Vineyard

Vineyard by Mike Hamilton

This past weekend my wife and I were on a small four day 10th anniversary getaway.  We flew to California and had some time in a house overlooking a beach just north of San Francisco.  There was no TV.  There were no places to eat near by, the road to the house was winding and took a while to get to and from…the trek back to town was the same.  Within moments my wife was rolling the windows down, gripping her seat and asking me to slow down because of her motion sickness.  So we remained at the house most of the time.  And in a house that you rent, with no TV, near nothing to keep you occupied you find yourself actually settling in to relax.  Relaxing settles into relief and then relief finally makes its way to Rest.  We went to bed late, we woke up late.  We ate good food that was bad for us, we had wine, I ate cheese, I failed to put on my jogging shoes other than to go to the hot tub.  By the second day I was wondering if I could go without shaving, forgot my deodorant and sat around a good portion of the day in my shorts…shirtless…sockless…..shaved-less.

Hours into the second day my wife and I were cramming bits of foods into our faces that weren't designed to sustain life.  Popcorn…chocolate….almonds….covered in chocolate….granola….with bites of chocolate…chips, hot sauce, cheese…..and of course chocolate chip cookies, big fat chocolate chips burgeoning out of the cookie.  We took naps, we yawned, we played games.  Then we went hiking in the Muir woods and got "lost".  Our trail was supposed to be 2.6 miles and somehow we failed to realize the "loop" was actually three intersecting trails making a "loop".  Somewhere about the time we surfaced to find a road….a road mind you…..we realized that we were in fact WAY off the trail.  You don't easy find your way outside the Muir Woods and bump into a road.  All I could think of at that point was "Ugh, we are going to have to backtrack the way we came….."  All 1.8 miles of it…..I run half marathons for fun…….and I found myself dreading this 1.8 mile walk through the Muir Woods.

Then our hotel.  We left Muir Beach and made out way up to Healdsburg to visit some friends at a winery.  We check into our hotel and I begin to notice some odd things.  Unfortunately, odd about myself.  I'm miffed that the shower is a European style shower open to the bathroom with no barrier to keep the water from spaying all over the bathroom.  And then there was this odd little window floor to ceiling, maybe 5 inches wide IN THE SHOWER to the OUTSIDE of the hotel.  It was "frosted" but you could still see very clearly a blurred version of a human through it.  And then those dang manufactured floors, clip clop clip clop clip clop, so noisy and the grand finale……a bed so soft and full of down that you sank as soon as you jumped in it.  The bed was too soft.  I keep having to say that in my mind to this day….the bed was too soft.  The window was too ill placed.  The lack of shower barrier was too messy.  The road was too winding.  The hot tub was 35 steps down from the house.  My face was too much to shave.  The hike was 1.8 miles too long.

Then we met our friends.  They bought us a meal and allowed us to partake in a wine tasting and a tour of the vineyards.  And then it hit me….when they said "Yeah, the soil we grow the vines in isn't considered the best soil, it needs to be slightly rocky, shallow in depth, soil which might be considered to be poor to grow other things is perfect to stress the grape vine.  When the grapevine is stressed it will produce smaller fruit and concentrate the flavor and sugars into a smaller cluster of grapes.  Vines that produce lots of big grapes on many big clusters would make for a terrible wine." (I'm taking non-technical non-winemaker paraphrasing liberties here)

I loved our vacation.  Wouldn't have changed a thing honestly.  Though I was struck by how quickly a human can begin to complain when things are comfortable and easy.  Clearly we would not choose to vacation in Palestine during an Israeli siege just to make ourselves grow on vacation.  I think vacations should be so comfortable that you begin to complain about the temperature of your eggs in the morning.  We all need the break.  I just thought it was interesting the contrast God drew for me on this vacation.  Our world is poor soil, it is full of things that should and does at times kill our souls, our hearts, our marriages, relationships, etc.  And any good vineyard owner knows that to create an amazing, robust wine, you must carefully stress the plant, prune it at the end of a season and put it into a climate that allows it to be protected from heat and drought during the growing season (comfort).

Stress it, comfort it, prune it, let it grow.  Stress it, comfort it, prune it, let it grow.  God does this.  The master viticulturist planting us in soil that isn't so great to create a wine that can't be ignored…a wine that can be enjoyed.  We weren't created to live in comfort here.  We were created to give a darkened world a light to look at, a robust thick wine to be savored and enjoyed.  But so often our hearts are so committed to comfort at the cost of anything else, committed more to comfort than reality or relationships or our own families, that we sit ourselves into fertile soil and cast away the pruning shears and demand to be fed with fertilizer and good clean abundant water.  All the while producing huge grapes with no flavor leading to our lives becoming tasteless, pale wines that do not turn a head.  We are bottom shelf wines with screw top lids.  Nothing in the world will even stop to look our way much less want to inquire as to how we became so richly flavored.

