On loving your Flawed Parents

"we are the uncles"

There’s a picture somewhere in your childhood home where your parents are your age. 

Have you thought about that carefully? 

When you were 10 in that profound moment of your story, they were 36 just like you. 

My brothers and I will reflect on this paradox with the phrase, “We are the uncles.” The men who loomed large in our childhood were goons like us. 

In a few years, you’ll be right where they were trying to figure out the advanced calculus of loving a teenager while also figuring out advanced calculus with them.

Are you giving your parents then the grace you give yourself today? 

Are you regarding them in the Light of Christ–calling sin what it is yet loving sinners with persevering kindness? 

What if they didn’t have everything figured out back then, just like you don’t now? What if they never thought they did? 

What if the high pedestal you found them on was not their making, but yours? 

Those we elevate, we are prone to worship. 

Those we idolize, we will begin to examine. 

Those we inspect, we will find flawed. 

Those we find flawed, we will demonize. 

This progression can be tracked across so many child-parent relationships. 

We rage against our parents as false and hypocritical for playing God. Most never wanted any part in playing God. 

How could they presume our praise though one of us? How could they use their authority and power so imperfectly? How could they wield expectations so inconsistently? 

Do you feel “in over your head” anywhere in life? 

God called them to lead and love before they felt ready too. His providence pushed them to the front of the line–ready or not.

Parents all sin and struggle. I’m not condoning for one second any sin or those parents who deliberately abuse their role. 

Many social stories and posts that sit in judgement of those that raised them. 

Let’s call each other to love our parents, not condemn them. 

Can you love them as they are and not as they should have been? 

One day you’re going to look up and realize that you are in their place. A new generation of eyes can see your flaws, blind spots, and struggles. 

We’d do well to kill the self-righteousness that empowers judging our parents and embrace Christ’s righteousness and Spirit power to love them. 

We are free to love those who raised us when we don’t raise them up too high. We are free to love them when we don’t raise ourselves too high. 

The inevitable flaws we find will not move us to tear them down, but to love them still as grace-saved-sinner like us! 

Your parents raised you, but they didn’t create you. They deserve to be loved as creatures, not carry the weight of Creator.