10: How to Forgive Your Parents
ONE THANKSGIVING EARLY IN OUR MARRIAGE, my wife and I went to my parents’ home to celebrate my brother’s safe return from war. All three of my brothers, our mom and dad, my wife, and I gathered around the dinner table for the first time in many years.
Our tradition growing up was to pray before meals, “God is good, God is great, and we thank him for this food. Amen.” It was a rote prayer—sincere, but often said in a hurry.
On this Thanksgiving, Dad said the blessing. Instead of zipping through the usual prayer, he bowed his head and said reverently, “Dear God, Mom and I just want to start by saying thank you . . .” That was as far as he got. He started heaving with tears, excused himself, and rushed into their bedroom.
I followed and asked, “Dad, what’s wrong? Are you okay? What just happened?”
After he regained his composure, he said, “I’m okay. It’s just that your mother and I never thought we would ever see our four boys together again in the same room.”
Something softened in me that day, and because I had been freely forgiven by God for my sins, I silently forgave my parents for theirs. I never felt the need to discuss how they had hurt me any further.
It may not be the same for you. If you’re regularly being impacted by bad feelings toward a parent, such as resentment or bitterness, you may need to have a difficult conversation before you can proceed in your healing process.
I will walk you through what this conversation might look like in chapters 12 and 13, “How to Rebuild Your Relationships (or Set Boundaries).” However, to give that conversation the highest likelihood of success, you should unconditionally forgive them first.
For example, Mike’s father dreamed about having a son who would play football. That dream shattered when Mike was born without the tips of a few fingers. On Mike’s sixteenth birthday, his dad told him, “The day you were born was the worst day of my life.” The damage was done, and his father has never shown remorse for his comment. When Mike told me his story over dinner, he said it still hurts years later when he thinks about it, but the pain doesn’t possess him the way it once did. Mike chose to forgive him, and it set Mike free from bondage to the sins of his father.
At first blush, that may seem overly simplistic or even impossible, but let me explain.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
No one can change what happened. Our parents are responsible for how they wounded us, whether they knew what they were doing or not.
Many times I’ve wondered, Why didn’t my parents rescue me? I think the simplest answer is they didn’t know how. This is just one more reason I think my father and mother would want me to work through our family’s experiences with you. What happened to their four boys should never have happened.
Maybe your parents are living; maybe not. Maybe you have a good relationship with them; maybe not. Maybe your relationship is civil; maybe not. Whatever your relationship with your parents is like, the elephant in the room is forgiveness.
Forgiving is not dismissing what they did or pretending that your wounds never happened. After all, there would be no need for forgiveness unless somebody had done something wrong.
Forgiveness is making a conscious decision to pardon your parents in spite of what they did. It’s an act of grace, not because they deserve it. And it’s central to getting out of the mental bondage you feel.
You’re not sweeping your parents’ sins under the rug, nor are you saying that forgiveness alone will erase the years of hurt.
But without forgiveness, the future of your relationship with your parents will look no different from the past.
THE UNIQUENESS OF BIBLICAL FORGIVENESS
One day Jesus explained how to handle sin, after which the apostle Peter asked him, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” (Matthew 18:21).
What makes Peter’s question so interesting is that Jewish rabbis at that time required forgiving a person for the same sin up to three times. After that, you didn’t have to forgive them anymore. It was the original three-strikes law.
But Jesus answered Peter, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:22).
Jesus wasn’t just telling people to count higher. Instead, he was using hyperbole to do away with the “three strikes and you’re out” rule altogether. The Jesus rule? However often someone sins against us, we are to forgive them.
Notice that Peter didn’t ask, nor did Jesus answer, “When someone comes to you, bows down and bends their knee, confesses their sin, tells you how sorry they are, and begs forgiveness, how many times should I forgive them?”
Jesus teaches unilateral forgiveness. We are to forgive people when they sin against us—whether they’re sorry or not, and whether they’ve asked to be forgiven or not.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught his disciples how to pray:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts [sins],
as we also have forgiven our debtors [those who have sinned against us].