We were meant to have seasons, comfort, stress, pain, loss, growth and pruning and in the end a story that we can share that will make others thirsty for more.  The place I sit with my clients isn't "my life has been perfect and yours can be too"….there is not hope in that place.  My place is a place of suffering and brokenness that gives my story meaning.  It gives my story depth and a place from which I can speak and love in ways that I couldn't have if I were sitting comfy my entire life.  I am a man who has many bandages and scars, a limp and a wounded heart…I have been stressed and pruned and grown to the point that I have no choice but to submit to being crushed and served over to a world who might enjoy me and wonder about who made me this way…..that is our calling.

5 things I learned about being a father. . .

5 things I learned about being a father while working as a counselor

by

Mike Hamilton

My entire career as a counselor has been almost exclusively working with trauma clients.  The word trauma covers a vast range of abuses including neglect, physical and otherwise.  As you sit with these amazing survivors you begin to see a picture of a person wounded to the point of being blind to the truth of what God created them to be.  And when you sit with one of these amazing survivors you begin to see a little boy or a little girl who was put into a home without some very important things to help them survive as a person who believes they are valuable, lovable, important, worthy.  The longer I work in this field the better dad I become based upon seeing wounds and fractures of these adult versions of wounded kids.

So I compiled a list, which seems to be the hot blog topic these days…..here are my 5:


1.  Worthy to die for:  Children in trauma based families are put into positions where they are responsible for causing harm to the parents and then responsible for repairing the damage they cause.  Parents are often the victims and use the children's naiveté to manipulate them into giving the parent anything they want to feel "better" or "not sad".  Somehow this fills the parent and often puts them into a position to continue to demand more and more from the child who is desperately incapable and out of control to meet those demands.  Eventually nothing is off limits.  Most of the abuse leads to the child leading a life of feeling dead so that the parents can feel alive.

No child is capable of dying for a parent, not in any way.  A parent is the one who is created to be willing to give up their literal life to save or protect a child.  This also goes towards the idea that once you have a child you are no longer in charge of your own life, your life becomes important for their survival and emotional health as a child.  Dying for your children can be as simple as playing hot wheels car lot salesman with your kids, sitting for hours in a really small chair sipping pretend tea and being willing to give up sleep to hold them when a storm blows through.  You are a vast cistern of pure water to be poured OUT of your heart into theirs, not the other way around.  I always remember like this, my children are not "mine" but I am "theirs".  In no way should I saddle them with the responsibility of making me okay, happy, not lonely, not angry or another "not" category.  I am created to die for them, not the other way around.

2.  Lovable:  Children in trauma based families are not loved.  Some might have a problem with that statement, but I do not talk of some biological "love" we feel for our children, I talk more about the love of a Christ who suffered for us all.  Trauma parents do not do this.  Their "love" is tied to withholding it to get access to whatever they want to strip and rape from their children's emotional cache.  Their "love" is about getting close physically for their own gratification.  Their "love" is about physically bullying a child into conforming to what they want…period.  What the child experiences is so painful that they will forgo love for the rest of their lives, instead asking for an alternative that felt less scary and empty and painful.  For some this was sex or power or being hated or being liked or perfect.  And you will see an adult spend the rest of their lives demanding this instead of being loved…they run towards abusive situations and shy away from a person who would love them well.

Love is not an investment.  Love isn't a blue chip stock that we pour money in and expect a return for that investment.  Love is not a recipe for cookies that we mix up and put in the oven so that we can eat the yummy cookies later.  Love at its best is a man who died on a cross and suffered for those around Him.  Love is Jesus standing in front of a woman who was caught in adultery and telling her that He doesn't judge her.  Love is finding ways that your kids can feel unmerited grace just like the adulteress woman did.  They need to know that you will love them no matter what they do, and during any exchange of discipline or anger you should never make them wonder if in those moments you love them.  Your love isn't a bartering tool for better behaviors, your love is the very thing a child needs in order to grow to believe they are lovable.  Without this ability they will always trade down for lesser things for themselves.  I tell my children many times a week that I am proud to be their daddy, that I am thrilled to get to see them every day, that they are lovable and that I am excited to get to love them each day.  I tell them that they are lovable on their best and worst day, I ask them if they are still lovable after they are disciplined….and I ask them if they are lovable after an amazing day at the zoo.  You must interact with them in this place, this place where they are forced to receive the best thing you have to give them, this place that will force them to write into their hearts a narrative of being loved and wanted to love back.  This charge, to make them know and then to teach them to give love is of utmost importance.

