Loving the Parent You Have in Light of Easter

Being a parent is one of the hardest, or perhaps the hardest role ever. Once you become a parent all of your failures, rough edges, and nasty parts become exposed and vulnerable. We can try to hide those from our kids but just like holding our breath underwater inevitably it will pop up and we will have to face those ugly parts of ourselves. Parts we’d much rather ignore. I hated when my kids got a front row seat to Mom’s ugly sides.

Most good-natured people do the best they can at parenting. Can we all agree being a parent is hard?

But what happens when what we need as a child doesn’t line up with what our parents can offer as a parent?

There’s a popular movie themed around the Christmas season where kids are left behind at a boarding school during Christmas break. The film focuses in on one particular teenage boy. This teen asks his teacher to go to Boston as a field trip but what this teen boy really wants is to see his dad. He had led others to believe that his dad was deceased. The truth was that Dad was in a mental health facility for paranoid schizophrenia and early-onset dementia.

Once this teen sees and sits down across from his father we as the audience can sense a feeling of relief and overwhelming joy from the character who at last gets to see his dad during the holiday season. Dad is very receptive to his son.

Then, Dad leans forward and intensely says, “Listen, I have to tell you something…”

We can see the intense longing on the boy’s face waiting to hear his father’s words to him.

And he leans forward to hear what his father has to say to him…

“I think they are putting something in my food.”

This boys hurt and let down is glaring through the screen. His dad has disappointed him yet again.

What he needed from his father, his father was not able to give him.

And this might be the case for some of us. This might be the case for you. Just because someone is our parent it doesn’t mean they are capable of giving what we want or what we need. Most are just doing the best they can. Once we can come to terms with our parents’ limits and capabilities we can come to terms with accepting what they can give, as opposed to what we want and/or need. 

Yes, this can indeed be very painful and cause much grief and sorrow, but realizing it has nothing to do with us—that we have done nothing wrong—it can help ease the gap between what we need and what they are able to give.

During this Easter week perhaps it’s a good time to bury hurts and anger and offenses and give birth to new life. New life in accepting and loving a parent for who they are and not what we want them to be.

Or maybe there’s a loved one who has let us down, and maybe it’s time to bury that hurt.

The message of Easter is Jesus Christ dying on behalf of sinners offering life and forgiveness to all.

“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” 

– Isaiah 53:4-6

For more from Lucille Williams check out her books The Impossible Kid: Parenting a Strong-Willed Child with Love and Grace, and for your marriage, From Me to We, and The Intimacy You Crave. And Turtle Finds His Talent for ages 2-6. We invite you to subscribe to LuSays today for weekly encouragement.