“The verses about honoring your mother and father are unconditional. They don’t say ‘If they deserve it’.”
Many parents who rely on those verses seem to forget, ”And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath” Ephesians 6:4
I “honored” my father in that I made sure he was safe and cared for in his old age. Still hate him, though, the abusive SOB. He died in 2008; maybe I’ll cry some day.
I can’t imagine that forgiveness in that situation is easy.
I had great parents. I’ll never live up to the examples they set. I’m like the guy who was given 10 talents and buried them.
So it’s just book knowledge, when I say, that “y’all need to forgive them”. But I don’t think it’s any less true. And it’s about the effect that withholding forgiveness has on you.