3.  Being Known:  In a trauma based family the child is placed into a situation where they have to give up who they are in order to make their parents okay or happy.  Sometimes you will find children who are hated for being a girl or boy and that child will begin to take on traits of the other sex.  At their very core, at this point, they have been taught that the caregiver hates what they are which speaks partially to who they are.  Parents might hate an intelligent child because the parent might feel inadequate or stupid.  Parents can hate a girl who looks like the parent when they were 4 and being abused.  Children are told to be physically beautiful at the cost of a desire to be a little messy kid, a kid who might be torn to eat with their fingers and play in the mud puddles.  Trauma kids can be told they are fat, ugly, sexy, stupid, told they are athletes, told they are too sensitive, too stubborn, they can be made to believe almost any combination of things that make unhealthy caregivers lash out.  Unhealthy parents can make their children responsible for giving perfection, a perfect kid, a perfect school career, a perfectly clean home. Or just the opposite, they can demand that the child be the black sheep, scape goat, reason for all things that are wrong.  A dumping ground for the parents' rage, dysfunction and self-hatred.

A child isn't a lump of clay for me to mold.  A child is a known person before God knitted them together in the womb.  My job as a parent is to find out who they are and then help them get through life as that person. Ask any parent of multiple children…not two are the same…ever.  The way I play with my tender son might be similar as to how I play with my rough and tumble son.  Sure.  All boys like to wrestle.  But the way I show emotion to my tender son is far different than the way I do with my other one.  I can look my tender son in the eyes and put my nose against his nose and speak of emotions with him.  He cries happy tears, sad tears, fearful tears, he is in touch with a vast range of emotions and he allows me to move into them.  My other son, not so interested.  He is moving, hitting (playfully), dodging and looking away when I talk to him.  He is not and has never been a snuggler.  I should never force him to be.  To know my son is to know him in that way, and he is not to be changed so that I can guilt him into being a snuggler for my benefit.  However that same rough and tumble son will play independently from his brother, with me, for as long as I'm willing to lay in the floor.  Our one on one time is paramount to him feeling connected.  The tender son sometimes needs to play alone, without anyone….why should I change that?  Especially for me?  I know him in that, I enjoy him in that, I hope that he knows or learns that it is okay for him to be that person.  Whether they are bossy or shy, powerful or quiet, hilarious or dry, a leader or a follower, snuggly or independent…..I want to deeply know them so that I can deeply enjoy them……so they can have the experience of?  Being deeply known and enjoyed.

4.  Being Safe:  In a Trauma family, no child knows safety.  Their anxiety is always on high alert to watch for the changing and subtle cues that can warn them of danger within the home.  They are always vigilant, always planning, and often have no concept that they will one day be an adult, 40 years old, living in a house in suburbia someday.  Their world is dangerous and painful and scary, which in their little kid brains will never, ever be different.  They live in constant fear of their caregivers, they live in the tension of the constant fear that some outside person will find out about their caregivers.  They do what they can to get close to the abuser to avoid terror filled situations.  It's almost like the idea of sitting on a German tank invading your town is slightly less terrifying than having that tank move towards you in the street.  Trauma children are masters of finding ways to get close to perpetrators (to be "safe") and to keeping distance from people who would find out (never allowing those who might help get close enough to do so, for fear they will have to face the reality of the abusing caregiver).  They are never safe at home and they are never safe to tell.  Their world is one day after another of wondering how they will survive.

Children need to know they are safe.  I tell my children every day that they are safe in our home.  Is that true?  Sort of.  Could a fire break out that traps us?  Yes.  Do my children need to know that at any point in their lives tragedy can strike and kill them?  Absolutely not.  I can not only teach them that they are safe but I can do what it takes to teach them how to be safe.  My children know what a red flag person is (a person who might ask or try or succeed in touching them inappropriately).  Once my younger child (still a baby at the time) accidentally brushed my older son's private area while in the bathtub.  My older son leaned close to my ear and said "Daddy, I think he is a red flag person".  They listen.  They learned.  They need to know what they should do if this unthinkable happens.  We talk about fire.  We talk about "bad guys".  We talk about the police and firemen as well.  They learn our address, our last names and our phone number.  We talk about finding safe people to help them in an emergency.  We tell them to tell, to share when things don't seem right or have not gone right.  We do not "not ask" because we are afraid of the answer.  They are created to be emotionally safe as well as physically safe.  We try our best to let them be angry, to be sad (very important), to be disappointed (very hard to do), to be happy when we aren't and to have a good day if we've had a bad one.  They get to have their emotions and they are safe (to the point we can humanly make it so) to have these emotions.  It is safe to be touched, hugged or kissed in our home and it is safe to ask for us not to touch them, hug them or kiss them.  We do not make them feel obligated or guilty for choosing to forgo these things.


