Years settle deep. Lines carved within the years weaning, faded into the work resembling him. Days push back. Bones creak at the sound of dreams demanding.:::::::::::
In regard to dreams (i.e., life’s ambition), there is a foretelling difference between those who wield their dreams, owning and shaping them perfectly and others who are slaves to their dreams, owned by them.
::slave
Dream, ambition, goal, reach and the pursuit of, owns the whole, the man. Happiness and value are found in the work and accomplishment.
::owner
The man remains a man apart from the dream.
Each man wants to make a difference, find significance and give cause to their existence. No one aspires to exist as a shadow. We reach because we want.
One day we find it, the dream. A worthy pursuit deserving of our effort and affections. One that gives meaning to our days and strength in our steps. The discovery (and pursuit) of the dream finds us, unlocking more of ourselves than we’ve ever known. We work longer and harder, tirelessly accomplishing and reaching. During late nights and earlier mornings a diligence to the dream forges and we are connected to a sense of meaning that touches our soul.
Tirelessly we work and trade time for another step closer to the dream. We work. We think. We rethink. We obsess ...and craft and tool our dream.
All the while accomplishing more and drawing closer, somewhat.
We immortalize the dream and the dream becomes us. Our words, our thoughts, our relationships, all owned by our dream. Somewhere along positions are traded and the dream drives us. All that we are and hope to become hangs on and is validated by the dream.
The dream is not enemy.
For the past two weeks, I’ve been much busier than usual. We moved into a new house which required time after my work day and ran late into the evenings. There are still mountains of boxes to unpack. After long days, the last thing I wanted to do, or was mentally able to do, was write. Work on my book halted even though first round editing is now complete. My blog stagnated and quieted to an activity-less silence.
I felt diminished and guilty, even depressed. Not a word written.
As a writer, still insecure in the dream and admission of being an actual writer, not writing for two weeks caused all sorts of emotion, most of which pointed back to some derivative of failure. Thoughts of shelving the book unfinished and abandoning plans of my writing career were constant all because my dream wasn’t being given proper attention.
Here’s the reflective bottom line. Never should your dream, no matter the brilliance or genius, own you ...or your time ...or your worth.
If your dream owns you, your affections, your motive, your emphasis and all desire, you are slave to it; a thought, an image or a goal, your master.
You must own the dream in every way.
I need time to rest from my pursuit and determine the pace at which I will run after and toward it.
My dream is writing. Yours may very well be something different. Whatever it is, it is yours: own it. Don’t serve it.
I miss home. The smell of fresh cut grass. Air heavy and sticky hanging on shoulders slowing time and holding memories. Playing outside until it’s too late to see. Laying under stars still brightly shining. The ease of day holding tomorrow comfortably and capably when what is yet to come comes in dreams pleasant and waiting; never rushed to get too, for the day still is where you want to be. The way life used to put together and make sense.
I woke up this morning missing the life I once knew, wanting to go home, forget about where I am, lose myself in her familiar embrace. I say her of home because she embraced me well.
I am a sojourner moving at the speed of yesterday’s sound. I once felt found. Now, I’m more lost. The path buried beneath leaves of a season past.
Hope rings in my ears a bit louder, clearer and sweeter, with each passing day. And now, I’m just walking from there to somewhere every step forward further and closer defining what will be.
It’s not c’est la vie. We are not bound to life’s swing and circumstance. The path is not life’s to lead. It’s ours to follow.
I heard a friend share a promise yesterday that I no longer believed in. Until he reminded me, at least.
“...that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.”
Promise. It’s the magic of home, why all makes sense, why you would never want another day too badly.
All roads of promise always lead home. No matter the detour, impasse or difficulty; the gaps in life you don’t want to remember and the days you wish would burn away, promise reigns over all whether you bow in thankful exhale and submission or break and run in anxiety and fear.
I still miss home today. Days will rest easier again. Until then, God’s promise to keep at it guides in the up and down, the twisting and falling and the reach to summit.
Recently I scheduled time to sit down and share a meal with a friend of mine who scales the level of tremendous in my life ...and in the lives of many others. My buddy John shines no less than brilliant in life. The absolute best thing about him is you get the sense that he is as sure as he is unsure of what he is doing in life right now. It's not that John is unclear or unknowing. He clearly knows what he wants to do and must do in life. How he does what he wants to do is the challenge that he daily rises to. Day in and day out, John has tirelessly thought of questions to ask on how to launch a ministry and help lead men out of hurt into hope and tomorrow. In this way particularly, John encourages me deeply without even being aware.
