| I put a hole in the wall once at my parent’s house when I was 16. Our house had been up for sale and when the news came from my sister that it had sold before my parents had a chance to tell me, well, I guess I was angry. I remember leaving the house and being somewhat afraid and anxious about what my Dad would say about the fist sized crater outside the upstairs bathroom. The next time I saw him, he said, “Grant, come here, I’m gonna’ show you to how fix this”. “What?”, I remember saying back, surprised. “I’m going to show you to how fix this”, he said in a gentle voice without any judgement. “I’m going to show you to fix this so that you can fix it next time this happens”, he laughed subtly. I remember being mind blown that my Dad wasn’t angry at me. That I didn’t receive some kind of lecture about how it was not OK to punch walls or be angry like that again. Neither of those things happened, though. My Dad showed me how to fill the hole and patch it up. You can still see where it happened if you know what to look for, but it’s good as new now. He showed me it’s OK to be angry. It’s just not OK to leave it there without dealing with it. If we’re not careful to fill these holes with the right stuff, then the wrong stuff will manifest itself and take home in our hearts. There were things my Dad did not receive from his father when he was growing up. And I know that it left a lot of holes in him. Ones that he did not have someone to help show him how to fill. There was a lot of anger, sadness and emptiness that had created these holes. When he saw me get upset about something I cared about, I’m grateful that he remembered his own wounds before talking to me. He remembered the holes he had in himself and the time he had spent trying to fill them without anyone else’s help. When we come into an emotionally charged or pivotal moment in life, we get to choose how we will approach those we’re in the moment with. Usually what happens, especially when it comes to family, is the holes just get re-made. The anger from one generation is passed to the next, and the wounds just grow deeper than before. What a real man does, is allow Jesus to heal that pain and use it to transform his scars into GOLD. That GOLD helps us offer patience and love to those we are in relationships with who are walking through their own trials. That’s what my Dad chose to do when he saw the mess I had just made. His words and the way he showed me how to patch that hole were a pivotal moment that could’ve passed on generational wounds and fueled more anger or offered healing and love for both of us. In that moment, another piece of the story changed. Another hole was filled with GOLD. |