God’s original plan for families is that parents would have a close relationship with Him so that they would naturally reflect God’s nature to their children. As children would see the nature of God in their parents, this would create a healthy, nurturing environment for all family members.
After the Fall
of Adam and Eve, mankind was no longer able to reflect God to their children.
Since then, no one has been raised by perfect parents, so all parents are to
some degree dysfunctional.
Families are to
meet the physical needs of children like food and shelter. Parents provide
training and instruction in life skills. Healthy parents should also meet the
emotional and relational needs of children.
A family is
dysfunctional when emotional needs are not met and relationships are not
affirming. Often a dysfunctional family focuses attention on an emotionally
needy family member while other’s emotional needs are neglected. Children learn
that their needs and emotions are not important. For whatever reason, a
dysfunctional family fails to provide appropriate nurture for developing
children.
Children are taught
lies about themselves which can cause lifelong damage. These are the same lies
that parents learned from their parents. Children accept destructive roles
within the family like: role reversal where the child emotionally takes the
responsibilities of the parent, and a surrogate spouse to the opposite-sex
parent. Children can feel responsible for the peace in the family or be the one
who is blamed for the problems of the family.
Functional
families consider conflict a normal part of life but a dysfunctional family
discourages open talk about obvious problems. It is closed to the outside world
and attempts to keep problems hidden and therefore family members lose
perspective on what is considered normal and have an inability to communicate.
When feelings
and emotions are portrayed as unimportant, children are taught to stay out of
touch with their feelings by intellectualizing, minimizing, denial, isolating
and stuffing their feelings. Compulsive behavior is another way to avoid
feelings through repetitive behavior. The compulsion to control develops as a
response to a family-life out of control.
Parents are only
functional when they have dealt with their own emotional baggage and can be
emotionally available for their children’s emotional issues. Dysfunctional
parents carry their emotional baggage and pass it on to their children. Children
can feel shame for the parent’s problems. Shame is transmitted through direct
statements or a parent’s attitude towards life. Family secrets, abuse,
unresolved traumatic events and unmet needs all produce shame. A shame-based identity says to hide who you
are and try to work for acceptability. People try to hide their shame by acting
shameless, or through rigid, religious activity and perfectionism.
1 John 3:1 says,
“How great is the love the father has
lavished on us, that we should be called children of God.” We are his
children and He is the perfect parent we never had. God wants to undo all the
damage we have accumulated in life, heal our broken hearts and extract all the
lies we believe about ourselves.
God has provided a plan all throughout the New Testament of His healing and restoration for broken lives. Deliverance is the first step to remove the enemy who comes to steal, kill and destroy, “infesting” the wounds of the soul. After Deliverance the broken heart needs healing.
At our Wholeness Retreats, we facilitate the
healing journey after deliverance. All sessions are designed to take people to
another level of freedom. Whether you are stuck in your recovery or just want
to get a boost to more healing, call to register for our Wholeness Retreat. Get
a good start on discovering the you Father meant you to be! Please see our
website page on Wholeness Retreats for more information.