5.  Not draped in obligation:  Trauma children live the rest of their lives obligated.  They are obligated to "love", obligated to have sex, obligated to be interested in others, obligated to care, obligated to visit, obligated to be in good moods….obligated to take care of others instead of themselves…obligated to think of others instead of themselves….the list of obligations is never ending….and a trauma survivor as an adult will find ways of making something you might want to give them into a obligation for them to receive it.  Nothing in their mind is free of this shackle.  Every interaction with another human will lead to them trying to find out what they are obligated to give or do or think or feel.

No child should be draped in obligation.  Every good thing you will receive from your child will only be that which is not coming from an obligated place.  If I feel like I have to give you a hug and kiss when I get home, I can assure you it will not be coming from a place of love or reality.  I will feel closed and rigid and resentful of your requirement of this.  Now, you might get that hug and say "it was good to hug him"…but it will never be a true intimate, loving embrace.  Children are the same way.  They can give from two places, from a free place from their own hearts out of a desire to give joy or from a prison-like place where they are forced to grind out a statue of emotional stone to hand you in their stead.  If my kids say "no" when I ask for them to sit with me or lay with me or watch with me etc…..I am okay with that.  If they want to play instead of going for a ride around the block, I'm okay with that.  If they want to paint watercolors instead of watching a movie, I'm okay with that.  And because of that, when I do receive from them I know it is from a place of no obligation.  It is real.  It is a place where a little boy really does want me to be there with them and to experience that moment with them, to be there in it, side by side, sometimes nose to nose…


I plan to continue this list over the coming weeks, 5 seemed to be meaty enough for one day's topic….

A Marriage Dying

A Marriage Dying

By

Mike Hamilton

I once sat in a marriage seminar and heard the speaker say something that I couldn't let go of after hearing it.  He said "Your marriage is either growing or dying, there is no in-between….now what are you going to do about it?"  What followed was a list of things that couples could do to breath life back into their marriage.  Notes, lists, love languages, dares, 10 steps, 12 steps, celebrating recovery, couples devotionals, a seemingly endless mass of tools at a couple's disposal to save their marriage.  The problem I have with this is that it supposes that we should keep a bad marriage or a stagnant marriage alive.  It would be like a doctor who keeps adding medicine to a man who is clearly on his way to death, each medical device and pill prolonging the pain of what will eventually be the outcome.  Sometimes a marriage dying needs to do what is inevitable and die.

Am I suggesting divorce?  No.  I am suggesting that God isn't interested in what we have built in his stead.  I am suggesting that God brings many, many, many couples to a place where they say, honestly, "I do not love you".  I am suggesting that God is a God who brings dead things back to life and that sometimes He is waiting for someone to be brave enough to say "Enough is enough", "I can no longer do this", "I will no longer sit and watch this happen".  As a child has to eventually put away childish things and grow up, we in our marriages need to truly ascertain where we are in reality and own up to what we have built on our own, apart from Him and move towards Him in hopes He will help us grow up.  And then decide right there to let it all fall down around us for the sake of a real marriage based in real love with real intimacy.

Here is the scary part, you may have no idea that your marriage is slowly dying.  But if God is interested, and He always is, He will wake you both up to what is really going on in your marriage.  And trust me on this one, He is not interested in helping you limp along by figuring out how to enslave your spouse with your "love language", He isn't interested in a love dare for 30 days, He isn't interested in you and your spouse having sex 30 days out of 30 days to find a good marriage again.  He is interested in real growth that will be about something so far beyond ourselves that the only thing we can do is scramble into some marriage version of door to door combat.  We will be and should be gripped with fear, we will be and should be clueless and confused about any direction other than things can't remain the same and that what we are about to do is from a God who loves to watch old things die away and new things spring forth from ashes and bones.

I can't tell you the number of people I have seen in my office who have been surprised by an a terrible turn in a marriage, out of the blue and have been fully incapable of finding their feet again.  And it's usually because finding their feet amounts to things they can do to patch, repair or smooth over wounds that can't be undone and I think God is not interested in those things working….He is a redeemer and a Redeemer is just that, THE ONE WHO REDEEMS.  A redeemer isn't one who is looking for a rebellion to stay stuck in Egypt.  He doesn't negotiate with what He is about to make His own.