John was a child who tragically lost a father and grew to become a man defined by hurt and abandonment. Yet through God's grace and miraculous forgiveness, he became a father refusing to lose his own children. John simply is a tremendous man with a dream too big for his shoulders. That's why he trusts God fiercely.
And this trust has led John to start a project called, The Father Effect.
I'd like to introduce my friend John Finch to you and let you in on the high points of our recent conversation captured in the 5 questions below. After reading through our conversation and hearing John's heart, watch the short film he made and share it with your friends.
____________________
One on One: interview with John Finch
What led you to walk away from stability in an established 17 year career to pursue launching The Father Effect?
Everything began to change when I hit one of the lowest points in my life. February 20, 2009, I reached a point of real brokenness. I was an alcoholic and on a particular work trip I scheduled to see a customer, who was also an alcoholic, we stayed up drinking until about 5am. I somehow arrived back at my hotel room and laid down for about an hour before I had to be up to catch an early flight back to Dallas. As I drove to the airport, still drunk, I remember thinking that if I got pulled over, I could get busted for a DWI. I also went into confession mode like countless times before, telling God that I would never drink again. All the while, I knew very well the next time I hit the road it was game on. At one point on my way to the Nashville airport, I said out loud to God, "you are going to have to slap me up side the head to get my attention". And that's exactly what happened shortly afterward. February 20, 2009, our world came crashing down around us - both of my in laws were diagnosed with cancer, I had knee surgery, the stress on my relationship with my wife and kids was being strained because of all of my travel, and I had recently walked into an emergency room because I thought I was having a heart attack, just to name a few of the things.
I don’t think God did those things to me, but I believe he surfaced in the midst of them and caught my attention. Little did I know that that was only the beginning.
Nearly a year later at the beginning of 2010, God had really started to stir my heart. Part of what God was impressing upon me was the fact that I was gone so much - two or three days a week - for as long as I had had kids, and it had started to take a toll on my family, both my wife and kids. I also began to get a picture of just how massive a problem absent fathers had become to most everyone that I knew. One weekend in early June of that year, I starting praying for God's direction and guidance about this stirring. I asked God to give me some kind of confirmation. I determined to spend the weekend praying and devoted to quality family time. At the end of a long day on Saturday, laughing having great time together, I put them to bed and walked back down the stairs to pray and think a bit more. Within 5 minutes, my middle daughter came down the stairs with the oldest not far behind and she simply asked with tears in her eyes, "Dad, why are you traveling so much?" Before I knew, they were both crying. Neither one of them had ever asked me that question. There was my confirmation from God. I assured them both that I was going to stop traveling and be home more. The next week, I put in my two weeks’ notice.
Tell me about the first day of your new life. What was it like?
The first day of my new life was freedom and healing like I’d never known before. This quote that I once came across describes the feeling best. "I was homesick for a place I had never been." I cannot explain it other than I felt God in every detail. I felt as though I had a new perspective about everything. I had a father wound and needed healing. One simple question that God posed to me turned my life upside down. Almost instantly I discovered forgiveness. Really, I think forgiveness found me in the question - "How could I be so angry, bitter, and resentful towards a man who did not know how to be a dad?" It was as if God had given me a new pair of glasses that made me see everything in a way that I had never seen them before. My relationship with my wife was new, my relationship with my kids was new, and even the world was new. All because the baggage of my past had been lifted from my shoulders. I had spend 30 years of my life living in the past blaming my dad for all my troubles.
Three days after I left my job to launch the ministry I met a guy named Charlie. Charlie was the car transporter who had come to pick up my company car from the job I had just left. Within 5 minutes of conversation, Charlie asked me what I was going to do now that I had left my job. I told him a little bit about all that I had been through, and he began to cry as he told me the story about his father. Charlie said that when he was 5 years old, his dad took him to a ballgame with some of his dad's friends. He said that his dad bought him a huge bucket of popcorn and bragged on him to his buddies like he was superman. Charlie said that he doesn't remember much after that because his dad left the family. For many years, Charlie said that he would get this strange feeling of peace when he went to the movies and bought a bucket of popcorn. In his mid 60's, some fifty years later, he soon realized that it was all because of that day at the ballgame with his dad.
