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Baker Publishing Group - David Stoop Dr.

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164 pages

English

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For more than 15 years, people who grew up in dysfunctional families have found hope, healing, and the power to move forward with their lives in the classic Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves. Now, in this revised and updated edition--which includes new stories, statistics, and more practical help--a new generation can move beyond failure to forgiveness by understanding the roots of their pain. Readers will explore family patterns that perpetuate dysfunction by constructing a "psychological family tree" that will uncover family secrets and habits that have shaped their adult identity. As they develop a greater understanding of their family of origin, they will be able to take the essential step of forgiveness, releasing themselves from the chains of the past to live in freedom and wholeness. Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves gives readers the power to become "unstuck" from behaviors that hurt themselves and those they love, changing their hearts so they can change their lives forever.

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Christianity

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	21 mars 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441225924
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0432€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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© 1991, 1996, 2011 Dr. David Stoop
Published by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.revellbooks.com
Revell edition published 2014
ISBN 978-1-4412-2592-4
Previously published by Regal Books
Ebook edition originally created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible , New Living Translation , copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Scriptures marked KJV are from the Authorized King James Version.
PRAISE FOR
Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves
This book is a must-read for all of us who are committed to helping people become whole.
Bill Hybels
Founding pastor, Willow Creek Community Church South Barrington, Illinois
Without guidance, forgiving our parents and ourselves is easier said than done. Not an easy task no matter how old you are! In Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves my friend David Stoop has provided practical, doable steps for anyone who seeks forgiveness of others and self. David Stoop identifies what true forgiveness is and isn’t—a key element in “getting over it and moving on.” Truly a must-read for everyone, no matter how his or her upbringing may be defined.
Gary Smalley
Bestselling author, Guarding Your Child’s Heart
With the help of this book, you can discover a new way of healing for yourself.
Archibald Hart
Psychologist and author, Me, Myself and I
This resource is refreshingly insightful with new perspectives on family and forgiveness. This practical book will impact any reader and is a welcome addition to Dave Stoop’s other materials.
H. Norman Wright
Grief and trauma therapist Bestselling author, The Complete Guide to Trauma Counseling and Helping Those in Grief
CONTENTS
Introduction
P ART O NE
Unpacking Family Baggage
1. Family: Ties that Bind?
2. The Family System
3. My Family and Me
4. The Sins of the Fathers
5. Three-way Relationships
P ART T WO
The Freedom of Forgiveness
6. Forgiving Others, Releasing Ourselves
7. Forgiving and Forgetting
8. What’s Anger Got to Do with It?
9. The Blame Game
10. Confrontation and/or Reconciliation
11. Forgiving My Parents, Forgiving Myself
Afterword: Forgiveness and the Twelve Steps
Small-Group and Individual Study Guide
INTRODUCTION

