With his book, The Power to Bless, Dr. Myron Madden helped me to understand that we all have a need to be given a blessing from our parents and that a number of parents don’t have a blessing to give. Dr. Madden quotes Pat Conroy in The Prince of Tides. Speaking of his parents Conroy says, "I longed for their approval, their applause, their pure uncomplicated love for me, and I looked for it years after I realized they were not even capable of letting me have it.”
Recently, I have learned a new way to look at the issue of parental blessing from Dr. Greg Baer in his book Real Love. He says what we all need in order to be happy is “real love,” not imitation love. Real love is the blessing that comes from knowing I am seen and accepted just as I am. Mr. Rogers used to say to the children watching his TV neighborhood, “I like you just the way you are.” That is real love. Imitation love has to be earned. It is expressed in the phrase, “I love you because….” A parent who only smiles and complements a child when he or she performs well is teaching that child to earn imitation love. “I love you because you are such a good boy (or girl) who gets good grades, cleans the house, goes to bed on time.” Imitation love is “I love you because you have earned it.” Real love is “I care about your happiness without expecting anything in return."
If your parents could not give you the blessing because they just didn’t have it to give, where can you get the real love you need? Myron Madden says you turn loose of your need to receive it from your parents and you learn to accept it from your peers. This has been a tremendously helpful insight as I have tried to understand myself and to help others find emotional and spiritual health.
Greg Baer says real love is God’s love, and it flows through any human being who can accept me without my having to earn it. I don’t have to get it from any one person.
Don’t try to get anyone to love you. Tell the truth about yourself, put yourself out there just as you are, and you will see that there are many people who can be channels of God’s love and blessing by accepting you just the way you are.
God seeks to bless those who will be channels of blessing to others, to give real love to all persons. No one is excluded. In Genesis 12:3, God says to Abraham, "...and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Jesus says to his disciples (people learning to do what Jesus does), “I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you. This is how the world will know that you are my disciples” (John 13:34). If I call myself one who seeks to bring blessing, then my task is to live out God's intent to bless all people, not just the ones I like or the ones who do something for me.
1 comment:
I think the Jews have it right on this point, when it's practiced as it's intended. If you remember the opening scenes of "Fiddler on the Roof" the point at which the family is at the table on Shabbat and the parents sing the Shabbat blessing upon their children. Even if they forget during the week, it's woven into the fabric of Shabbat for this to be done. Christians should be so intentional!
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