Weekly Sabbath Survey
Redeeming the Past — 1-11-2014
Recently a friend and I were discussing a movie in which Tom Hanks played Walt Disney. The story was of Walt working with the very difficult author of the Mary Poppins book in hopes of writing a screen play for the movie, which they eventually did.
Saving Mr. Banks was about Ms.Travers redeeming her childhood through the book she wrote. Any of us who grew up knowing our parents really were very imperfect, could relate to this woman’s emotion. Her father was known as a drunk and a n’er-do-well. His illness was overlooked and never mattered to much of anyone who knew him, except his family. Ms. Travers loved her Daddy, but was so ashamed of who she was because of him, she grew up and left Australia for London, changed her name, and developed a true English accent to cover her outback Aussy roots.
Few people I have ever known had the ideal childhood. Most every family is dysfunctional to some degree. Imperfect parents rear imperfect children, and the cycle continues. Too many times fear, shame and rejection go with us into our adult lives. Most of the time it is buried so deep that when it manifests, these emotions are unrecognizable as the driving force in our lives. We think these wounds and emotions and even the pain of them, are a part of our personality, but they are not!
As a Believer adult my parents’ baggage from their own childhood and from their post-war trauma was revealed to me. Then, I was able to redeem my parents and my childhood in my mind. I finally got over the scary monster my Daddy was at times, and embraced a sweet and tender man who tried very hard and provided well for his family. When my own emotional problems became obvious, I was able to see how difficult things were for my Mama and loved her all the more for what she went through.
Every time music, literature or film has presented a story like this about very difficult family life, the Lord has used it to make progress in my restoration, making me a little more redeemed about my own family. Being wounded in our soul takes a long time to be fully healed. Step by step we allow ourselves to forgive, to understand and to accept, that most of the time our parents were doing the best that they knew how in the circumstances.
When I first began in ministry, I was still far from being very much healed of my childhood traumas. Others could see the anguish and rejection that clung to me. When people remarked about these things, without any ministry to me, just a critique — it made me think I wasn’t OK. A blow to my confidence in the Lord. In reality, I wasn’t all right, but I knew that I was OK in Jesus. I was doing what I could, where I was, with what I had to work with. If some of us waited to be PERFECT like all those people who think they are so superior to us in every way, we would never tell a soul about Jesus, never see wrong and denounce it. We would be forever waiting for the “right” time.
If any perosn embraces Christ, he/she has become brand new; the old things are passed away, and, look at it this way: a new life has begun. 2 Corinthians 5:17
Charlene Reams Manning
Believer in the Lord Jesus Messiah
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