What are the most valuable lessons learned or truths realized since starting The Father Effect?
I am continuing to learn so many things that it would be impossible to list them all here, but here are a few of the important things. I am not alone, we are all broken, and I could be a better father. Satan had convinced me for 30 years that I was all alone and that I was the only one going through the struggles and issues. Once I realized that everyone else had issues and struggles too, I didn't feel alone. And when I came to understand just how widespread the Father Wound was, I didn't feel alone, understanding that everyone has issues and are wounded in some way because of the experiences of life. I, like many men, thought that I was a pretty good father, but I was satisfied with only that, being a pretty good father. I soon came to understand that I could be a great father and the importance of striving for that made me a better father. I began walking in daily awareness of my actions and words as a father. And part of becoming a better father was loving my kids’ mom. Understanding that the way I treat my wife is how my girls see normal to be was eye-opening for me. Knowing that they were watching my every move and that I was setting the standard by which they are going to measure every man, and more importantly, their future husbands.
What are your hopes for the film? What's the next step?
My hope for the film is that it ignites a movement of fathers who walk in daily awareness of the significant and lifelong influence they have on their kids because the words and actions they use every day. I hope that it results in us being able to equip, educate, and encourage men with the resources they need to become great fathers. I pray that God uses it to reach millions of men and that it is seen in thousands of churches, universities, and addiction treatment centers all over the world, freeing men to be the fathers God has called them to be. The messages that need to be told are numerous and they are the catalyst for conversations that need to be had between fathers and kids and between husbands and wives.
Twenty years from today, what do you hope to have accomplished?
Twenty years from today, I hope to have helped redefined what it means to be a father. I hope this film and many others we make have changed the lives of generations - children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren - because it changed the hearts of fathers. My hope and prayer is that I have been obedient to what God has called me to do. And, twenty years from now, I hope to be sitting on a beach somewhere in Maui with my grandkids telling my wife "We did pretty good, huh".
“Oh, wow... You have three daughters?!! Dad, you better get your shotgun ready!”
Lots of vulnerabilities exist in my effort to father my three little girls as a single parent. Little things may fall through the cracks here and there like hair and nails and most fashion related decisions, but one thing I am invariably good at is trust.
I feel as though I’m a pro when it comes to adventure in their lives. But then again, I’ve always had an uncanny ability to swoop in, sweep them off their little steadying feet and launch them into motion. They love it. Them momentarily suspended in air just above the ground or flying through the air and room onto the couch. As they soar and float, even descending, a look lingers on their face. It’s a look that affirms me. Trust.
Without reason not to, they trust me completely. Up until this point, I’ve given them more reason to trust than not.
It’s quite simple. I’ve done what I said, I’d do. And when I mess up and don’t follow through, I apologize. I like to think of apologizing to my kids as emotional adventure taking them deeper into trust’s woods or higher and closer to trust’s summit.
Establishing and nurturing trust in a child’s heart is absolutely essential to healthy maturation. Without trust, a child grows sideways, roots shallow, leaving them emotionally malnourished.
Think of it plainly in this way::
absence of trust + unquenchable lack, never enough = they go looking
As a parent, you never have to be a pro or know all of the answers. In fact, the feeling of inadequacy can be an invaluable commodity. Not having all of the answers and making mistakes earns trust quicker than parenting from a pedestal.
Your primary objective in parenting should not be friendship at any cost. It should be friendship at great cost.
It will cost great effort in values of forgiveness and love on both ends. Placing high value and seriousness on friendship and relationship not only strengthens trust but also portrays healthy relationships in the giving and receiving.
Just as sweet as the trusting look lighting up their faces when I send them sailing through the air, the look they give sitting on the edge of their bed watching my eyes well up, holding wordless apologies before anything is spoken - that similar look that I see on their forgiving little face finds me.
Trust’s roots thrust deeper into the soil of their hearts and our relationship.
So I don’t anticipate needing to threaten some boy who has yet to earn their trust with the presence of a shotgun someday. I will have staked claim in my daughters’ hearts long before that kid steps foot on my scene. And I imagine (and hope), I’ll be quite fond of him because in some distinct way, he’ll resemble me.
That day, vulnerabilities won’t exist in my heart. If they do and I’m leaning on a shotgun to establish my place, I will have missed the mark.
My father effort is full here in establishing trust so that we find all that they need together and they won’t go looking somewhere else for what they think they need.
