Parents are clearly cautioned to take steps to correct foolishness which "is bound up in the heart of a child."...Parental discipline is essential, but some parents may overread discipline verses as giving control over their children...Control means training and instructions from the LORD...Parents need to discipline their children, but they must keep their own emotions and actions in check
Self rejection can come from our parents rejecting us, our friends rejecting us, our partners rejecting us, or we just rejecting ourselves...Self rejection, if it happens when we are very young and is a strong trauma, is a feeling and long term recording of dysfunctional memories that we do not forget our entire lifetime...Even when we are very young we start to draw a conception of reality...We often cannot process the trauma because of our young age...So we try to disassociate ourselves from the trauma...The reality we see is not the same as the reality of others who have not been traumatized...And interestingly enough, we often mentally try to downplay the trauma and just try to forget it or tuck it away in our subconscious...But eventually the trauma or abuse will eventually show its head in some negative form of emotion feeling -such as depression or anxiety or some other negative emotional experience, or some body sensation, such as a pain...One of the tragedies of youth abuse and even later abuse we hold on to this trauma and it keeps us from loving, forgiving, and have mercy as well as those who have had their emotions damaged...We feel damaged and reject ourselves -self rejection...Often when we feel self-rejection we feel we are isolated, abandoned, and believing we are nobody...
With these hurts it is harder to have a loving relationship with the Father and His Son...We find it harder to love and be a happy part of a group...Because your emotions are tangled up, it is hard to get a good relationship with the LORD...But when the LORD went to Cross He forgave us of all our sins...So it is better for us to have a tender heart with forgiveness...We must learn how to forgive the one or ones who have harmed us...This will help in our relationship with the LORD...As we read through the gospels, we see how forgiving Jesus is...He was constantly forgiving others...We, as best we can, need to be forgiving like Him, to help us get over these negative repeating memories of our youth...Let us acknowledge that God has the power to heal us, and forgive us, and help us to forgive others and to love more...God's LOVE for us is a core truth for our being here...
Dutch Catholic priest, professor, writer, and theologian Henri Nouwen said, “Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection...Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection...When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions...The real trap, however, is self-rejection...As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody."... [My dark side says,] I am no good...I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned...Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved."...Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”...