This place is not a place where we can participate in small ways.  If my marriage has gotten to the point of affairs taking place I can not redeem this by writing my wife notes that tell her I love her.  I can't give her gifts that will change her mind about meeting her lover.  The marriage needs a complete reset.  Pushing that button isn't small.  And this post isn't just about affairs, it's about any marriage that has been found dead on arrival and has no chance if something doesn't substantially change.  There has to be a time where you refuse to do what you have always done and do all new things done unto Him.  It isn't about quitting, it's about quitting what you have been doing to be a party to killing your marriage.  Let that old relationship die and begin to live in reality inviting your spouse there.  Refuse to be a party to old patterns inside and outside the marriage.  This takes long hours, arguments and discussions instead of sleep and a hope that all of it is something that God will redeem once you have found the ground of reality.  It is hard work to watch what we have built fall into a dirt heap and to have no idea if it will ever be anything again.

It is hard work dying.  It is harder work over longer time resuscitating what will never be able to breath on its own.  If you stop doing what you have always done what will be waiting for you will either be the reality of a dead marriage that has always been dead….or a dying marriage that God is waiting to redeem.  Walking into this can be scary and sad and lonely, seemingly never ending….but if you find this place you will realize it is the only place where He is waiting and the only place where dead things come back to life.

Loving Kids Well

Loving Kids Well

by

Mike Hamilton

I talk about loving others well in my office all the time.  In fact I think helping others learn how to do this for themselves and others trumps any counseling theory out there.  Period.  The odd thing is, most people confuse this concept as an adult to adult issue.  I love my friends well, I love my wife or husband well, I love my parents who hurt me well, I love people in my church well….but it doesn't seem people ever wonder how to love their children well.  And that is the most important thing we can do as parents.  

As I sit and write this blog my two children have come down stairs about 10 times.  It is now 9:55 PM on a Monday.  Yes, I know this is terrible and they should be punished, taught how to obey, we need to get them to sleep so they can grow, so they can learn, so they can repair their brains and so on.  The list goes on and on.  But honestly nipping this in the bud usually comes out being behavior modification more than loving and teaching.  It is rare that my kids come down stairs, much less 10 times….And when it does I embrace it as a way to show them I'm glad to see them, that I enjoy getting to interact with them, that I want every moment with them I can get and if somehow they have gotten to a stage or a day or a week where they need to do this…so be it.  What they experience when they come down those stairs is what matters.  Connectedness, joy, love, acceptance, safety, value.  I could yell and threaten to punish them if they get up again (which at times as I am human this is what I resort to)….but I'm not sure they accomplishes the most important thing we do as parents.  Love them well.  

You see, if you start with children in an environment of raising them in a safe household, where they hold value and worth, where they know they are loved…often these moments of "disobedience" are more about expanding their world in a safe place.  You would likely not see a child brought up in a home full of violence even dare get out of bed to use the bathroom much less just to see if they could "get away with it" with a smile on their face. When they are 19 these few months of a few times a month of getting out of bed is not going to make them a car thief, a drug addict or an unsuccessful person.  When they are 19, if I handle these moments with rage, anger or contempt….that might precisely be what happens.  Drug addictions, brushes with the justice system and adult traumatic environments are linked to childhood trauma, including physical, sexual or emotional abuses, expressions of rage and a demand of obedience with the absence of love or compassion.  And if they don't end up there?  You will see relational dysfunctions with friends and dating partners, spouses etc.  You end up getting children who obey but harden their hearts to want to be seen, known, enjoyed, celebrated, wanted, loved and safe.  They become hardened little adults who are looking to obey until they get enough autonomy to show you that you didn't have the power you thought you had.  

How do I love my kids well?  I find every moment I can to tell them how important they are, how safe they are and how much I love them, I find moments throughout the day to be tender with them.

I do this with words…"I am so glad I get to see you today", "I'm so glad you are my son", "I enjoy getting to play with you".

I do this with actions…hugging them, kissing them, holding them, sitting with them, playing with them, spending time with them, caring for them physically, emotionally, spiritually.

I do this with connection…I look them in the eyes each time I talk with them, any time i hold them I look them in the eyes, we touch noses, we rub cheeks, I touch their face with my hand and I allow them to do the same to me.

I do this by making their world safe…this goes for boundaries for them, both physical and emotional, I provide safety from the world to the extent that I can, I tell them that there could never be one thing they could tell me that would make me want to leave them, to not love them, to feel that they are bad or distasteful, I also set up rules for them to follow.

