Tag Archives: Letting Go

Chapter-a-Day

Me and Messy Family

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Me and Messy Family (CaD Gen 28) – Wayfarer

Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.
Genesis 28:8-9 (NIV)
Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”
Genesis 28:20-22 (NIV)

I’ve written a couple of posts recently in which I touched on the fact that the Bible really doesn’t specify any type of ritual or tradition around marriage. In fact, the closest it gets is right in the second chapter of the Great Story. A man leaves his father and mother, is united with his wife and two become one.

As I’ve meditated on this over the years, I’ve come to observe that the focus is almost always on the two becoming one. But rarely do we think about or discuss the pre-requisite of leaving the parents, which happens for both spouses even though only the male is specified in the text.

In today’s chapter, we find the twin brothers, Esau and Jacob, on divergent paths. Esau is already married to two Hittite women who have brought chaos and conflict within the family system. Having been cheated out of his birthright and blessing by his twin brother and mother, Esau is understandably bitter. Realizing how much his parents hate his wives, Esau decides to double-down and marry two more Hittite women and bring even more disruption into the family system.

Jacob, on the other hand, goes into exile with his mother’s family in order to find a wife from within the tribe. While on his way, Isaac meets God in a dream, receives the blessing God gave his grandfather and father, and chooses in. He makes a vow to follow and worship God and embraces Abraham’s covenant.

Welcome to the mess.

There was a specific stage of my own life journey when I thought long and hard about what it meant to be my own person, establish my own house, and separate from the family system of my childhood. I made a couple of key discoveries during this stage of my life:

It’s hard not to play the role one has developed as part of a family system. I leave home. I do my own thing. I follow my own path. Then I go to my parents for the holidays and I find myself thinking, acting, and behaving within the family system as I always have since I was a kid. This isn’t necessarily unhealthy, but neither is it necessarily healthy. I discovered that it was important for me to see it and work through it myself.

Parents are part of the entire equation. Both Isaac and Rebekah played a role in the conflict between the brothers. Parents can help or hinder their children’s “leaving” and the establishment of their own lives, homes, and family systems. The past decade has been crucial for both Taylor and Madison as they are in their own stages of establishing their lives. It’s not always easy to let go. It’s hard to watch them stake their own claims and feel the separation that naturally happens when one becomes independent of the system I established and controlled for so long. I am constantly having to have talks with God, myself, and Wendy about how best to bless our children by repeatedly choosing to let them go.

While Isaac, Rebekah, Esau, and Esau’s four foreign wives live in the messy consequences of Isaac and Rebekah’s own meddling, I have a feeling that twenty years of exile from that family system will be good for Isaac. He needs time and distance to establish his own relationship with the God of his forefathers, to become a husband, to become a father, and to make his own way.

In the quiet this morning, I can’t help but think about this life journey. Once I was a child learning what it meant to leave home, to be one with another, to be a father, to establish my own family system. Now I’m a parent learning to let go of daughters who are one with another and establishing their own family systems. It’s all part of the journey with its mess, mistakes, chaos, crazy, blessing, joy, laughter, and beauty.

I just want to do each stage well, and I’ve learned that I give myself some grace because I’m always a work in progress. I want to progress. I want to bring more sanity than insanity to the lives of our children and grandchildren. I want to make relational choices that will allow for more health than dysfunction. I desire that I can be more gracious and less demanding. I pray that I can increasingly trust God with the lives of my adult children so as to avoid meddling in their lives out of my personal fears and mistrust.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

A Father’s Face Shining On Us

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Madison’s graduation from NLSW. Can you see my face shining? 🙂

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 67

May God be gracious to us and bless us  and make his face shine on us—
Psalm 67:1 (NIV)

The other day in random conversation a friend showed me his scar. It wasn’t a physical one, but a relational one and an emotional one. His parents never attended his school activities. When there was a sporting event he was playing in or a performance of a school play, his parents were too busy with the farm or taking care of siblings to attend. Twenty-five years later, the pain of feeling rejected, diminished, less than is scabbed over. My friend is emotionally healthy with strong self-esteem, a genuine faith, and a loving family. But the scar is still there. And I watched it itch when the conversation steered close it.

I can’t speak much into that particular pain. My parents were present and supportive at all my extra-curricular activities growing up. What I can speak into is the joy when a mother’s, and particularly when a father’s, face shines upon you with pride, joy and love. There’s nothing like looking into the face of your folks, seeing the smiles and the shine, and knowing that they are proud of you.

