Freely You Have Received, Freely Give

I awoke one day with Matthew 10:8 running through my head: "Freely you have received, freely give." Give what? I asked. As the day progressed, God gave me an answer to that question.

I received an email from a friend who is in her early forties. When I was a child, I found refuge in this girl's home, where her mother frequently claimed to have adopted both of us. My adoption was one of the heart; my friend had been legally adopted by my heart mother.

To my surprise, my friend wrote that she was struggling with her own unhappiness from her past. It seems that while my beloved heart mother had provided a safe haven for me, she had smothered my friend with too much love and the hyper-vigilant protection that is typical of people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

I began to realize that just because a mother fails to meet her own child's needs, it doesn't mean that God can't use her to meet the needs of someone else's child. My heart mother failed to give her own daughter wings to chase after her dreams. And yet, she succeeded in making me feel safe whenever I was with her. It made me wonder if my own mother had failed to protect me from my father's sexual abuse while succeeding to make another girl feel special.

My thoughts turned to my children and how I had failed to protect them from the hurt of abuse and divorce. Marrying my second husband, Joe, brought me great joy. It frequently brought my children incredible pain, as they struggled to adjust to having a strange man telling them what to do. I know that my teenage sons often found solace at the kitchen tables of their friends' mothers.

All of my children could blame me for failing to protect them from the fallout of my father's sexual abuse. Fortunately, not one of them does. How was this possible, I wondered, when I felt nothing but anger for my own mother's failings? God's Word came back to me: "Freely you have received, freely give." That's when I knew what he was calling me to give: grace. He was asking me to freely extend grace to my mother, just as my own children had freely extended grace to me.

I began to look at life as a stage, where a monumental production needs to be acted out. I imagined something as complex as the movie, The Sound of Music. The Swiss Alps are breathtaking, the actors are tremendously talented as singers, and the costuming and staging are impeccable. I tried to think of my mother or my heart mother cast in the role of Fraulein Maria. I realized that the production would be a bust, and critics would trash their performances, because neither woman had the skills to play the part.

Unlike movie critics, God would never condemn either of these women for their poor performances. He looks on their lives with grace, understanding that each one has bravely done the best things possible, given their circumstances. Suddenly, I could see these women through God's eyes, and I felt ashamed of myself for having judged my mother so harshly.

My mother grew up during World War II on a farm, where her father regularly beat her mother. From behind a locked bedroom door, my mother and her brothers clung to one another, hoping that their mother would survive the brutal abuse. My heart mother was only 10 years old when her parents sent her into the German countryside, as far as possible from the dangers of war. She lived in a gardener's shed with her two younger brothers, stealing vegetables from nearby gardens so that they would have something to eat.

When we experience trauma of this magnitude over a long period of time while we are young, we can become stuck at an early level of development. Neither my mother nor my heart mother had an opportunity to grow up emotionally, since both of them went straight from the trauma of their young lives into early marriages. Their generation never spoke to others about the pain of abuse or trauma, and they viewed counseling as something for weaklings. Instead, they painted on pretty smiles and did what they thought was best. For my heart mother, this took the form of over-protecting her children. For my mother, it meant leaving the farm and always, always exhibiting nothing but perfection in her new life in the city. These were the coping mechanisms that these women with PTSD adopted...coping skills which, unfortunately, did not bring about perfect results for their children.

How can my friend and I extend grace to our mothers? Before we do so, we must take note of two important matters. First of all, extending grace does not mean that we cover up the truth. It's okay for us to say that our childhood needs were not met. As Christians, we are called to speak the truth in love.

Secondly, if our mothers turned to sinning as a means of coping, we must understand that they are accountable to God for the wrong things they did. While it was not a sin for my mother to arrive at parenthood without the prerequisite skills, it was a sin for her to turn to alcohol to numb her pain. I must separate my mother's lack of parenting skills from the sins she committed. I can only extend grace for my mother's inadequacies. It is God's job to extend forgiveness for her sins.

Why should I extend grace to a person who doesn't deserve it? you may ask. That's what is so unique about grace. None of us deserves it. But God extends it to us anyway, just because he loves us so much. (See Romans 3:23-24) Love is what allowed me to overlook my heart mother's shortcomings. It was also love that allowed my children to grant me the grace I needed for my inadequacies. I began to see that a lack of love was preventing me from extending grace to my mother.

It used to be easy for me to believe that Christ's blood was shed for my forgiveness, but not for my mother. I know now that Jesus wants to offer all of us forgiveness. In Matthew 11:28, Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." This doesn't say, "Come to me, all you except for Cheryl's mother, and I will give you rest." His forgiveness is extended to each of us.

While it is true that Christ's forgiveness is extended to all people, each one of us must respond appropriately to receive it. Just as someone may give us a gift-wrapped present, we cannot fully enjoy it unless we open it. Acts 20:21 tells us how to receive God's forgiveness: "...turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus." Forgiveness comes as a result of turning away from sin and placing our faith in Jesus' ability to lead us in the way he wants us to go. Faith means that we quit using Jesus like a genie in a bottle who grants all of our requests so that we can maintain control over our own destinies.

Mere belief in Jesus is not enough. Even Satan believes that Jesus is Lord. It's the submission of our will to God's that turns away his punishment and replaces it with grace. If we have fallen into sin as a result of our abuse, we must make peace with God over our own failings. In the same way, our mothers must take up their issues with the Lord.

God's Word opened my heart to the fact that I needed to adopt an attitude of love and to extend grace to my mother. This means that I am willing to see her as God does and to make concessions for her inadequacies which resulted from her childhood trauma. As soon as we apply grace to another person's actions, our forgiveness for the hurt that he or she caused us eventually follows. It is difficult to hang on to resentment for someone who has hurt us when we see them through God's eyes.

Grace is the key that unlocks the door to forgiveness. God's grace through his Word prompted me to acknowledge my sin of resentment against my mother. As soon as I confessed this sin to God, he looked at my broken life with tremendous compassion and understanding (grace), and then extended his forgiveness to me. Immediately, peace flowed in.

Freely you have received grace. Freely give it to someone who desperately needs it. It's a priceless gift that benefits the recipient. But the giver usually comes away with the much greater gift: peace.