As time goes on I have the tendency to look at things
differently. I believe the Holy Spirit is
transforming my thoughts and ideas as he reveals God’s truth to me. As we
read, study and obey the words of God there is a transfer of knowledge that
takes place from the head to the heart. It is my deepest desire that this is
the process taking place in me over the past few years.
We all have a
favorite TV show. Tonight Janice and I enjoyed watching our favorite one together.
In the show there was a scene where a lady walked into a police station to
complain about her husband hitting her, the lady was drunk and apparently had an
on going drinking problem. Her visit wasn’t the first. Not a hard scenario to
figure out.
The longer I watched the story unfold I found my thoughts
drifting to an incident that took place when I was about five years old. All
the sudden I felt an overwhelming sense of heaviness. My dad was what I call “a hitter” with a
drinking problem. Mom was usually the unfortunate recipient on the wrong side
of dad’s exercise after being out with his buddies at the bar. I remember the
fear and feeling of wanting to hide when dad came home late from work
because we never knew if he would be drunk or not. One Friday night dad came home late, mom had
a friend at the house and things turned bad pretty fast. Mom’s friend took us to
her house to spend the night. The next day we found ourselves at the hospital
visiting mom. For the next few months my brother and I would fix her soup for
dinner that she would drink through a straw because dad broke her jaw and one of her hands. I
remember the damage of the day changed the way we looked at everything and
everyone. Life shifted and the three of us became the suspicious survivors from that
Friday night. The actions of my dad were the result of a man who was caught up not so much in his dependency of alcohol but in the pain buried in the darkness of what led him to medicate what he was trying to escape. Even if for a short period of time, my dad created for himself an environment of control and numbness as an escape from his pain and fears. That numbness
affected the lives of my mom, my brother and me, for the rest of our lives.
Now as an adult I sat with my wife watching this show on TV where an actress went to the police looking for protection from her
abuser, the memory of the abuse my dad inflicted on my mom that night was as vivid as the night it happened, a night I'll never forget. Instead of being filled with fear and anger, now I was filled with compassion.
My thoughts and feelings were ones of burden for my dad and for all of us who
haven’t found freedom from our days of damage. Pain that creates the need for protection. Unfortunately that protection comes in the form of transferring our pain and insecurity onto other people. Damaged people continue to damage people.
The reality is that dad;
mom, my brother and me were captive in a dark place dark separated from God’s
truth, freedom and hope. We all try to compensate as we search to escape from
the misunderstanding of damage sin creates. In the darkness it is natural for humanity
to grasp for anything that might comfort us, even temporarily, regardless of the
damage created in the path of escape and the uncertainty of our future.
The fall of mankind
is real and it has caused immeasurable damage and the destruction of countless
lives in its wake. The evil habits and appetites formed in us are from our separation from God and his perfect design for our fullness. We hunger and strive for wholeness found only when we are connected in relationship with God himself.
My thankfulness for
God’s invasion into my darkness can never be stated adequately because I can’t
express the gratefulness I feel toward Him, He rescued my me! The depths of
salvation are more than I can understand, the healing from the damage caused by my past
choices is very real and has created abundance for my life today. The
tangible way I give thanks to God is by actively looking for ways to please him.
I couldn’t see the results of my life separated
from Christ because I was in the dark unable to see what I was doing, not
concerning myself with the damage I was causing others around me. Not until I
was drawn out of that darkness and I began the journey of relinquishing the
control I thought I had to Him. I created a lot of pain trying to protect myself because of the damage and the feelings of abandonment in my life. I had to make the choice to stop resisting God’s love and allow him to
teach me the difference between demanding control of my life and learning how to
find my escape by giving control of my life to Him. The thing I didn’t understand is
that God’s love for me is greater than my pain and his plan was to put me in a
place of peace and joy that I desperately wanted but had no clue of how to find it.
The damage of the day
hasn’t been removed from my memory but it has become part of my story, not the
pain or fear but the rescue; release and the understanding of how the damage
actually started in Eden with Adam and Eve, and how it was transferred to me
and every person throughout human history as part of our DNA.
Transformation,
healing and release through the work of the Holy Spirit continues to take place in my life. The
fantastic thing is that the same path of transformation and release is available for
anyone who will accept it from God on his terms. Even after we believe.
The most important
part of my story and the story of every person is that our future can be
changed because of the promise God provided for us through the sacrifice of his
son Jesus Christ.
