Are We Poisoning Our Children?
As I pulled into the driveway of the Vaughan house, all seemed
to be well. I was home for lunch as was looking forward to some time with my
family. I entered the house and said
hello to Linda, then asked my usual question, "How was your morning?"
She got right to the point.
"I
just got off the phone."
"Really,
who did you call?"
"Poison
Control."
At this point I stopped looking at Linda and started looking for Joshua. "Is he all right?" I asked urgently. "What
did he take?"
"Your
son," she answered (he is always my
son when he does things like this) “ate a
raw pork chop. I called Poison Control
to see if he was in danger. Dee, they
don't have a category for poisoning by raw pork chop, that is, until today. Your
son has made history."
The anxiety of that moment along with
the thought of raw pork in Joshua's stomach took away our appetites. But we were truly thankful that he was all right
because we knew that poisoning can take away much more.
Our experience with the raw pork chop
is funny, but anything which threatens to poison our children is no laughing
matter. I remember the families of Love Canal
who realized too late that contaminated soil and water were poisoning themselves
and their children. Many became
ill. Some died. We can only imagine their heartache.
I know that you care for your
children. I care for children too, yours
and mine. That is why I need to tell you
some disturbing news. Many of our
children are being poisoned. What makes
this news even more alarming is that they are being poisoned by us. Many of us, without even knowing it, are
poisoning our children. Our unhealed
pain poisons them.
Parents who suffer from addiction to
drugs or alcohol poison the future for their children. Children of alcoholics often spend their
lives in emotional numbness, afraid to relate to others, distrustful of their
own reactions, living by the lie that if they had been good enough mom or dad
would not drink. They often become
perfectionists who never see themselves as quite good enough for anyone to
love.
Parents who have suffered physical or emotional abuse and never
come to terms with their problem pass this poison on to their children. If their parents whipped them with words and
told them that they were useless, then they will, in turn, whip their
children. If they saw that their parents
dealt with frustration by beating the kids, then they often do the same. Parents who were sexually abused often see
themselves as dirty and vile and treat their children like tramps. The abuse of the past, if not owned and
overcome, often poisons the future for the children. They do suffer, to the third and fourth generation.
Some of us grew up hard and poor. We came to believe that life was found in the
possessions we did not have. So we
committed our lives to gaining things in hopes of finding happiness. Our endless battle with materialism can, if
we do not end it, poison the lives of our children. We try to give them the happiness we never
had by giving them the clothes, the home, the car, the money which we never
had. And in the process of trying to
make peace with the poverty of the past, we make irresponsible, irreverent,
monsters of our children.
Some of us feel a sense of guilt over a lack of
achievement. We were not the star
athlete, the star pupil or the beauty queen, so we felt that we were nobody. If we bring those feelings into our
relationship with our children, then we will make them slaves to our
unfulfilled dreams. We set standards
which are so high that they cannot achieve them--nothing but A's, nothing but
championships, nothing but the best from you will do. And when we poison our children with our need
to achieve through them, they grow up believing that they will never be good
enough for anyone to love them.
Apathy is a spiritual poison, the
poison of just not caring about spiritual things. Some of us who are parents are not faithful
to God and his work through the church.
Some are unfaithful because they were beaten by guilt and condemnation
in church as a child. Others may have
felt embarrassed or rejected by the church.
Others feel guilty because they know that their lives do not live up to
the call of Christ. But whatever the
reason, whatever unresolved pain we carry from the past, it will poison our
children. They will look at us and come
to believe that God and his kingdom simply do not matter. They will pass through this church and never
make a saving commitment to Jesus Christ.
If we, as parents, fail to answer the call to discipleship, then we
poison our children and hinder them from answering the call to salvation.
This is troubling news, almost too
hard to bear. What can we do? When your child takes some pills or even eats
a raw pork chop, you call poison control for help. What can we do when we know that our children
are being poisoned by our pasts?
I believe that God wants to do an
awesome work in you and me. He wants to get
the poison of the past out of your heart.
I believe that he wants to get it out of your home. I believe that he wants to get it out of your
child's future.
How will he do it? I cannot answer that for you. If you are not a Christian, he wants to begin
by entering your life through your faith in him. If you are marginal in your
relationship to the church, he wants you to find the healing of faith and
fellowship which the church can offer.
You may need the help of a counselor or a support group. But all of these steps in the right direction
begin with a commitment:
With
God as my Savior, the sin of my past stops here.
With
God as my healer, the pain of my past stops here.
By
the power of the forgiving God, the guilt of my past stops here.
By
the grace of God, I will break the cycle of sin and pain and punishment.
With
God as my helper, I will never again poison my child.
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