Confronting Parents

Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
Proverbs 27:6 KJV

I need this verse implanted, written, on my heart so desperately.  Godly confrontation saved my life, yet still I can flinch.  When I first began dealing with my parents, I was so sure that I would have to confront them face-to-face, and it would be just awful.  But that’s not how it went down for me.  As I said in my last post, I don’t know what God wants from me until He tells me.

I made peace with my parents on my face, on the floor, alone in my living room.  It was just me and God.  Sometimes stormy, sometimes weepy, God called me to confront myself – not for me to be confronting parents.

After the initial storm of seeing and weeping and accusing and repenting – you name it – I found that weeks would go by and I would have not a single, conflicted, or agonized thought about my parents OR my childhood generally.  I wondered if I was refusing to do the work, but the Lord smashed those thoughts pretty quickly as they came.

Then one morning, I woke up and realized that I was not only at peace with God’s sovereign choice of my parents, but that I was genuinely, enormously grateful for them.  I am unable to tell you when this heart transformation took place, because I simply don’t know.  It happened when I wasn’t looking, maybe while I slept.  The Holy Spirit performed a work in me that I was utterly unaware of at the time He did it.  I remember being astonished at how thoroughly He had healed me, down to my very memories.  The sharp, haunting pains and rejections were formless and faded, mere shadows of what they once were.

God knew what I needed, when I needed it.  He knew when I needed to speak and when I needed silence.  He required only my willingness to hear what He had to say and to see what He wanted to show me.  EVERYTHING ELSE was done by Him, and Him alone.

So why the proverb?  Well, God may call you to confront your parents, or He may not.  It is absolutely vital that we be in the Spirit at all times, and especially so in confrontation.  Like me, God may call you to confront yourself, to face a truth that you’d rather not acknowledge.  The wounds inflicted by the confrontation of the Holy Spirit are faithful to save, to heal, to redeem.  It is the enemy – and our own flesh – that pets and kisses us in our torment and says, “Don’t look at the gangrene!  It’s NOT slowly killing you; you’re fine.”

Whether you are called to confront your parents or not, God’s faithfulness to you and your parents is at work.  Just be willing to move as He leads, without assuming anything.  He knows we’re sick and lost, and He knows just what to do about it.

For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.
Matthew 18:11 NKJV