One summer day, driving in his truck, windows down and summer air swirling freely between us, I remember feeling invincible. No worry too big or fear too dark. Life was summer sprawl, undisturbed still. Unawakened to circumstance affecting.
We were just driving down a wide, smooth road, but we might as well have been precariously navigating across a narrow ridge thousands of feet in the air. Maybe it was the summer air that always seems to inspire adventure or his truck which always held the perfect balanced smell of work and dirt. I think most of all, it was the courage I felt when we did things together, just the two of us.
In many respects, my dad will always be an anchor in my life formidable to each and every wave threatening capsize.
He wasn’t the perfect dad. No dad ever really is. He was the disciplinarian who enforced consequences but wasn’t always the firm parent. In fact, sometimes he’d crumble faster than a dry sand castle. I don’t think he ever gave too much thought to parenting strategies or thought about parenting goals stretching further than the moment.
And that’s precisely where he won as a dad, in the moment. Perhaps more unknowingly than not.
Standing at third base, coaching and giving instruction as I walked to the batter’s box. At the starting line reviewing strategy again, reassuring me that the miles spent on my bike training had fully prepared me to win. Under the hood of his truck asking for the oil filter wrench then handing me back the tool I gave him and explaining what exactly the oil filter wrench looked like. Teaching me to fight and defend myself and stand up for what was right, at any cost. “Every fight can be won. Be the one who wins.”
Thinking back, I’m sure my dad faced many situations when he was uncertain as a father. He definitely made mistakes, chose wrongly and came up short, but in my young boyish eyes, my dad was myth and legend making sense of a world that felt infinitely bigger than me.
Parenting is such as tremendous undertaking. There are so many ways to get it wrong. So many mistakes lie in waiting.
...when and how to discipline.
...when to say yes and stick to no, despite pulling tears.
...embarrassing them.
...emotional parenting.
...saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
...not saying anything.
...working too much.
...not noticing little important details to them.
...discounting their effort given.
The list grows infinite as opportunity for mistake lies in each day and moment.
Beyond mistakes marring the past and those potential ones threatening in years ahead, the surefire way to get parenting all wrong is to be absent.
Present in form, missing in action. There is no mistake greater than abandonment. And sometimes abandonment happens with the parent sitting in the stands still distracted by the day, not noticing the only one truly needing to be noticed.
I’ve known plenty of parents who say the wrong thing often, break the rules of what’s considered good parenting and semi-obliviously stumble in and out of situations, yet still they succeed in being a good parent. When dust kicked around in childhood and adolescent years settles and years are apparent, there stand their kids somehow ready to figure life out, prepared to take steps on their own.
The one fail safe parenting secret that always works: YOU
Dad, you can give no greater gift to your child than yourself. Mistakes and all.
Get over your idea of providing enough, success, happiness and proper parenting, and move into their little lives. Create residence in their hearts where they need strength and adventure and affirmation.
Don’t show up on time when it matters. Be there.
Being there in your kids’ lives doesn’t mean knowing. It means willing. And that is far greater a commodity in shaping their lives than knowing yet being unwilling.
In very rudimentary effort, I am moving closer into my daughters’ hearts this summer. We set a goal together to begin reading through C.S. Lewis’ series, “The Chronicles of Narnia”. Our family bet was that we’d make it through book three by summer’s end.
My dad left when I was 17. My sister, 13.
One of my distinct, floor level goals as a dad has been to never leave.
And that’s more than an adequate start. It’s my greatest gift and a framework for effective fathering.
“Tomorrow found in today; what’s ahead discovered in days behind.”
This has become somewhat of an echoing mantra and anchoring core value in my life. Often what we need for today and beyond lies in the path behind us. A risk that taught us to trust more. A failure that taught us bravery. A mistake that taught us humility. A hurt that taught us to bleed. A loneliness that taught us to find. A darkness that taught us courage. A victory that taught us to win.
Whatever those steps pressed into the ground of yesterday hold, above all, they hold life and answers and path.
The writing of my book gave perfect opportunity to look back, gaze upon the burning heap of dreams behind ...look ...love ...want ...hurt ...break, and mostly ...find. Recounting pieces of my past floating, stretching further apart on life pulling like the tide and swelling waves, has, in a way, been the greatest happening. Many days I felt like a scavenger walking through barren lands once rich and fertile, now hollow and uninhabited. And then, I would stumble upon deep wells of remembrance whispering words I couldn’t understand but laced with promise and passage finding penetrating way into the chambers of my heart.
