The Shield

Have you ever heard anyone say that the safest place to be is in the center of God's will? As if life were a giant category 5 hurricane, and if you can just manage to stay in the eye your life will be calm with pleasant weather. That's a dumb saying. Unless you mean eternally, like you'll end up in His presence in heaven, and you are referring to the safety and security you have in that promise. But that is not what the implication usually is. It is a fool hardy belief that nothing bad can or should happen to you if you are where God wants you.

But then there is Peter. Following Jesus. Satan wanted to sift him like wheat. And God consented! Does not sound very safe to me.

Some may say that in his denial Peter stepped out of God's will. Maybe. But couldn't it also be true that is exactly where God wanted him? It is certainly possible that dealing with the aftermath of that decision is where God needed Peter. As Peter ran out of the courtyard, left the warmth of the fire, think of the things he was forced to confront in his isolation. Arrogance, pride, self-reliance - sounds like Peter has some root sin issues to confront.

Would Peter have been the man who was to lead the church, handling the keys of the kingdom, without this incident? My guess is no, or else why did God allow it?

Thing is, Jesus knew beforehand what was going to happen. He told Peter about it. Told Peter to watch and pray. Described the scene to Peter before the day arrived. What Jesus did not do was shield Peter from it. Whether your theology is God caused this event or that Peter chose this event, Jesus knew and He allowed Peter to experience the full consequences of his root sin. It was the only way, apparently, to break him.

I have the opposite tendency in my relationships. Quite often I will shield people from the consequences of their sinning against me. Won't own up to my hurt. Will 'forgive' before there is resolution or an apology has even been offered. I take on blame that is not my due. Even now, well advanced in my journey toward strength, I still make this my comfort zone. Particularly with my wife.

There is such a tension in this. My job is to build her up. Letting her experience the consequences feels like tearing down. (Maybe the question to ask is - what are healthy, differentiated consequences? Good question.) But shielding her from being upset, allowing her to not share in the hurt of experience relational consequences - is that building her up or keeping her from experiencing what God needs her to in order for Him to change her? How will she overcome her anxiety reducing strategies if there is no anxiety?

Christ could have intervened and protected Peter from the pain of his denial. Rather than building up, that would have been puffing up. Something fake. Looks good on the outside, but is empty on the inside. Where would Peter have ended up then? Puffed up things pop.

What happened to Peter was not done vindictively or out of spite. It was not an effort to manipulate. Rather, Christ differentiated himself so Peter would feel the natural consequences of his sin against Jesus. It was for his good.

I need to be strong and let God do the same in my marriage. I am to love and protect my wife, but that doesn't mean that I am to be her shield. Her shield, according to Ephesians, is to be her faith, that God may be trying to refine by fire.

This is maybe the hardest step I have had to take yet in my journey. Not even sure I know in what direction to take the step. But I am choosing to trust God and I love her enough to do it.

Just like Jesus.

A Bit of New Vocabulary

It's funny how a single word can have mutually exclusive meanings. Take the word 'differentiation' as an example. In the realm of mathematics, where I first learned and got comfortable with this word, differentiation is the process of determining the rate of change of certain equations. For instance, if you know the equation describing the position of an object relative to time, then when you differentiate this equation you have the rate of change of the position or in other words the velocity.

There you go, a free physics lesson on this pastoral blog. What other pastor do you know that can pull that one off?

It is quite handy to have a vocabulary to correlate with what you are learning about yourself. Lately I have been running across lots of new words to describe aspects of the dynamics in a relational system. Just so happens that 'differentiation' is among them, and also happens to be the most apropos to my current season of life.

I remember as a kid watching a Sunday night movie about Helen Keller. It was one of those things you had to endure as a kid, like watching Little House on the Prairie. The particular scene that I can recall is the moment that Helen puts together the symbols for W-A-T-E-R that her tutor was signing into her hand as the fresh, cold substance was poured on her face. Once she got it, she wanted to know the words for everything. Having a vocabulary and a way to communicate is a very liberating. To a much lesser degree, I feel that same sense of liberation.

