Between a rock and a hard place

One Sunday at church I received a small coaster that read "What you are is God's gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God." I decided early on that my gift to God would be to please my parents. I idealized and idolized them.

To please my father, I studied hard and always got good grades. To please my mother I became the family diplomat -- always intervening in every family argument, listening to every side, empathizing with everyone and trying to find a way to bridge the gaps. To please them both, I was obedient, diligent, cheerful and reliable. There were many times when I felt as though no matter what I did, it simply wasn't quite as much as they expected. To my siblings I was probably an insufferable goody two-shoes most of the time.

[...]

I came home one weekend to visit. I was in turmoil. As dramatic as it sounds, it really is the case that I had an epiphany while taking a shower on Sunday morning. My body had been trying to tell me something with all those months of headaches... At twenty-two, at that moment, it finally dawned on me that my life couldn't be about pleasing my parents... My life was my own... My headache disappeared. I got out of the shower and prepared to disappoint my parents.

-- "Tough Choices" by Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina's book is hardly spiritual (or it wasn't meant to be, I think), but those few paragraphs hit me hard. With the exception of that last sentence, it could all have very well been written by me. Yes -- even as I'm struggling to come to terms with what this means, I'm not ready to disappoint my parents yet.

It's difficult enough having to walk that tightrope between wanting to expect the best of others and placing unrealistic expectations on them -- it's harder when those people are your parents. Or my parents, specifically.

Their commitment to the family has been so steadfast, that I always thought -- no matter how much disappointment I faced in the world, they would be the two people whom I could count on to do the right thing. But the right thing is often also excruciatingly difficult to do, and for me to hold these cracks against them is nothing but selfishness on my part; it doesn't diminish their love for me, and it doesn't mean that they care any less. They're entitled to their fair share of insecurity and doubt.

I'm still struggling, but I'm coming to terms with the fact that they are human too. They're not perfect, but neither am I. What I am still learning from them, however, is acceptance -- something that they've freely given to me the moment they laid eyes on me; something that I have not learnt to return.

It scares me that I may one day have to disappoint them, and I hope that if and when I do, they will know how difficult a decision it was for me to make, and that I never meant to hurt them. I know that in recent times, my parents have feared losing their children -- to geography, to marriage, to ministry -- but I also hope they realise that they only way that they can cling on to us is if we all cling on to God. And if I am made to choose between my parents' way and God's way, I hope that I will have the courage to obey the Higher Calling, and that they will eventually understand why I had to break their hearts.