A Daughter’s Cries Within the Walls of Home
Psalmist reminds us with a note of God’s unbeatable promise and assurance that when my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up (Psalms 27:10). In every smile and every tear, good parenting holds children close, a steadfast presence through laughter’s noise and sorrow’s silence. Like gentle raindrops that quench the thirsty earth, good parenting nurtures children’s spirits, guiding their footsteps with whispers of encouragement, dispelling the shadows of fear.
It weaves an enduring bond, an everlasting connection that transcends time and circumstance. Some time ago, I received a letter from a client during my counselling therapy. I have taken all necessary precautions to protect the client’s confidentiality as I reveal it to you.
Dear doctor, I’m writing to you today to share something I wrote a while back particularly when I was in a lot of pain. I believe it might provide you with some insight into my thought process during that period. The constant criticism I receive from my parents makes it seem impossible for me to heal emotionally. Every minor remark feels like a personal attack, leaving me feeling worthless and hopeless and I want to die.
Is it truly so difficult for them to comprehend my perspective? To set aside their own preconceptions, expectations, and judgments of me? To simply see me as a human being?
My own parents, the very people who brought me into this world, seem indifferent to my struggles. My own parents, the individuals who brought me into this world, fail to make any attempt to understand me. [About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud [agonized] voice, “ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” that is, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?” (Matt. 27 Verses 45 to 53)] Sometimes I imagine myself screaming and shouting at them until they finally listen to me. All I want to do is run away from them, to escape their suffocating presence and find a place where I can breathe freely for a long time.
I’m tired of always being the one who needs to understand their problems, their emotions, their perspective. I’ve tried my best, time and time again, to empathize with them, and I do understand them.
But shouldn’t they be the ones making an effort to understand their own daughter, to see me as a human being, not just a reflection of their own desires and expectations? I often wish I had never been born. I love life, but living with them is making me question whether it’s worth living at all. They make me hate myself. They make me feel worthless. They make me want to disappear, to run away and never come back.
I feel an urge to inflict emotional pain upon them, so that they feel the pain they’ve inflicted on me. I wish I was never born. In my teens, I could never understand the depth of this verse. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget, I will not forget you! (Isaiah 49:15) Today, I see the different dimensions of this verse, particularly how clear and great the awesome profoundness of God’s relatedness and completeness in relation to our innermost being of daily routines of our life.
Sol.Gladson Mathew