Blast From The Past

Can the past affect your parenting? It is true that sometimes you are tempted to parent your children the same way you were raised. You may even have been physically and emotionally abused by your parents. And somehow against your own wish today, you find yourself doing the same thing to your own children – hitting, shouting, and even using negative words on them.

Also, there may be negative patterns or a peculiar character flaw that can be traced in your lineage. There are cases in families where certain illnesses, perversion, alcoholism, and sexual immorality are a dominant feature of each generation in that family. Some of these things you may know and others you have no knowledge of. But today, you are seeing these traits and behavior play out in your own children.

While your parents may have raised you according to their own limited knowledge and even have dabbled into things you are unaware of. Do you know that you can stand today as God’s child and change the narrative in your lineage?

You can choose today to be that parent who will raise their children according to God’s standards. Be that man or woman who will stand in the gap to break every negative pattern holding generations captive in your lineage.

God’s prophet Samuel in the bible who was revered in his days for his wisdom and courage failed at parenting. Samuel grew up with Eli and was privy to God’s judgement on Eli for his failure at raising his sons to walk in God’s ways. Eli failed badly as a parent and his nonchalant attitude and permissive parenting brought an end to his lineage.

Some years later, we see the past come back to haunt Samuel. The poor parenting skills he learnt from Eli when he served in the temple as a young boy was the same thing he replicated in his own life as a parent.

Are you replicating bad parenting skills in your life today? What are those negative patterns, flaws, and damaging traits you see in your lineage? Are your past experiences affecting you as a parent today?

This week, as you read through this devotional, may God open your eyes to see his purpose for you as a parent. And may he heal your broken places and put an end to everything that is not of him at work in your family line. Amen!

Love & Light – Ufuoma