Apart from a miracle, a good relationship with this person is probably never going to happen. That’s OK. Grieve it. And LET. IT. GO.

I once received an email from a good friend (let’s call her “Mary”), who wanted to know if I had any ideas for how she could minister to someone in her workplace (a Christian parachurch ministry) who was suffering greatly because of a difficult relationship with her parents. Apparently, this coworker was “terrified” of this relationship (to use her own words); she was “distraught” and “destroyed” over how they treated her.

Knowing that some of us have similar difficult relationships in our lives, I thought I would redact the identifying information and share some of my response with you. I hope it is a blessing to you!

Sending my love—
Tara B.

PS
Full disclosure? I actually went looking for my notes from this call because I, too, am currently facing a difficult relationship, and it can be SO exhausting to keep trying to “bear with” certain people in “patient, humble, and gentle love“ (Ephesians 4:1-3). Sometimes I feel like I should get a parade and some sort of GOOD JOB ATTA BOY just for not retaliating and not praying through the imprecatory psalms with them in mind.

But then to go further and actually inconvenience myself and have the difficult conversation? To “bear up under the pain of unjust suffering” (1 Peter 2:19) and do everything I can (Romans 12:18) to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bonds of peace” (Ephesians 4:1-3)? Oh, man. It’s just so incredibly hard.

And so I pray … please help us, Lord, to:

• Keep your mercy always in view (Romans 12:1);
• Share in the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13); and
• Show, by our love, that we really do belong to Christ (John 13:35).

Oh. Man. I’m looking for the lawyer’s “out” for that last bullet … an asterisk, a footnote … something that means I get to love certain people, but other people I get to ignore. Avoid. Refuse to meet with. Ghost. Not care if they live or die.

Deep down, I want permission to hate. But wayyyyyy further deep down, I know better. I know that I am called to love my neighbor (Mark 12:31), my enemy (Luke 6:27), and even the people who confuse me by their silence and grudges because I remember a time (not so long ago!) when our fellowship in the household of God used to be so sweet (Psalm 55:12-14).  

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Dear Mary,

What an honor it was to read your email and pray for you and your coworker. I am so very sorry that she is enduring such excruciating pain in her relationship with her parents. I hope that I can give you some ideas to consider as you serve her and help her. Perhaps a starting place would be to gently ask her something along the lines of:

Why does the fact that your parents are so incredibly cruel to you “destroy you” and lead you to the point of “not being able to take it”?

Why does it matter so incredibly much?

Yes, our parents’ love is important and it does affect us when they treat us horribly. But … your coworker is a child of God. She has suffered terribly, but suffering is one of the most consistent aspects of life in a fallen world. We long for justice and faithfulness and beauty! But many times in life, we are called to bear up under great suffering as we walk through seasons of injustice, abandonment, and deep darkness. For your friend, her parents’ treatment of her is clearly a major “cross” (John 14:27) that she is called to bear.

So where can she find hope? The Lord. The One True Triune God. As she remembers the gospel of Jesus Christ (Who God is and all that He has already done for her in Christ), her gaze will naturally be drawn more to an eternal perspective. One day. But maybe not today.

If she is truly a Christian, then I am confident that her gaze will ultimately be drawn to an eternal perspective. But I also know that, like all of us, in the shock of the moment when people she has wanted to love (and be loved by) have hurt her again … she may be forgetting eternity. The pain of today often blinds us to the hope of tomorrow (and a million tomorrows once we are Home).

So please grieve with your friend. Lament. When she is distraught beyond words, help her to remember that Jesus is making continual intercession for her (Hebrews 7:25). Help her to be confident that she can trust the One Person, her Perfect Father, who knows her suffering and knows so much more! He will never let her down. Never abandon her. Never give up on her.

At an appropriate time (not usually in the heat of an extreme emotional response), you may have the honor of helping your friend to consider if perhaps her strong emotional reaction to this situation has its roots in desires that have become demands (James 4:1-3). Perhaps she is responding in these ways not because of how her parents are treating her, but because of her heart regarding how her parents are treating her. She’s not getting what she wants (demands / “needs”) regarding a very important thing to her. How does she respond? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control? Praise the Lord! It’s probably not an idol! Anger, rage, bitterness, malice, slander, filthy language from her lips? Uh-oh. Careful. Our legitimate grief sometimes turns a corner into sinful, judgmental, vengeance and demands for “justice” that seed into bitter roots deep in our hearts.

When that happens, we may have what your friend describes as “anger issues.” We may find ourselves graceless and loveless toward the people who are hurting us (in your case, your friend’s attitude towards her parents). We may also find ourselves “miserable” and “terrified” (to use the descriptive words of your friend). This makes sense because scared people often present as angry people. It’s never easy to be around an angry person! But it sure is wonderful to help angry people learn that, actually, they are scared people. And it is even more wonderful to help them to remember God, worship him rightly, and tell their fears to “Shhh!” because God is with them and for them (Psalm 118:6).