Psalm 67 was a song written for use in public worship and the opening lyric comes from the “priestly blessing” which God told the priests to use when dismissing the people:

“The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. “

As my friend and I continued our conversation, I thought about the obvious fact that he had not allowed the scabbed over emotional scars he felt from his folks paralyze him into some sort of on-going victim mentality. He’d faced his pain, forgiven his folks and vowed to let his experience motivate him to act differently with his own children. It became clear that part of the healing process was realizing that his Heavenly Father’s face was shining on him with all the pride, joy and love he didn’t experience from his earthly father. By accepting and experiencing the deep, eternal love of God, my friend was able to let go of the pain he’d experienced from his parents’ unintentional mistakes.

May God’s face shine upon all of us today. And, may we all experience the fullness of what it can accomplish in our hearts, our minds, and our lives.

Chapter-a-Day

Catch and Release

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Catch

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 45

Listen to me, O royal daughter; take to heart what I say.
    Forget your people and your family far away.
Psalm 45:10 (NLT)

When it comes to family, I have come to believe that our life journey is a never ending process of separation and union. We get this picture at the very beginning of God’s Message when it says a man will leave his father and mother, the woman will leave her home, and the two will become one. Two individuals separate from their respective family systems. They cut the apron strings. They join together in spiritual, emotional, relational, and functional union and begin the process of establishing their own family system.

Release

I have observed over time that many (if not most) conflicts and struggles in our lives, marriages, families, and communities can be traced back to a failure to get this process right. The system becomes over protective and possessive of the individual, and refuses to let the child go. The individual becomes to dependent on the system or the system becomes dependent on the individual. There is a refusal (often an unconscious one) to fully separate. Subsequent union with another individual can’t successfully be accomplished because one or both individuals are still entangled in their respective family systems.

Separation is not, however, alienation. It was never intended to be. As an individual, differentiated from my family system in a healthy way, I am now even more capable of returning and creating a new and different union with my family which is critical for that family system’s growth and continuous development. I am able to help the system continue the never ending process of refinement because I can approach it with a new, objective and healthy perspective.

From the time our daughters were young, I can best describe my approach to fatherhood as: “catch and release.” I sought to captivate my daughters’ with my love, but it was always with the knowledge and intention that I was preparing them for Father God to captivate them with His perfect love, and perhaps for another man who might someday captivate them and take them away from me. Despite my strong desire to cling and not let go, I realized that this was the way God designed it. For a critical stretch of their own journeys I was there to catch them in their stumbling and falling away. I was also there to constantly instill in them the truth that they were lovable, valuable and capable of more than they felt or knew, and to release them into the world to discover the truth of it for themselves. My job was to release, to launch, and to let go with the knowledge that they would return to me as even more capable individuals and we would both be the better for it.

Believe me, I have not been perfect. But then again, neither have my children, or my wife, my parents, my siblings or my in-laws. The process of separation and union inherently creates conflict, but my wife reminded me yesterday that conflict is not a bad thing. Conflict is a healthy part of the process of both individual and relational definition and development. It is the inescapable reality of living together and walking this journey together as imperfect people in a fallen world. Our shortcomings and failures in the process are a constant reminder of our need of both receiving and extending grace and forgiveness. We separate a loved one from their failures and embrace them with unmerited love. Separation and union. Catch and release.

Into this day, the process and the journey continue.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Isaiah 18

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Silence is not passive. For here's what God told me: "I'm not going to say anything, but simply look on from where I live…."Isaiah 18:4a (MSG)

There have been stretches along the journey when God seems agonizingly silent. There are times when it feels like God is just sitting back and looking on. This has always frustrated me. As a father, however, I think I may be capturing some understanding of this.

As a parent, you spend much of your time heavily involved in your child's life. You talk, help, direct, correct, punish, reward, chastise and praise. It's a very active relationship, especially when your child is young. As the child grows older, more discernment is required as the child must naturally gain some independence and learn to successfully strike out on his or her own path.

Sometimes I still choose to actively speak into my daughters' lives and circumstances. There are still ways I can and will be actively engaged. Other times, however, I don't say anything but simply look on from where I live. My silence is by no means an indication of indifference. My love is not less. My concern is not absent. If anything, my personal anxiety over them is even greater as I love them enough to let them go.

God's message says that when all else passes away three things remain: faith, hope, and love. If I love my child like God loves me, then I must have the faith to let go at the right time and hope God's best for them. I must also have faith that when God, my Father, seems silent in my life, it is not because He's abandoned me. It's actually an indication of His faith, hope, and love for me.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and crazyfast