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
Of all the lofty thoughts compressed into what we call the Lord’s Prayer, note that the first idea Jesus expanded is forgiveness:
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Jesus does not teach that an apology is necessary. He teaches that we are to forgive regardless.
Perhaps you are walking around angry, holding a grudge, harboring resentment, or stewing in bitterness because your parents wronged you. When you refuse to forgive them, your fellowship with God is broken. Jesus is clear: if you won’t forgive your parents, your Father in heaven won’t forgive you.
Notice that we are not yet discussing reconciliation. Forgiveness and reconciliation are related, but they are two different things. For example, an apology is usually needed before you can experience genuine reconciliation (more on this in chapters 12 and 13).
The uniqueness of biblical forgiveness is that even when your parents don’t deserve it, are no longer alive, or show no remorse, you can still forgive them.
FORGIVING THEM HEALS YOU
Why does it matter? When you don’t forgive, you are the one who suffers most. Accumulated unforgiveness is like a festering wound that gets infected when not treated.
Nelson Mandela, who endured apartheid and eventually became president of South Africa, remarked, “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
Until you forgive, you will continue to suffer.
Forgiveness is about releasing your mind, heart, soul, and spirit from bondage.
Jesus Is Our Role Model
The essence of Christ’s message is that, because of his love, no matter what someone has done, they can be forgiven.
Jesus didn’t come just to forgive and save “the good people.” On the contrary, Mark 2:17 states, “Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’”
Good thing, too, because we’re all included in the sick. Let’s be honest. You and I are both three-strikers who could never earn or deserve Jesus’ forgiveness. We have all done things that seem unforgivable. Yet he freely offers us forgiveness anyway—without any payment or cost.
The same applies to your parents. No doubt your parents are three-strikers too. But because of God’s love for them, no matter what they have done, they can be forgiven.
Forgiving Your Parents
God didn’t need you to love him before he extended you forgiveness. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
In the same way, you don’t need your parents to love you before you can extend forgiveness to them. We can forgive our parents when they don’t deserve it because God forgives us when we don’t deserve it.
Here’s the bottom line: God loves your parents just as much as he loves you. No matter what your parents have done, you can and should forgive them right now. Unilaterally. Without regard to whether they’re sorry. Forgiving your parents will only make your life better, not worse.
Mark Twain reportedly said, “Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that crushed it.” Wouldn’t it speak volumes to others if you were known for the ease with which you’re able to forgive?
“I DON’T KNOW HOW”
Reggie’s father was AWOL when he was growing up. When Reggie was in his forties, his father realized the error of his ways and apologized. He asked Reggie, “Can you forgive me?”
Reggie replied honestly, “I don’t know how.”
Can you relate to Reggie’s uncertainty? The good news is it’s not as complicated as it may seem. You can forgive your parents, by faith, as an act of your will.
Forgiveness is volitional, not emotional. You can forgive in your brain by faith and then give your emotions time to catch up. The emotional catchup could take days, months, or even years. We’ll explore this further.
At this point, however, forgiveness is something between you and God, not between you and your parents. You can tell God you forgive your parents, praying along these, or similar, lines:
God, thank you for helping me face the truth, get out of denial, and grieve what could have been. Now, by faith, as an act of my will, I forgive my parents their sins, as you have forgiven me for my sins. I do this unilaterally, without regard to how they might respond. I forgive them so that they can get on with their lives (if living) and so that I can get on with mine. Show me how to take responsibility for my own sins, as you show them how to take responsibility for theirs. I realize reconciliation and forgiveness are different. However, my forgiveness is unconditional. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
For you, this may seem like a hurdle that’s too big to get over. No one can tell you it will be easy, but I assure you that nothing is impossible for the Holy Spirit. Let me give you an example.