I do this by telling the truth…no child should wonder what reality is, we are to help them know it, we are not to be manipulative or self preserving in our interactions with them as that creates a necessity to create our own favorable reality.  I tell my kids the truth (to the level that is appropriate for their age) so they are never confused as to where they stand in the world, with me and within our family.

God is a God of Truth, of Safety, of Compassion, of Rules, of Connectedness, of Words, of Tenderness…of Love.  Loving my kids well isn't about waiting for them to screw up so I can show them they need to do better.  Loving my kids well isn't about yelling when they get up 10 times at night.  Loving my kids well isn't about making them behave well or making them be happy kids.  A well behaved happy kid will turn into an adult that sits in my office for 4 years trying to make sense as to why they hurt so bad inside and their life doesn't work so well.  I want to love my kids in a way that tells them how to love others well, love them in a way that makes them thirsty for more good and less bad….so that they might in the future move more towards the good than the bad.  I want them to feel it and know it and never question they are exactly what they are, valuable and worthy humans who deserve to be loved, known, protected, nurtured and enjoyed.  And in turn I hope they learn how to do that back, to give that love they have received back to me, back to their sibling, their mother, their friends, their future spouse and kids.  Loving others well is the one pyramid scheme worth buying into, love them so they will love theirs.

So, if my children come down an 11th time, now that it is 10:30, I will take a different approach, but it will be just as loving as the others.  I'm glad to see you, give me a hug, I want to kiss your head, come sit with me a moment, now go back and do not do this again.  See you soon, proud of you….glad to be your daddy.  Most times this works on the first, if there is even a first….it works most days when toys are more important than brothers, it works when boys are tired, hungry or grumpy.  And the best part is, when I can't do this and I blow it….guess what I get back?  They love me well in return.  Its a vicious cycle this whole love thing…..

Asleep

Asleep

By 

Mike Hamilton

Other than the cross, the Garden of Gethsemane is one of the most pivotal stories in Jesus' story.  And we all know His disciples were asleep.  In fact, Jesus finds them asleep three times during His moments in the garden.  So there they were, power hungry Peter who always fails, and James and John, the two who asked Jesus to let them sit at his right and left hand in Heaven, asleep.  Three of the most highly trained Biblical scholars of all time on the edge of the most incredible event in history and they are asleep.  I find it interesting that Jesus invited these three men into the Garden with Him.  All three of them offering something to us, 2000 years later…and they did it all while sleeping.  

If we look at Peter, John and James we have a picture of three people who spent three years with Jesus and up until His death, they all three had their own agenda.  We are a people who love to appear as though we have a spiritual mind but honestly few of us want to suffer and most of us want to sleep the rest of our lives to avoid any contact with it.  Jesus came to them once and woke them up, came a second time and left and came back a third time and woke them up again.  Each time Jesus went into the garden He entered suffering and each time He came back out He finds His friends asleep, each person living a different reality than Jesus.  

Peter was very clear about his agenda earlier in their time together when Jesus said "I am going to the Cross" and Peter "rebuked Him".  Peter wanted a crown, a Kingdom setup here where he could be a "co-king" with Jesus.  James and John were very clear about their own agenda as well when they asked if they could be at the right and left of Jesus in Heaven.  When Jesus spoke to Peter (after His resurrection) He made it clear that Peter would be lead away and die while suffering.  This is His invitation to all of us, die for others and to suffer...but sadly we are all asleep like the disciples.  We love comfort, we love to choose our own agenda and live that out, we love to be in control of our own hearts and lives, we love to control those close to us….what we do poorly is to be awake enough to want to enter into the reality of suffering with someone we love much less into our own.  

Cancer.  That wakes people up.  Car crashes.  Death of a child.  Financial ruin.  Divorce.  The list is as long as it is deep.  People who come into my office often ask for me to make things better, to make things easier, to relieve pain.  It is natural for a human to seek to sleep and find comfort rather than to enter into their own suffering.  In fact most people don't even want to be around those they care about when they are going through painful things in their lives.  But I'm not sure helping us find relief is what God is calling us all towards.  He promises us Rest and I have seen many people in my office who choose to enter into the suffering of their past or present stories and find radical change and life altering Rest.  People who wake up and walk into their own garden to sit with a cup of suffering in front of them, this is where we will all find Rest, Life, Joy, Freedom, Grace, Mercy, Transformation, Redemption.  Jesus sits in front of the most painful moment of His life which will lead Him to the most Rest after He submits to it.  