“If Dad were around today and did to us what he did back then, he’d be charged with child abuse.”
“No way!” I countered. “Not our dad!”
“Think about it,” my sister replied. Then she hung up.
That terse conversation took place more than 30 years ago, but I remember it as though it happened yesterday. The moment my sister slammed down the receiver was the moment my bubble burst. For years I had thought my dad was a good father. Now, I suddenly found I could do so no longer. He had been dead for 20 years at the time of our angry conversation. I did not particularly like to talk about him, for I had very little of him to hold onto in my memory. So I was not about to let anyone—not even my sister—destroy what little I had left.
Her remark about child abuse had to do with the way Dad used a belt when he spanked us—or at least when he spanked me . I never believed that he spanked her at all; according to my recollection, I took the blame for everything she did. I’m sure she remembered it differently. Dad believed in spanking. The only problem was that the spankings always came with a heavy overlay of anger and a lot of physical abuse.
Getting spanked by my father always followed a familiar pattern—almost a sort of ritual. Something would go wrong, and he’d look at me with that stern glare and snap, “Get down to the basement.” I knew what that meant. There was no way to talk him out of it. Begging didn’t work. I know, because I had tried it many times. Even offering an explanation was useless.
I can still remember how I felt, slouching down the basement stairs with him close behind me. First, he’d take off his belt; then he’d sit on a chair in the middle of the room. I’d bend over. Then I’d get the belt across my backside.
My dad would remain silent through all of this. If I cried too much, I’d get more. If I didn’t cry enough , I’d get more. I remember working out a system for knowing how much crying was “enough.” I’d wail away until he warned me to stop “before he gave me something to cry about.” That was my cue to quit, perhaps with a few final sniffles thrown in for good measure.
Once or twice I tried to stuff a book or magazine down my pants before heading downstairs. Despite the fact that our family went to church every Sunday, I wasn’t exactly what you’d call a “praying man.” But at those moments I’d pray earnestly that Dad wouldn’t notice. One time he didn’t notice until he was almost finished whipping me. He icily ordered me to take the book out. Then he spanked me for that infraction as well.
Up until that conversation with my sister, I never gave much thought to those spanking incidents. Actually, compared to what some of my friends reported about the way they got disciplined, I didn’t think the treatment I got was all that unusual. Everybody got spanked by his or her parents in those days. And I don’t suppose I really wanted to spend much time recalling the sick, scared feeling in my stomach when the time came to “go downstairs.”
Still, when I was getting spanked, at least I had my dad’s attention. For the most part, he always seemed too tired or distracted to notice me or care about anything that interested me. He worked long hours in a factory. When he came home at night, he was extremely tired. On the weekends he spent most of his time keeping the house up, working until he was exhausted.
The rest of his time—what little there was—was spent in “Porchville.” We lived in Cleveland, Ohio, in a small house with a porch across the front and a swing at one end of the porch. I can remember Dad sitting on that swing, reading the newspaper or just staring out across the lawn. When he was finished with the paper, he would go out to the garage to work on something. We never talked about much of anything. Dad never took time to play catch with me or to notice how I threw a ball or fielded a grounder.
He was emotionally absent—except when the time came to “go downstairs.”
The interesting thing is that for years if you had asked me whether I’d had a happy childhood, I would have said yes without giving it a second thought. Were we close as a family? “Of course,” would have been my answer. My parents took good care of us. We never lacked for anything important, even when Dad’s factory was on strike. We were a good family.
Or were we? My sister’s words on the phone suddenly made me feel less confident that we really were all that close, or that everything had really been all that wonderful. I did not like these new thoughts. They felt dangerous.
Like all people who have idealized a parent, I had let my dad off the hook in a number of ways. I had carefully created a picture of my family as a happy place, one where anything unpleasant could be readily explained away. I focused on remembering the good parts.
For example, because we were all so emotionally distant, I enjoyed a great deal of freedom and independence. I had newspaper routes from an early age, so I always had money. In summer, when school was out, I could hop on my bike in the morning and not come home until dinnertime. One of my special pleasures was going to symphony concerts all by myself, even in grade school. I’d ride the streetcar there and back.
It wasn’t until years later—when I realized that I never allowed my kids that kind of freedom—that I began to have second thoughts about my family of origin. I came to see that the reason why I didn’t grant my kids that kind of latitude was not simply because “times are different now.” It had to do with the fact that in my mind, all that freedom was linked to a sense of emotional abandonment. I just knew I wanted my family to be different .
I worked hard at earning Dad’s approval. One summer, when I was still in grade school, his major project was repainting our wood frame house. I found it fascinating. I wanted to do what my dad was doing, so I pestered him to let me help. I could paint the bottom rows of siding, I said. He wasn’t interested. “You don’t know anything about painting,” he said. “Go play with your friends. I’ve got work to do.”
Several weeks later I was attending a Vacation Bible School at church. The craft project was to build a birdhouse. If we finished it in time, we would get to paint it. I felt so proud when the teacher commented on how well I had painted my birdhouse. “You’re an excellent painter,” she said. “You even know how to hold the brush.”
I couldn’t wait to show the finished project to my dad. When I told him what the teacher had said, he responded with a quick glance and a barely audible “Hmmm.” Then he went back to reading his paper.
I can still remember the hot shame on my cheeks. Why did I have to have such an old father, one who was always too tired to care about what I did?
As I grew to adulthood, I searched for answers, for some way to understand why my father was the way he was. I wanted to find out what he was like, and where he had come from.
He had come to the United States from Northern Ireland, I knew that much. I had always been proud of the fact that my dad was Irish, and my mom mostly Irish. But when I asked him about it, he would brush me off with a gruff, “I don’t want to talk about it.” I dreamt of someday