It's all about the lingo. Back to the 'differentiation'...the basic concept relationally is distinguishing yourself from other members of the system. As is was explained to me by a friend, it is having the ability to think "you are over there and I am over here, your emotional response is separate from my own." I'm hoping to avoid getting to technical (I've already had a paragraph about math!), so I hope that explanation does the trick.

For me, a rather large component of the journey toward relational strength that I am on is this idea of being able to differentiate myself. A pattern that I have noticed is that the closer a relationship gets to me, the more undifferentiated I become. Some of the ways this manifests itself in my relationships is by people-pleasing, seeking abundant affirmation, inability to say 'no', taking the onus of responsibility in relationships - especially for communicating and planning.

Being able to understand that I have grown and developed in an environment that fostered a performance equals extra love mindset. That helps to explain my need for affirmation and approval. Well, let me rephrase that, because I think at some level, everyone needs that. There is nothing wrong with being affirmed or in wanting that. The problem is when that become THE concern in a relationship and the preponderance of actions are directed at how to receive more.

Hence the people-pleasing. But it goes even deeper. Because of the equation performance = love, if someone disagrees with me or expresses disapproval for an action, though, performance, etc., it feels like love is being withdrawn. Think of how unstable that would make a relationship seem if that became your perception. If you and your spouse disagreed on the gas mileage the car was getting and it felt like more than disagreement, what if it felt like rejection and having love withdrawn?

That's been the source of my passivity and hence my undifferentiation. Anything so that I would not feel like that. One of the results is that I opened myself up to feel unloved in other ways. But I guess I was choosing the lesser of two evils and I had no way foster change without opening myself up to more hurt and rejection. When you don't understand the source (as was the case with me before) or have any vocabulary to talk about what is going on, it becomes hard to identify the right choices. So, I tried to cure myself by 'fixing' the symptoms.

Only you carry the problems into the next context. God told me that change starts with me.

So I'm making the journey.

I'm choosing to trust.

And I'm differentiating.

In any system, if you change one part you change the entire system because it has to adapt. A new balance is created. Problem is being undifferentiated shielded my close relationships from being upset. From pursuing me. Basically from being in a relationship of equal effort. That is a hard course to correct.

While I've noticed a reaction from most of my relationship, in particular my wife notes that I get upset now. Make stands and boundaries that I did not make before. She is having to learn how to respond. This adjustment must be tough and unsettling for her. On some level it would probably be easier to go back to the way things were - even though those ways weren't particularly good. I'm sure it is difficult for her to give up some of the responsibilities that I've passively allowed her to take on. Things that cause her anxiety. I hope that she will begin to embrace the feminine role for which God has designed her. I also hope that I become a better example of Christlikeness that will help her run toward her relationship with God.

I'm looking forward to the new, healthy balance that God is bringing to my relationships. I'm still changing, the journey is far from over, but I am making the decision to trust God with my life and destiny. (That is a differentiated statement, btw.)

Mama Mia

Recently I had cause to spend a significant amount of time with my mom. It was time well spent; I love my mom and haven't always taken the time to connect with her that I should have. Yet, some of the time was really rough because I am looking at our relationship through a lens that is coming more and more into focus. From being with her, I have developed a better understanding of who I am.

Now, I will preface the rest of this blog with the admission that I know that my mom did the best that she absolutely could in raising me. Really I have little to complain about. I was loved and provided for very well, but the reality is that who we are as people influences our parenting behaviors and hence affects our children. For better and for worse. It's happening in my household. Despite my best efforts, I am going to pass on some sort of damage to my daughter, who will thus have to allow Christ to walk with her and sort things out. Hopefully she'll tackle this a lot sooner than I have.

Which takes me to my mom. Not sure what it is about that generation, or at least those of that generation that I have come in contact with. They don't talk about their issues, you smooth over them or ignore them. I'm not exactly sure if it is because you are putting on your best face for all to see, or if it is from an attitude of you don't complain, just make the best of what you have. Either way, neither of my parents tend to talk about their crap. No counselor. No priest. No one. Mom may talk to relatives, but it is usually about what is wrong with others. Not a lot of self examination going on.

