Occasionally, I still manage to beat myself up because I know my mistakes, reactions and wrong choices have adversely affected not only my life, but life of my children. What I am forgetting is that God is bigger than my mistakes, and He can help both my, and my children recover from these mistakes, as I can recover from my parents mistakes. Choosing a path to inner healing isn’t transferring blame to parents or others, it’s opposite. It teaches us not to transfer blame, and stay stuck in past, but to accept responsibility for our own healing process. It frees us from past to live in now, and yearn for a more positive future.

Mom, I love you, and I don’t blame you for being a member of human race, and not being perfect. I couldn’t measure up to a standard of perfection myself. As far as I know, Jesus Christ is only one that can lay claim to a perfectly sinless life. But, through Him, we gain salvation for our sins, so we can go to Father, in Jesus’ name, perfected by His dying for our sins. That is why God offers gift of his forgiveness, and his unconditional love. We just need to learn to demonstrate His unconditional love wherever we can.

My Mom once said as she was being wheeled in for brain surgery, that if she died, she would know she had lived a life where she was loved. I know this is true for me too, and I know I was loved by my mother, and still am. I think so many people need to be showered with love to know God is real, and to feel His unconditional love. If we can all just spread some love whenever possible, whoa, how wonderful. We need to love our enemies, because they are just broken vessels in need of more love too. By demonstrating forgiveness and acceptance to others, and forgiving and accepting ourselves, we can achieve healing we need, and discover who we really are. I am just a person in search of self, with no masks or false selves. We are all want unconditional love – we are starved for it! I have four pets because they’re better at providing unconditional love than I am. That’s why pet therapy is so effective, and people with pets tend to live longer. Animals have perfected something we humans haven’t, and we call ourselves a higher species? We can learn from them, and small children. Even when we mistreat them, they give us back their unconditional love, capable of no less. We learn to be unforgiving and conditional in sharing our love. Pets and children are such wonderful blessings from Lord. They can model unconditional love to us! Wow! God is good!

As I’ve grown in spiritual maturity, I have learned to forgive my persecutors, even those in my family for all poisoned darts that flung my way. They far more easily roll off my back. I take suffering for my faith as a sign that I’m on track spiritually. The devil doesn’t need to attack those he already calls his own. The harder attack, better I must be doing. That thought gets me through hard times. I know blessings must be over next hill, or I’m ready to come up to a new spiritual level. As many preachers say, “new level, new devil.” How true that phrase is. I want to thank everyone who persecuted me. You’ve made me that much stronger in Lord, as for a while, He was all I had, and He is my sufficiency.

Copyright (c) 2004 Laurel Aiyana. All rights reserved.