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The Lilly Pond |
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February
3, 2002 |
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Greetings and thanks for subscribing to TheLillyPond.com ezine! I'm Lillian Hinds and this ezine is dedicated to all mothers, daughters and the other important women in their families. Because we respect your privacy and value your subscription, we don't share your email address with anyone. If you'd like to be removed from our mailing list, please see instructions at the end of this ezine. ================================= Volume 2 Issue5: In the Pond This Week ================================= 1. Note to My Readers: Pond Talk 2. Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child Part 3: Who's Responsible 3. The Commercial 4. Share The Lilly Pond 5. Contact Me ================================= 1. Note to My Readers: Pond Talk ================================= Dear Lilly Ponder: Last week a new subscriber, Valonda (see her letter below), received her copy of the Premier Edition of this ezine as all new subscribers do. She forwarded it to her friend Sherry of Sherry's Inspirational Pages. Sherry published the article "See My Eyes" from that Premier Issue and included a reference so her subscribers would know how to find us. Imagine our surprise when suddenly we started seeing new subscribers from England, Italy, France, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa! Almost 200 of them. And so many with so many kind comments about that article. So WELCOME! to our new ezine subscribers. With these new readers, as well as readers we already have in Switzerland, Viet Nam and Canada, we're going to have to change our name to The Lilly Pond International Ezine. ;) We also want to welcome many of you who saw our ad at Crosswalk.com as well as our good friends at Heartwarmers.com. And as always, many of you have been referred by family and friends. I want to express my thanks to those of you who "pass along" the articles and information to others. And thanks for including our reference information so your friends and family can find us. Here's a couple of letters from new subscribers I thought you might enjoy. Dear Lillian: This is just too funny! My daughters (now 39 and 37) love to tease me about when they were little and we were in Church, I was usually in the choir and they knew that if they weren't quiet and behaving well during Church, I gave them what they call "The Look" - they knew that if they didn't shape-up immediately, they were in deep trouble when we got home. Just wanted to share that - and I've forwarded your web-address to a lot of friends tonight. Thanks, Valonda Kansas City area And a note from one of our new subscribers across the ocean: Thank you Lillian for adding me on to your list. I am afraid I am not on internet so I will rely on all that you will send me by e-mail. I am writing you from Zimbabwe, City of Harare, and I am in Africa. May the Lord bless all your work. In His mercy and love, Maria This week we continue our feature series entitled "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child." I appreciate your prayers and hope you will find it a blessing. With all my heart, Lillian ================================= 2. Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child Part 3: Who's Responsible ================================= For the past two weeks we have discussed the reality of women who have, for whatever reason, failed their children. Either through abuse, neglect and abandonment, or due to poverty, mental illness or even death - these women have not met the needs of their daughters. And we have talked about why this is such a difficult tragedy to overcome. Today we want to begin the first steps to resolving this heartache. As I write these articles, I think of my own mother who worked for many years to overcome physical abuse by her father. I would never presume that anyone who has suffered in this way could read a few articles I've written and everything would be OK. I know how hard this can be. I know how long this can take. And I know that sometimes we need some outside help as we deal with this. If you find yourself in over your head, please don't hesitate to find a trusted counselor in your area that can stand with you and for you as you work to resolve some of the hurt. My prayer is that these articles can be a step along the way for you and that you will be encouraged in your heart. When I first began working with abused teenagers, I noticed an unusual pattern. These girls had an irrational perspective of their own responsibility, and they were making two terrible mistakes. First of all, they took responsibility for things that adults had done to them when they were very small; incidents over which they had absolutely no control. On the other hand, these same girls would refuse to take responsibility for their day-to-day behavior when they would do awful things, claiming that there wasn't anything they could have done differently. Taking Responsibility ===================== I was amazed and somewhat bewildered. How could a small child be responsible for abuse perpetrated by an older, stronger and more knowledgeable adult? As I continued to work with them, I began to understand that these girls felt guilty for what had been done to them. They felt responsible for all that they had suffered at the hands of the adults in their lives who were supposed to be taking care of them. There are two factors working in small children that contribute to their sense of guilt. The first is that a child is at a developmental stage where she is the center of her universe. If something bad happens in her world, it has to be about her, because of her, related to her. If Daddy looses his job, the little boy may believe it is because he stole cookies the day before. The second factor is that young children still engage in "magical thinking." A little girl might say, "I hate you!" to a neighbor child. If the next day, that neighbor is in a car wreck, the little girl is sure that she caused the car wreck with her words and it is her fault. We have all observed these two patterns in young children and the way they respond to their world. The problem comes when we carry our childhood thinking into adulthood. How often have I sat in the counseling room and heard a teenager or even an adult, say "If I had been better, my parents wouldn't have gotten a divorce." or "If I hadn't been so bad, my father wouldn't have molested me." or "If I had not broken that lamp, my parents wouldn't have had so many money problems." It is important to recognize that the hurt your mother caused you when you were little is not your fault. If your mother was abusive, neglectful, disrespectful or even if she died young, that was not about you. That was about her. Easy to say, hard to put in our hearts. But this error in thinking is just that - an error. And the Bible gives us instructions in this area. We must recognize thinking like a child and put a stop to it. I Corinthians 13:11 says "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." Not Taking Responsibility ========================= And I've seen the same abused teenager who felt guilty for her own abuse slap another teenager and refuse to believe that she was to blame. As adults, we must take responsibility for our own adult actions - even if they are a result of childhood abuse. Taking control of our present day life seems to be just as difficult as giving up the guilt that doesn't belong to us. It is so much easier to say, "I can't help doing this; it's just the way I am" or "I wish I wasn't so hateful, but my mother was hateful and I'm just like her." Wrong. You CAN help what you are doing and you CAN change the way you talk, act, think and treat other people. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." Philippians 4:13 says "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." If you do something wrong, admit to yourself and to God that you are using your past as an excuse to continue acting badly. And ask God to forgive you. With God's help and guidance, you can make changes in yourself that you never thought possible. When I am trying to resolve something or figure things out, it always helps me to talk to someone else because I usually need to hear myself say things out loud. You may want to enlist the aid of a close friend, your pastor or a professional counselor. I want to offer one word of caution to you. If you are working on something that happened in your past, be careful that you do not get bogged down and talk about the past over and over and over just for the sake of reliving it without doing your best to resolve it and get past it. In other words, don't rehearse the past. I know a woman who had been mistreated as a child. She constantly reviewed the mistreatment and discussed it often. Each retelling seemed to make her bitter and more angry. One day a friend reminded me of a wrong that had been done to me in my first marriage. I honestly did not remember the event and I was glad to be able to forget. At the time, I realized that I could remember that old hurt if I chose to, but that God had given me the grace to forget it and move on. Philippians 3:12-13 says "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. "But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead." There is something ahead for you. Remember our New Year's verse? God has plans for your future and they don't include bitterness, anger, and anxiety. They do include peace, fulfillment, joy and love. With the Apostle Paul you may have to do some straining toward what is ahead. It may involve some hard work to get there. But I truly believe that regardless of your past and how you were treated as a child, God has something for you. He can help lift the guilt for things that were beyond your control as a child. And He can help you see what you can control now so that you can take responsibility and, with His grace, begin to resolve. I pray that this might be a beginning for some of you; for others a continuation of your work in progress. Next week we will have more thoughts on healing the wounds caused by a bad mother. With all my heart, Lillian ================================= 3. The Commercial ================================= I wanted to share a couple of comments from readers who recently purchased my book "Always Wear Clean Underwear." Lillian: Your book was very special to me. It gave advice without being "preachy" and touched my heart without being "sappy." Thank you for writing it. Love, Laurie Lillian, I just finished your book and loved it! I love the way you ended each Chapter with a verse of scripture. I am starting a Mothers of Preschoolers group at our church this fall and would love for you to come speak. I believe you have so much to offer to us "young inexperienced moms!!" In His love for Moms, Christie I appreciate all your comments so much. Keep them coming. Just send an email to lil@thelillypond.com and mention whether I can print what you say. And don't forget that my book is available on the website www.thelillypond.com With all my heart, Lillian ================================= 4. Share The Lilly Pond ================================= If you know someone who would enjoy having The Lilly Pond ezine, please feel free to forward this issue to them. If you received this ezine from a friend and you'd like to subscribe, you can go to www.TheLillyPond.com and subscribe for free or just click here to send an email to us with "SUBSCRIBE" in the Subject line. Thanks. ================================= 5. Contact Me ================================= Your comments are welcome. Click here to email me. Thanks for reading! With all my heart, Lillian ================================= |
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