HOW THE IMPOSSIBLE BECOMES POSSIBLE
My friend Sean never imagined he could forgive his father. Here is his story, in his own words:
My childhood was filled with psychological and physical abuse. Basically, my father beat my brother and me all the time—and he was mean about it. There was this anger and rage, and we just never knew when or why he would blow up. My parents owned a very successful business, but I think that caused them a lot of stress that they didn’t know how to handle. So my brother and I always got blamed for whatever was upsetting my dad at any particular moment.
I got my nurturing from my best friend’s mom. I practically lived at their house. It was a safe place. They laughed, and they played music! When I was there, it made me even more aware of how messed up my home was.
I knew I needed to get out of there as quickly as I could, so when I was old enough, I enlisted in the Air Force. I visited home as rarely as possible—I was always afraid there’d be some kind of explosion.
Then my mom got sick and was disabled for several years. My dad did nothing to help her and made it difficult for me to see her. After she died, the executor of her will called to tell me that my dad wanted nothing to do with me going forward. No problem, I thought, and didn’t look back.
But before my mom got sick, I remember going to church one day and reading the Lord’s Prayer. I had heard it many times, of course, but on this day, for whatever reason, I really heard it. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” That prayer began a long wrestling match in me.
After my mom died, I didn’t see my father for seven more years. I was often driving near where he lived, but visiting the man never crossed my mind. He was dead to me. Then late one night, we were on our way home, and as we drove near my dad’s house, the Holy Spirit just took over. There’s no other way to explain it. God prompted me to call him.
I asked my spouse to pull over, and in the quiet darkness of the car, I found myself shaking as I dialed my dad’s number. “I bet you don’t know who this is,” I said when he picked up. “This is your son.”
After a brief exchange, I decided to go to his house. As we pulled into his long driveway, I was totally taken aback when he walked out. To be honest, I thought he might shoot me! But he said hello, formally, and we followed him inside. We had a short, stiff visit. Something was off. A week later, we got his diagnosis of dementia.
Because of his illness, I decided to help by moving him to an assisted living place a mile from our house. I took him to doctor’s appointments and out for meals, but for the first year I always felt on edge. I didn’t know how to interact with him. Eventually, we started being less rigid with each other. He was still a jerk, but he could also be kind, too, which was weird to see—even showing me physical affection like patting my hand.
During several years of helping to take care of him, I probably looked through thousands of photos he had saved, spanning decades. It was the craziest thing to look at photos of my childhood and see things I hadn’t remembered. It makes you think—Don’t trust your memory. It may not be as complete as you believe.
My whole life, we had been very formal with each other—no terms of endearment. I’d always called him by his first name. But in the last year of his life, somewhere along the way, I transitioned to calling him “Dad.”
We never really fully reconciled, but I did forgive him. At times, I felt angry that I never got a sorry from him. I never got that moment. Even now, when I see a man being compassionate toward his child, I get emotional. It’s still so foreign. But I realized that holding on to that anger only hurt me.
Six years after I went to his house that night, he had to be moved to hospice care. In his last days, I brought all the old love letters he wrote to my mom that I’d found in his house and read them to him. When I walked out of hospice for the last time, I felt the weight of it, but also a sense of peace. I looked back and said, “I tried my best. Maybe you tried yours.”
Sean’s father never lifted a finger to make up for the past, nor did he apologize for the wounds that turned Sean into a broken boy. Nevertheless, Sean listened to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and made a choice: forgiveness by faith, as an act of the will—an act that helped heal a broken boy and made the impossible possible.
Take a moment to reflect on your own story, and then take another look at the words of the prayer on page 122.
NOW WHAT?
The beautiful thing about unilateral forgiveness is that it begins to replace negative emotions with love, grace, mercy, and compassion.
Once you unilaterally forgive your parents, you may begin to see them in a different light, or to have a deeper understanding of how they became the parents they were. I’ll show you how to rethink their stories in the next chapter, but first, answer the reflection and discussion questions.
REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION
- How have you softened toward your parents, and why?
- What might your life be like in ten years if you don’t forgive your parents?
- What makes biblical forgiveness unique?
- Did you pray and unilaterally forgive your parents? How does that make you feel? If not, what’s holding you back?