A Legacy of Transformation

“Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” ~ Romans 12:3 (New Living Translation)

I grew up in a farm family with lots of siblings. We worked hard together, ate meals together, and had family devotions twice a day. I grew up with parents who were – and are – earnest believers and followers of Christ. They have always wanted the best for their children.

Unfortunately, like many parents who have unhealed hurts from their own pasts, my parents unintentionally repeated certain patterns from their own upbringings. There’s no way to sugar-coat the painful impact this had on me and my siblings in various ways.

These things could have cemented a sad history and become the lasting legacy of my parents’ lives. But instead, it is only the very beginning of our family story. My parents saw the high cost of these intergenerational wounds and were confronted with a choice. Would they stay in the old ways, stubbornly defending themselves? Or would they take a risk, trust God’s promise of restoration, and make some huge changes?

Change is really hard. It’s so much easier to continue doing the same thing and hoping for the painful consequences to go away. It’s especially difficult to change established patterns of relating to the people we love. Sometimes we carry on communicating in ways that are unhelpful or damaging, simply because we have done it for so long. Maybe because it’s too hard to humbly admit we have been wrong. Haven’t we sometimes felt desperate about painful broken family relationships, yet still resistant to do anything different?

My parents made the decision to pray for change, and became willing to be changed. They began by talking with each of their children, listening to our experiences and how we had been affected. They listened without explaining themselves, offering excuses, or becoming defensive. They asked for forgiveness, and genuinely changed the way our family related.

I could tell many stories about how things have changed in my family. It didn’t happen overnight, but we are not the same family we were 15-20 years ago. There has been much healing. We are living God’s promise of restoration of transformation.

Last week, my parents celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary. Which is an amazing gift in itself. But in my eyes, their most profound legacy is the gift of hopefulness – that no situation or person is beyond restoration. God can do amazing things with people who are willing. When we submit and humbly allow ourselves to be transformed, we learn to know God’s will and end up exactly where God wants us to be.

Arlene