Oh be good, for goodness sake

I read this and it really made me think, it really seems to reflect how I felt growing up and how I relate to God on many occasions. And how I relate to people around me.

John Coe, the Spiritual Formation Director at Biola University talks about moralistic parents who “exacerbate the original sin inherited heart habits by shame or guilt. These parents are often caring and kind but don’t know what to do with their children’s badness except to exhort or train their children to be good. They merely move the child into covering their bad by being good.” So the child learns to think, “My parents can not handle seeing me as I am; they can not handle the truth of my badness. So, I must hide my heart from them and others. I’ll just try to please or I’ll pretend to please until I am out of their home…No one can love me in my bad. And no one can handle my badness but me. I am supposed to deal with my badness by being good. Being good will make me more acceptable and lovable…”

Coe says, “Many are taught about Christ’s work on the cross, the forgiveness of sins, that God loved them unconditionally. But the love modeled and experienced at home was a kind of conditional love. Their parents did not intend this and they even told their children they loved them unconditionally. The truth, however, was that their children typically experienced more love from their parents when they were being good than when they were being bad.” Or in this case, when they were behaving in a way that embarrassed the parent.

He says, “As a result of shame parenting, the child feels loved but not known.”

quote excerpted from TrueFaced blog

# days sober 4