Just this weekend, one of the employees at my place of work had a brain aneurysm while he was driving. He had a minor accident and was brought by ambulance to the hospital. He is an only child, both of his parents are diseased and has only one good friend who is several cities away. He finds himself in the hospital today, one week from Christmas, alone with only a few co-workers to comfort him.
The truth is that families are a blessing. Families, while often times our greatest challenge, love us more than most... even if they are not good at it. People generally love as best as they know how. As I am learning this, I am less mad at people in my life. I am learning that my security comes from a place far deeper than even flesh and blood. I am learning to receive what is Holy from family and friends, a hug, a kind word, and encouragement, while setting up a boundary for myself from the things that are hurtful; criticism, shame, blame, guilt, and slander. We each have to determine how well built our boundaries are and then we need to be honest with ourselves. Sometimes we do need to set such strong boundaries that we remove ourselves from a situation because it violates our sense of safety and value. We then can re-approach things when the timing is right.
The journey toward embracing broken people while maintaining dignity and differentiation is not easy. Although painful, I do believe this process to be essential for life, and I have found that we as humans will be all the better for it, not the worse. As Katie's husband, I am also learning to navigate limits; limits are those thresholds at which point a person no longer feels safe or valued. I in no way want to force her into the process faster than she is ready, just as she does the same for me at other points in our relationship. And we have an agreement that, we travel at the lowest threshold together. If Katie's at a 10 for feeling safe and valued, and I am at a 6, we travel at a 6 into situations together. This, however, is fully dependent on our communication and being honest with one another of where we are at each given moment.
We must continue to remind ourselves that no one has control over us. No one can make us angry, shamed or sad. We ultimately choose how much people effect us, because we can control how close or far we are from people, both literally and metaphorically. If someone constantly causes sadness within you, you have the freedom to move farther from them like a child moves away from a campfire when it gets to hot.
In Galatians, Paul lists self control as a fruit of the Spirit. Sometimes I wish that "Others-control" was fruit of the spirit or a super power that we possessed. I wish I had the ability to make someone a better friend or a better person, but I don't. Yet God gave us an incredible freedom to be lord over our own emotions and actions.
So it is my prayer that as we journey into Christmas we can...
- Be honest with ourselves and where our thresholds are. If it gets too hot, get out for a bit.
- Listen for the Holy voices of love within even the most hell-raising of family members and friends
- Lord over our own emotions and practice self-control. No one has control over us unless we allow them to.
Blessing, Peace and Joy.
Hell-a-days, Hell like, and hell-raising are pretty strong words. Are things so bad that they should be described as the total absence of God? In all honesty, I doubt it. To feel unsafe is almost slanderous. Be careful with your choice of words as they are being read by people for whom God died.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. I agree that these are strong words and that no family relationship is fully void of God's presence. I hope you can see that these words are descriptive of our feelings and not a remark about any one person's identity. I would also say that feelings are valid regardless if they are not shared or understood. Feeling "unsafe" is a very real and honest place to be when under criticism of another.
ReplyDeleteI have taken into consideration your thoughts and have altered some wording within the post.
-Peace on earth.
Revision is a sign of growth. It makes us better.
ReplyDeleteFeelings are truly valid. They are just what they are. As when we discuss anything, feelings or opinions, St. Paul reminds us to speak the truth in love.
I love the paragraph about "The truth is that families are a blessings... I am learning to receive what is Holy..."
ReplyDeletePeace on this road...
(Katie) Dear Anonymous: I am sorry if my husband's words were offensive. I can assure you that his words are spoken from a deep place of love and I think that it is unfortunately true that the people we love the most have the greatest propensity to wound us. We are newly married, recently moved to Chicago, and are struggling with the reality of only having 2 days to see 3 families, let alone trying to fit in our own time as a new family to celebrate with each other. My husband is from a divorced family and now adding my parents to the mix makes for a lot of stress as we try to figure out how to see 3 families and be fair. Inevitably, someone also ends up complaining of getting "let overs" which only makes it more challenging. It almost feels like a situation set a up for failure with so many people whom we love and want to see, lots of driving, and not enough time. Unfortunately, its hard to find the balance of respecting ourselves and recognizing our own limits in driving 7 hours to get home and all the time spent in the car commuting to see each family. There is just nothing easy about it, and unfortunately, we are still new at this and trying to learn. I would ask that you would please pray for an extra measure of grace and understanding from our families and strength for us as we try our best to see everyone. I hope understanding our situation helps you to better understand the tension from which my husband was writing from but, please know that we are absolutely committed to family, otherwise, I don't think a sane person would commit to the schedule we are trying to keep over the Holidays!
ReplyDeleteI would like to begin with some quotes from a post written by James entitled "A Culture of Honor" in November:
ReplyDeleteIn order to understand honor we might first look at dishonor. For me, the ways that I have wrongfully practiced, tolerated or experienced dishonor have been in the forms of slander, gossip-justified by calling it "processing", and sarcasm.
Gossip is, in short, talking about beef you have with anyone to anybody else but that somebody. Most often it begins as processing and evaluating but it is, without question, gossip.
... the matter should not be discussed with anyone except face to face with that person.
Although this will require me going to many people directly, I want to apologize for the ways that I have either dishonored you or allowed you to be dishonoring of other people. I am committing to make it a point to be direct with you, to not use sarcasm as a means to vent, to not gossip, to not slander and to honor those that I am in relationship with.
And I give you, my community, the right to hold me to this and to call me out (directly) when I fail to uphold this.
I believe you have dishonored your family with the way you talk about them in this post.