Last week, I attended the American
Association of Christian Counselors conference.
All the ‘noted’ names in counseling and psychology attended. Dr. James Dobson, author of numerous books on
child rearing, spoke on abortion and remarked that he would never vote for any
person who supported the killing of innocent babies, He asked that we, too,
support such a stand.
Dr. Eggerich had audience members tearing when he
repeated, “Good parents do have bad children.
If you do everything right, there is no guarantee that your kids turn
out as you want. In the very best of
homes, many kids rebel, commit sinful acts, and reject our faith. It is time we stopped measuring ourselves as
parents by the outcome of our children because they, too, have free will. Many choose wrongly, regardless of what parents
say or do.” Funny, how we know these
things intellectually but still feel emotionally responsible for our children’s
outcomes. We answer to God for how we
parent, but not for how our kids turn out.
I especially enjoyed a minister from Florida who spoke on
how the Bible balances law and love/grace and how it’s what we must have to succeed
as a family. We need rules or we
experience continual chaos and fighting.
Without love, we fail to forgive or give care when others need us and
aren’t bonded as a family. The Old
Testament lists more rules and gives concrete examples of how God responds both
when we love and put Him first in our lives and when we put self desires before
Him. Yet, most rules are repeated in the
New Testament by the Lord and apostles, with Jesus demonstrating how to love
the often unlovable.
The Parriotts, a husband and wife counseling team, gave an
interesting example of working with a hot-headed man. This man blew up in counseling, verbally attacked
his wife, and when Lee Pariot told him to sit down, and shut up, he threatened
Lee. Lee referred them to his wife,
Leslie, knowing she would not tolerate such treatment, and being petite, the
man wouldn’t dare threaten her. When the
man became hostile with Leslie, she tip toed as close to his 6’3”face as her 5’
body could and told him that he better sit down while he still could. Tough love counseling, wouldn’t you say?
The man sat down, and she continued as if nothing
happened. Leslie taught him how to use
his fingers for remembering to maintain control. The thumb is what he was to grab when feeling
upset and admit how frustrated he felt. Taking
two deep breaths, he then grabbed his index finger and admitted why he felt
upset, what happened from his perspective.
He then held his middle finger and shared what he feared will occur because
of what happened and described aloud his fear.
He then grasped his ring finger and told his wife the messages he repeated
inside his private thoughts that kept him upset, “I am telling myself that . .
.” Then he held his little finger and asked for what he wanted. Dr. Parriott had him practice each stage multiple
times. His most challenging was learning
to express what he feared and sharing his private thoughts without using the
word ‘you.’ “You made me. . .” “You
caused. . .” But within weeks, the man followed
the finger routine regularly, and arguments with his wife decreased greatly.
The following week when the man returned home, his
teenage daughter met him at the door and begged to take his expensive sports car
for a drive. She had completed driver’s
education and was dying to drive dad’s sports car and show her friends. Reluctantly, dad agreed and handed her the keys. As she backed out the drive, she hit their
brick mail box post. Bricks crumbled onto
the ground and the car’s crimped fender hung by a thread. Hearing the crash, dad rushed outside. Seeing her dad, the daughter began yelling,
“Daddy, grab your thumb! Grab your
thumb, daddy! Grab your thumb!”
Times like this are why I enjoyed my profession. At such times, you know you make a difference
in the lives of others. That daughter
will remember forever how to handle anger.
Hopefully, the dad will too.
And I presented an overview of my upcoming book, Women
Talk Men Walk: Keep Your Man Connected,
God Tells How, Hormones Tell Why.
Afterwards, I spent considerable time with a young man from Canada who
runs away when his wife wants to talk, and, to make matters worse, he is overly-bonded
with their daughter. The daughter receives more of his time, attention, and
money than his wife. Because his wife had
suggested divorce, he admitted he needed to shift his priorities to save his
marriage. In addition as a Christian dad,
he needed to show his daughter what a healthy relationship between a man and woman
requires, and to feel good about himself and be pleasing to the Lord. By the time we finished talking, he promised
to phone his wife, apologize, tell her loved her, and ask for a date the
following week. However, he was to make
no promises but rather show her that he was changing. If he made a promise and failed to keep even
a small part, she might leave because she was already tempted. During the phone call, he was not to speak to
the daughter, nor ask how she was. The
call remained a gift for his wife, exclusively for her, and not one minute was
to be shared with or about the daughter. To save his marriage, he needed his wife to know
that she is number one in his life, and know she isn’t losing her man to her
own daughter.
God says a wife must respect her husband, and a husband
must love his wife (Ephesians 5:33). This is what the guy from Canada needed to
learn. The commandment has nothing to do
with how we feel about each other. Many
days, a wife doesn’t deserve love, and a man doesn’t deserve respect. We are not required to earn love or
respect. Nice when we do, but nowhere
does God say we give love or respect if the other deserves it. God’s commandment has nothing to do with how our
spouse acts, but rather, It is a directive of how God says we must act towards our
mate, no matter how we feel. It’s God’s
way of showing us that we are stronger than our wishy-washy emotions. In fact, when a woman proves the hardest to
love and a man the most difficult to treat respectfully is when they need love
and respect the most. When we treat the
other as God’s commands, regardless of how we feel, we restore the closeness we
crave and need.
Yes, God does tell us how to stay bonded, and yes,
hormones explain why it is so important.
After all, God decides which hormones and how much each sex receives. My book is about stopping our unproductive,
and often destructive, fight and flight behaviors and staying connected – God’s
way.