Case in point from our time together: mom was not included in a family photo opportunity on another trip and she felt slighted. When I asked if she had mentioned that she wanted to be in the photo her response was a stout "They should have known enough to ask." Yet, when planning a trip for later this year with some cousins and was subsequently confronted about not asking some others, her response was "I didn't leave you out, all you had to do was ask to join us."

And that is the way things roll. There is a constant need for my mother to be right, to sit on top. In almost any situation. To the point that she'll make up things that "they said" or that "she read", and she'll state things with such authority that it is possible she really believes it is true. If you confront her on the mistake, rarely will she just admit "oh, I didn't know that", she'll argue until the ship sinks.

Yet, what I've noticed in the life of my mother is that the ship sinking rarely happens. The people around her try hard not to upset her. At least that is true of me and my dad.

So the normal for the relationship has become to figure out how not to disturb the equilibrium - how to make sure she does not get upset. This is made all the more difficult because she will not tell you what she wants, you have to guess. A simple for instance, unloading the car I offered to take one of the bags mom was carrying. She replied "no, I'm fine". But in walking to the elevator, it was clear she was not fine. Problem was, I asked if she wanted help rather than just knowing. Her huffs and puffs made it clear I had done the wrong thing.

Now, if I wanted to tear my mom down, I could go on and on. Hurt is not my intent. Mom has just never confronted her pride. She's a middle child striving to be noticed. There is baggage that she carries that I do need to understand. My reasoning for telling you what I did is so you can see what I've learned about myself.

I am susceptible to feminine manipulation. Not so much from crowd-level relationships, but as relationships get closer it becomes more noticeable. I don't want to upset my mom. So, I guess it is 'normal' that this ingrained behavior became a long-standing element of my marriage as well. I've not wanted to upset my wife.

So my inclination is to respond to her distance by trying to pursue and make her happy. Then I respond to my wife's verbal barrages by doing what I can to placate her. Either way I feel invisible and unheard. Like a schoolboy being dismissed from the Principal's office. I became timid about the things I wanted to do. I've given up sports, regular nights out with the guys, and being out of the house too much. My efforts to shield my wife from being upset have led to an unhealthy arrangement where we are both always going in the same direction. My passivity has had the unintended impact of her becoming accustomed relief from emotional discomfort through my actions.

Even in the times where I have attempted to do my own thing and differentiate between us (pursuing vocational ministry for one), it has fallen flat and failed because of my passivity. I'd only go so for before her being upset was too much.

I'm reading the book Generation to Generation about family and church leadership systems, and I came across this sentence that has spoken to me in a rather profound way:

"Few of us are irreparably hurt by upset."

I have been coming to that realization slowly but surely before reading that line, but there is was in black and white. Who knew? I don't think I did. While I'm not trying to find ways to upset anyone (that would actually be funny in a Monty Python sort of way), that one sentence is reshaping my interactions with my wife and mother.

If only it were that easy to change a family system. Seems it is just a touch more complicated than that. My slow improvement as I journey toward strength does not necessarily lead my wife to immediate slow improvement of her own. In fact, it seems to be quite the opposite. As I gradually am able to stop being a shield for her, she has developed strategies to cope with her upsettedness. For our marriage, the immediate impact has been a perspective that things are getting worse, not better.

While I've been very conscious of my need to pursue strength for the sake of my marriage, I did not really have any idea that my interactions with my mom (and dad, but this blog is Mama Mia) would still be putting a stress on my marriage relationship. We don't live with my family after all!

Yet, Family relationships are a 'closed' system, meaning stress in one part of the system will affect the other parts as well. Not only does my mother-son relationship influence the foundations of my behavior, it affects my wife's perceptions of me as a man as well as places stress on her as she become exposed to my mother's manipulation.

Without God, this journey would not be possible. I'd be overwhelmed with the amount of change that needed to take place in seemingly unrelated relationships. Right now, though, I feel very certain that I'm on the right path. Trusting God with the outcomes as I finally allow myself to be shaped into the man He intended all along. I can only guess where all of this is going to lead, but I am more and more thankful for the journey and for God's grace in the second chance.