I don't think it's a matter of children being responsible for the sins of their forefathers. I do think part of it is children having to deal with the consequences of their parents' sins, whether those consequences are very personal as in marital strife and divorce, or more communal, as in the legacies of environmental damage and social or economic injustice. But the aspect that is more on my mind these days is the way that sins of one generation, if not confessed and repented and truly dealt with, are passed on to future generations as the behaviors and attitudes that they emulate - even when not consciously taught or openly displayed.
This is very true in my family. Two of the major sins with which I wrestle - depression and sexual immorality - are clearly repetitons of the patterns of one or both of my parents. And from talking with and witnessing my sisters, the patterns were transmitted to their lives too, in some different ways but also some of the same ones. Some of these sins were modeled by my parents' observable behavior, some we only heard about in stories of the past, some had very direct effects in the present on our family.
One of the things I find so interesting, though, is that even the sins we as children might have vowed never to commit came back to us. This was very true for me with sexual sin; I was honestly committed to staying a virgin as a child and young adolescent. But the will alone wasn't enough; I hadn't ever dealt openly with (or even acknowledged to myself) the perversions of my attitudes and inclinations about sex away from the kind of healthy, loving relationship God intended. I never really delved into what sex should be about, what I thought about it at the time, and how to present my body and mind to be truly set apart for the Lord. So when the opportunity to sin found me, I was wholly unprepared to withstand it (or understand its power), and I was easily ensnared.
The trap of depression was also something I fell prey to very early, but never understood a need to fight until much later. I was equally unready for that battle, because it was something my family discussed even less then our sexual family history or present. We didn't talk about who was struggling with depression, or why, or how we treated each other as a result, or what to do about it. I tried to fight with sheer force, blindly; but I never really got at the heart of what I was fighting against until much, much later, when I was forced to examine the deep roots of sin in mistaken attitudes about myself, but ultimately about God.
These are things that I have battled with for years, and that I still struggle with often. The point of this post is not to blame my family - after all, my decisions were in the end my own - but to identify the cycle in order to try and break it. I don't want to pass these things on to my children, as I'm sure my parents wanted not to pass them to us. But how do you stop handings these sins down over and over?
I don't have a clear answer to that yet. I am hoping that the first steps are what I am trying to do now with God's guidance - being honest about where I have been and where I am now; being open about my struggles both to be held accountable and to be able to encourage others who are also struggling; and seeking passionately after the deep knowledge of the Lord and his creation in me and around me. I hope I'll be able to speak truthfully and rightly about these issues with my children. I know they will still make mistakes of their own ... I'm just hoping they won't be the same ones I made.
5 comments:
There's a saying in law that "sunlight is the best disinfectant." That goes for sin too.
All sorts of nastiness thrives quite happily in the dark -- nobody talks about it, nobody acknowledges it, nobody tries to understand what's going on and why.
You're doing something very different -- you're bringing all this muck out into the sunlight. That's the best way out there to break these nasty cycles and keep from passing them on.
(I'm not at all sure I'm comfortable classifying depression as "sin" by the way -- but maybe that's a conversation for another day.)
*hugs*
At first I wasn't comfortable about classifying depression as a sin either, but I think that it has been, at least for me. Maybe I should put it this way, to clarify: the chemical/physical stuff that is often the instigator for depression is not a sin in and of itself (although I wonder if it is still something that in our age might merit cleansing, much like a Levitical skin disease.) However, how you handle those chemical issues is still in your control, even if they are really hard to manage. The way I chose, for most of my life, to respond to my brain chemistry challenges was wrong, and originated out of some fundamental misunderstandings about God and about who I am as his child.
So I guess that's where the sin is for me - wrong thoughts, that led to wrong actions and choices, and that really did require an attitude of recognition of my errors and of repenting my choices. Much of it may have been unconscious/unintentional, and praise Jesus that I have been forgiven for (and in ongoing ways, healed from) it. But as we know from this month's study, you can still be at fault for things you didn't even know you were doing wrong at the time. Ignorance is no excuse before the Law ...
Ah. You can respond to depression in sinful ways -- as you can respond to anything else in healthy ways or in sinful ways. That's certainly true.
Again, I go back to my original point. Genetics being what they are, it's quite possible that your kids will deal with the same brain chemistry challenges that you do. But if you get them out in the open, learn to deal with those challenges appropriately, and create a home where it's OK to talk about such challenges rather than shrouding them in mystery, then the odds of your kids being able to deal with their challenges in healthy ways just went up significantly!
That's what we're hoping! Of course, I've got to get the kids first ... ;)
Oh details details ...
:)
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