My job as a counselor isn't to bring relief…we do that on our own.  The most stressful moment in Jesus' life and his disciples are crashed.  They entered into relief, Jesus into suffering.  The looked away from the suffering, didn't pray, avoided it all, were in denial about what was happening around them.  Clients come in the same way and my job is to help them wake up.  My job is to help them see what has always been true, what they have been running from and to enter into the reality that has always been there.  I have to be encouraging, loving, gentle, but always mindful that relief should never be my goal.  To sit with someone who is hurting and hurt with them, to sit with someone who is full of fear and be safe for them, to become a place where a wounded, shredded person who has been in the garden their whole life can show up and have a person love them there…that is my job.  To the degree that they enter their stories as you see the disciples begin to do AFTER they were asleep in the garden, is the degree of Rest, Life, Joy, Freedom, Grace, Mercy, Transformation and Redemption they will experience in their current lives.  

If your life takes a hard turn remember it is natural (in a fallen sense) to scramble to find relief, to want to ignore it, to make it go away.  But always keep in mind that there is a deeper invitation for you and if you will enter, you will wake up and if you wake up you will never be the same again.  Those who do this, those who take this path often report that it is lonely, that they are surrounded by sleeping people in their families, their churches, their marriages, their jobs….but once on that path it is undeniably a place of Life. 

A Parent's Charge

A Parent's Charge

by 

Mike Hamilton

We will blow it as parents.  Please get this through your head if you are a parent.  We...will...blow...it.  And here is a shocker, I think done correctly (haha) blowing it might actually be a great thing to show your children.  Please understand that in this post that I am not speaking of abusive actions by the parents.  I am speaking of parents who don't do parenting well.  If we are humble people who want to live in reality, we must all admit that we fit in that category.  You would not believe how often I have heard my clients tell me "I'm a better dad than my dad" or "I would never parent the way my parents did".  I'm not sure we are on the right track as a parent with this in mind.  I'm not sure that God has placed children into our care for us to be "better parents" or "perfect parents".  Without a doubt I have seen "perfect parents" do enormous damage to their kids and never admit it due to their blinding pride.

It would serve you well to put away these old notions of bettering your parents because your focus begins to be more about that and less about finding and admitting where you have "blown it".  It will be one of the greatest days in my fathering career when I get to sit down with my older children and ask them how I have hurt them.  It will be one of the most bonding, awkward, anxiety producing, intimate moments I will every have with my children.  To hear their words, their hearts, their perception of what I have done to destroy the tender hearts God gave them.  I hope to have no defense, no rebuttal, no walls, that I will be present and open and powerless as I invite them into a deeper relationship with me. The mistakes are piling up already in those "Dad of the year" moments when you are worn down, anxious, tired, mad, hurried, distracted, annoyed.........you know those moments when you are most fallen and human.

My son Ben was potty trained very early (had to compete with his older brother).  One day I took him to a park to throw rocks into the creek and play around in the trails.  As soon as we pulled up Ben told me "Daddy, this is where you were a meany pants".  Ben was about 2 years, 8 months at this point.  I asked him what he meant.  "When I peed in my pants, you yelled at me and wouldn't let me throw rocks" he said.  Ugh.  I had forgotten about that shining moment which had lots of situational excuses tied to it...but honestly, I had just blown it and I never told him that was about me.  The time he was speaking about?  7 months prior.  He was barely older than 2.  I will forward this blog post to his therapist when he enters counseling at age 22.

My response?  I sat him down and grabbed his face turning his eyes directly at mine.  His powerful blue eyes, he has always been able to just stare right back into mine.  I found tears and communicated in a way that an almost 3 year old might understand.  I'm sorry I made you feel bad.  I'm sorry that I was mad.  I'm sorry that I made you think you had to be perfect.  Now, 10 years from now, if we go back to that same park...and if he happens to be able to recall that day, my response will be somewhat different.  "I'm sorry I hurt you, I would love to know what that was like for you, I want to know how I've hurt you.....I hate that I made you feel stupid and powerless and small and hated...when honestly that was about a dad who didn't know how to give Grace and to Love well all the time."

One of the greatest things I can show my children is my willingness to admit failure and to admit when I am wrong.  My screw up with Ben is just one of many.  I have just as many piling up with my son Nate.  And to be honest, I am okay with all of it.  As many times as I blow it I am right there willing to apologize and admit my mistake.  Humbly.  Without walls.  Without rules of engagement.  It is the best thing I can hand them.  Perfect parents destroy their children by making them believe they are "god" and silently demand that they be idolized and pedestaled in an attempt to never have to admit wrong.  This doesn't call any child to grace, love, brokenness, suffering, loss, pain, being known, enjoyed, accepted.  The perfect parent who does "nothing" wrong, the parent who never admits to hurting their children is leading their children to secretly hate themselves, not trust the parent and to shut down their hearts to hide all of the "broken things"every child has inside of themselves.  It is the epitome of selfishness.  Children are sacrificed for the parent to maintain this false illusion that they have never screwed up along the way.  It's more about maintaining appearances rather than allowing everyone to be who they are and protecting that right for their children.

