Why I left Shanghai pt 5

Much as I dislike admitting it, my childhood experience shaped me and coloured my relationships. This was made apparent after getting married and starting a family. Who I really was came out during conflicts with my wife. The way I behaved also affected the children. In short, I failed as the head of the household. Failed very badly regarding Paul’s admonishment to the early church in Ephesus, when he wrote, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.”

At some point in 2012 I realized that I was living in the shadow of my past, of being brought up in an absent single-mother family, of verbal and sometimes physical abuse by the care-giver. The relationship with my mother was strained to the point where I refused to join her after she had finalized her migration to Australia, when I was 13. I remember ripping to pieces a letter from the Australian High Commission, informing me to collect my permanent resident’s visa. In my mind then was the thought - you go your way, I’ll go mine.

One of the very first thing Jesus preached on the Mount of Olives was that anger towards another is akin to killing. Just so you know that my Lord sees my anger towards my mother as something as serious as killing her. There is no doubt that I need to go ask her for forgiveness. The question is whether I would cross the sea just to do that. We could talking over the phone, but my gut feel is that a phone conversation doesn’t count. Does anyone seriously believe that years of hurt can be resolved over the phone?

Luke records the account of Jesus crossing the Sea of Galilee to release one person from a legion of demons. Just one person. Jesus crossed the sea of isolation to release me from my past, so I no longer have to live in its shadow. Now my fractured childhood has no hold over me, and my own family can live in the light of Christ. The question remains - would I cross the sea to reconcile with my mother?