Forgiving Our Fathers and Mothers by Leslie Leyland Fields & Jill Hubbard Summary

Forgiving Our Fathers and Mothers explores biblical and emotional pathways to heal parental wounds through forgiveness. Combining personal stories (like Fields’ reconciliation with her abusive father) and Scripture, it addresses honoring dishonorable parents, breaking generational cycles, and distinguishing forgiveness from reconciliation. The book offers a 9-chapter framework for processing hurt, confronting bitterness, and creating healthier family legacies.

This book suits adults grappling with parental abandonment, neglect, or abuse, particularly those seeking faith-based healing. Counselors, pastors, and support groups will find its blend of psychology and theology valuable. Fields’ raw storytelling resonates with readers ready to confront pain to achieve emotional freedom.

Yes, Publishers Weekly praises it as an “excellent resource for the journey,” balancing gritty honesty with actionable steps. Fields avoids platitudes, offering tools to move from hatred to healing while emphasizing God’s role in sustaining forgiveness. Ideal for readers seeking practical spirituality over abstract theory.

• Honoring vs. excusing: Respecting parents’ humanity without justifying harm.
• Generational healing: Ending cycles of dysfunction through forgiveness.
• Boundaries: Reconciling without enabling toxic behavior.
• Divine forgiveness: Leveraging spiritual grace to release human hurts.

Fields ties personal struggles to Scriptural narratives, like the Prodigal Son’s redemption, to frame forgiveness as imitation of God’s mercy. Psalms and Pauline epistles underscore healing as communal and divine-led, not merely self-help.

No. Fields clarifies forgiveness (internal release of anger) differs from reconciliation (restored relationship). The book advocates safety-first boundaries, urging readers to “honor people, not dishonorable behavior” when face-to-face healing isn’t possible.

• Humanize offenders: Understand parents’ flawed contexts.
• Lament: Journal or pray through specific hurts.
• Seek counseling: Process trauma with professionals.
• Ritualize release: Write “letting go” letters (burn/bury them symbolically).

Fields shares her father’s deathbed inability to reconcile, stressing forgiveness as a unilateral act for the victim’s peace. The book encourages grieving unmet needs while finding validation in God’s “fatherly embrace”.

Some may find its Christian perspective limiting for secular audiences. A minority critique the emphasis on forgiveness over accountability, though Fields balances both by advocating boundaries post-forgiveness.

While Lindsay Gibson’s work focuses on psychological detachment, Fields integrates faith to transform pain into purposeful release. Both emphasize breaking generational cycles, but Forgiving Our Fathers adds theological dimensions of grace and divine adoption.

• “We can forgive others because we are forgiven. Of everything.”
  Highlights forgiveness as response to divine mercy, not parental merit.
• “Hate is the debt we keep paying long after others stop demanding it.”
  Warns against bitterness’ self-destructive toll.

As generational trauma and family estrangement rise post-pandemic, the book addresses modern readers’ hunger for holistic healing. Its blend of memoir, Scripture, and therapy aligns with trends toward spiritually integrative mental health resources.