Not to say that any of this is easy … I don’t mean to imply that I know what her previous conversations with her parents have been like … but if I were to venture a guess, I would presume that they have been her trying to lovingly develop a real (sincere, open and honest, genuine) relationship with her parents. And probably, she has (rightly) thought that they could never have a true friendship and experience genuine love if all of the past hurts and offenses were not brought up and dealt with through repentance, confession, and forgiveness. Of course she’s right on many levels—true love and friendship require that we tear down those walls and root out those hurts and angry demands for vengeance or punishment.

However, I can’t imagine that these conversations have been anything other than depressing, discouraging, and probably very, very ugly. Why? Well … for one thing, it seems as though your friend (like all of us) has some aspects of her life that are not secure in Christ. Rather than needing Christ alone; she believes that she needs her parents’ love and her parents to treat her well. This means she is living (at least in part) for a good relationship with her parents. If it is, in fact, true that she is investing her hope, confidence and emotions in a good relationship with her parents—more than in Christ—then her heart of wrong (idolatrous) worship will keep leading her into despair.

(Any time a person uses the phrase, “If only …”, be sure to pay attention! We learn so much about how to love and encourage people when we learn what they love and value the most. For example, if your friend says, “If only my parents would love me and stop being so mean to me, then I would be happy,” you may have a sweet opportunity to remind her that God created her and her “chief end” is to love and enjoy God; to find her identity and security in him—not people. Not even her parents.)

Another reason why I would guess that her conversations with her parents have been trainwrecks is because it sure doesn’t sound like her parents are very godly, Spirit-directed, biblically astute, wise, generous, loving, mature people. It doesn’t seem like they value her very much. But your friend really wants to have a great relationship with parents who are all of those things; parents who cherish her. The thing is, there is no indication that they are going to move in that direction anytime soon.

Perhaps it is time for your friend to admit the truth that a good relationship with her parents is probably never going to happen.

God may work a miracle! And that would be wonderful! But currently, from her parents’ perspective, “everything is her fault.” Is this sad? Absolutely! Should she grieve this? You bet. But I truly encourage you to help her to let it go. Grieve. But stop pining away for something that is never going to happen.

“In as much as it depends on her” – she is called to live at “peace” with her parents (Romans 12). But she has neither the power nor the authority to change them. And it sounds like she’s been making herself miserable trying to get them to understand her position so that they can be “reconciled.” Again, barring some amazing miracle, I just can’t imagine that this will ever happen in this life. (I will mention that if they are professing Christians and members of a biblically-faithful church, there may be trained mediators and/or ordained leaders who could help. But it sure doesn’t sound like her parents would be open to such help.)

Regardless of what her parents do or don’t do, from the security of right worship of God, basking in His grace toward her, trusting in His sovereignty and goodness, your friend can move toward her parents in a new way. She can need nothing from them; put no “good” expectations on them. In fact, she should probably expect them to act consistent with how they have acted towards her for decades … negative, critical, cruel, and insensitive. That’s terribly unpleasant, but she can prayerfully prepare to bless them and do good towards them, regardless of their attitudes and actions.

I’m sure she already knows that she is called to love her enemies (Luke 6:27). She may have just never wanted to admit that in this situation, her parents are acting like enemies. This is actually quite common. Our closest “enemies” are often are family members—husbands, children, parents, in-laws, step-relationships.

PLEASE NOTE: of course I do not mean to, in any way, imply that “love” for an enemy requires people who are being abused to just “take it.” Absolutely not! In abuse situation, love may come with a badge and a gun. Love may require us to end a telephone call or walk out of a church meeting. But for more normal broken relationships–wherein a parent, for example, constantly criticizes an adult child. (I’ve actually worked with a lot of elderly people who have been on the receiving end of that level of relational cruelty from their adult children.) Sometimes, we are called to bear the ugly words for a certain amount of time. At other times, it is appropriate to (gently, lovingly, humbly, mercifully) end the conversation with words like:

“Mom, Dad, I love you. And I want to have a relationship with you. But right now you are saying some words to me that are not redemptive and I can’t see how this will help us to love God or love one another. So I’m going to go ahead and go now—but I want you to know that I love you and I’m praying for you. OK. Bye-bye.”

Do you see the clear difference in this response versus the responses of her being “devastated” and “not able to take it”? She is no longer furious at them. She doesn’t leave condemned by their rejection of her. She pities them for having such ugly heart attitudes. She is not “destroyed.” In fact, she moves on in her day the exact way that she was before their cruelty—secure in God. Secure in Christ. Heart fixed on eternity. Walking her pilgrim days on earth with faith and hope.

(And when she’s too tired or weak to do this, her friends come alongside of her and carry her for awhile. Just like we are always here to carry you, my dear friend.)

And with that, I will sign off. I hope this email is even a tiny blessing to you (and to her!). If she’s a visual/auditory learner, she could also watch a keynote I did at a conference a few years ago that I think would be particularly on point to her life situation:

Thanks again for writing! I love you, my friend! So very sorry for your friend’s suffering.

Yours,
Tara B.