As a Christian I am called to be flawed, to be the murderer I am, to be a broken person in need of a savior now and forever.  If I am not this person in the world no one will be drawn to the God who chose to redeem all of this mess.  If I am not this person in front of my children they will never be drawn to this same God who redeems the mess, but more drawn to an endless dead ended pursuit of being a perfect person.  I don't know if I am a better dad than my dad was but at the end of my life I can proudly say that wasn't my aim.  My children will hopefully feel deeply pursued, known and loved by a man who was willing to be powerless when it comes to falsely protecting his "position" of authority as a dad.  Those same adult children walking into the world as men knowing that this life isn't about being clean, perfect, good, better than the next but to be men who love well...and part of loving well is the ability to humbly admit when we hurt other people.

Speaking Truth

by 

Mike Hamilton

We are called to love others while dying for them.  I should be able to stop the blog right there.  Except just like Satan in the garden, our world has subtly lied to us.  Political Correctness, a form of lying, has lured us into the idea that it is better to tell partial truths and keep everyone happy than it is to speak Truth.  I'm not a Pharisee, I'm not here to tell you that if you lie to your wife and tell her you love her new hair but inside you know it looks terrible that you are a terrible sinner.  And if we can just for a moment or two while I'm speaking about this topic lay aside the idea of sin....or we may become lost.  What I am writing about tonight is the importance of speaking Truth to those who you are called to Love.  Without Truth your offering of "love" is no love at all.  It is the world's substitute for Love which leads to dead things.  Dead relationships, dead intimacy, dead heart movement, even in some ways a dead Gospel.  

Truth is tied more to Love than to the Law of "doing it right because we are supposed to do it right".  I saw a tweet last night that said "If you don't honor your mother or father how will you raise kids who will honor you? #reapwhatyousow.  The man who tweeted this is a well known pastor, but unfortunately he is well known for speaking harsh truth from harsh places leading to harsh reactions.  It might play well for publicity but its never received as a grace filled offering that leads you to be thirsty for a God who would know you and love you.  The tweet he sent suggests something that I'm not sure he can back up biblically, a harsh God who is waiting for you to screw up so He can put it on your head ten fold.  There are so many variables that go into why someone would be in that position that stating it that way is nothing short of irresponsible.  What about abused kids who are now adults?  What about kids who were neglected?  Not loved well?  Children who were treated as a nuisance?  My point is, the next part of the scripture speaks to the parents responsibility to the children...statements such as this are divisive, not grace oriented nor Loving.  

When we are speaking Truth into people's lives we have to be willing to be powerless in the midst of doing so.  Yes, POWERLESS.  We seem to be able to lovingly tell a lie or very boldly and harshly speak "truth", but no one seems to be able to speak Truth without bucking up for it.  If Truth does not come from a tender loving place from within your heart, it is better left unsaid.  (mind you we are talking deep hard topics that are a part of a healthy intimate relationship, not "your dress is pretty").  Truth spoken out of Love often leaves the speaker feeling weak, fearing rejection or retaliation.  And the loving thing to do in response to those feelings?  Lay down your swords, pull of your armor....allow that person to do what they may.  As a counselor I have the very odd job of having to love my clients well in ways that not only disturb their wounded hearts but also disturbs them in ways that may make them want to leave.  Spoken Truths do not often set well with people who want to remain in control of their hearts and lives for their own gain.  

We are all called to do this and trust me it can feel awful, it can actually feel more like Death than a dead relationship or dead intimacy.  It is an active, vulnerable place where you are exchanging everything good for an unknown response from the receiver.  But this much you can count on, I have never spoken hard things into a person's life and heart from a loving place and regretted it.  It almost always leads to tears, connection, brokenness, safety, heart movement.  Most people hedge their bets on safe interactions that rob them of life and purpose, settling into a life of existence....disrupting this life strategy is courageous, disruption through lovingly telling someone what is real.  It almost never feels like Life when we begin to enter those waters with someone we care for but I have never entered and not found Life there.  It is worth it, the people you love are worth it.....even if it is messy and scary and dark....you will find Him there, even if the people you are speaking to do not follow.