It Can End With You
The way you were raised may explain some things about you, but it does not have to define the person you become.
Maybe you grew up around anger.
Maybe addiction.
Maybe broken marriages, absent parents, abuse, bitterness, unforgiveness, or people who simply didn’t know how to love one another well.
Those things can leave scars. They can shape how you react, how you trust, how you communicate, and even how you see yourself.
But eventually, we have a choice to make.
We can spend our adult lives saying, “This is just who I am because of how I was raised.”
Or we can decide:
“It ends with me.”
I may have been raised around anger, but I don’t have to become an angry man.
I may have grown up around addiction, but I don’t have to continue the addiction.
I may not have been shown what a healthy marriage looks like, but I can learn how to love my spouse biblically.
I may not have had the father I needed, but through Christ, I can become the father my children need.
Your childhood may explain the dysfunction you learned.
It does not give that dysfunction permission to continue through you.
Scripture says:
“A child will not suffer punishment for the father’s iniquity, and a father will not suffer punishment for the child’s iniquity.”
— Ezekiel 18:20 CSB
You are responsible for what you do with what was handed to you.
And through Jesus Christ, you don’t have to keep passing down what was passed down to you.
Forgive what needs forgiving.
Heal what needs healing.
Repent of what needs repenting.
Learn what was never taught to you.
And then build something different for the generation coming behind you.
You didn’t get to choose how you were raised.
But you do get to choose what continues through you.
The cycle has gone far enough.
Let it end with you.
— Rev. Carlos Figueroa
TheFreeBible.org