Losing my wife, a woman whom I loved indescribably, did nothing less than change me completely.
Life turned unexpectedly and unforgivably. I stopped lost in tracks. The steps behind me began to guide me with each faith-filled, God following, narrowly trusting, grace infusing step into the unknown.
Future bowing to past in homage and honor. My eyes learned new, the value of unknown and how to choose.
Here’s an excerpt central to my story from a chapter currently entitled, “Surely Goodness and Mercy.”:
I saw a man alone, subdued by pain, frightened by the fear of all that may be some day, and I quietly asked to never be that man. I can't. I won't. The man fumbling through fading memories like a thief holding a leaking bag, the man stumbling drunk on why things settled they way they did, talking to himself, mumbling angrily and hurt. That will not be me.
My daughters will not know him. They might see me wince and wrestle to the ground...
But they will never know a hollowed heart comfortable only in shadows. I may not have much greater to give them than that but it will be an echo that resounds like bells of freedom in their warm little hearts. Always. I pray.
I will not allow myself to be the man hollowed by pain, afraid of shadows and those things which lie in waiting. Life may indeed only seem to take from us, days, memories, happiness, but courage is mine to give. And the source, it is immeasurably and unfathomably deep. It is unending. Through darkened spots and failing strength, the reason for courage remains.
For months following her death, I only prayed for God to piece back together the life I was forced from. So little did I know and perceive the beauty of his bridge building redemptive ability lies within the thinnest, most inescapable steps when I am invited to only follow and not need bearing or direction or understanding.
Each day, a decision.
Choose wisely. Trust ridiculously. Step faithfully.
...
A day forsaken is a day forgotten.So many want only to escape.
“How’ve you been, man?”
Such a simple question often returned with loosely connected surface somethings. Quite often, I volley back one of a few pre-packaged responses always ready to buffer conversation passed me and into decisions needed to be made or details floating in my days. Or the shallow response gently deflects the question back to the other person. My automatic responses vary slightly into some form of “great” or “busy” or “well”. It seems as though even when things aren’t great, busy or well, those words are still regular in my friendly responses.
I haven’t been asked that question lately. At least not as often. There was a time in the not too distant past when I heard those words everyday. Many times over in each day, actually. How was I adjusting to life after the death of my wife? How were my three young daughters? What were we going to do? These questions and more were all motivating the constant questioning and concern. But time moves on. Concern and curiosity from friends and family remains but naturally waned a bit in time passing. A year. Nearly two. Healthy smiles and new adventures and the constant questioning softened to a lull.
Because of one word, this particular time the question caught me a bit off guard. The distinguishing word in my friend’s questioning: “man”. Maybe, too, the way the question was asked and who was asking made it stand out.
Shortly after we met, John grew naturally into a friend of great stature in my life. Committed to doing something about what he knows, John often finds himself in the right place at the right time. With little concern, my friend is quick to respond to needs. His quick abandon and committed response drips of Jesus. And people draw to him as John closes in on their need with genuine, deep concern. One of the most profound things that John ever said to me was in the form of a confession. Driving me from the hospital to my home so that I could shower and get a change of clothes, he fumbled with a confidence bigger than himself and the moment through feelings conflicted. My wife wavered between life and death, I sat shocked and sinking and overwhelmed and his words were simple.
“I really don’t know what to say, man, but I know God is in control.” Those were his words, my friend John’s. And they were more than enough.
And just a couple days ago, sitting in the warmth of evening sun John’s question slowed my thoughts and stopped me from conquering the world for a moment of honest reflection and simple words.
“Good, I think.”
I hadn’t stopped to really think about how I’ve been doing lately. And maybe my lack of thought and constant emotional self assessment revealed something new blooming in my day to day.
There were countless days when the thought of something wrong with me hung overhead like a following, defining cloud. Following. Defining. In my bleak estimation, life didn’t add up, my wife’s sudden death was a variable I had not accounted for. Life held an incalculable value and happiness, meaning and joy alluded me.
Somewhere along the way I forgot. Not in the way a person forgets due to uneventfulness or inactivity, but because of replacement. Maybe love. Maybe laughter. Maybe the newness of life as adventure. Whatever replaced hurt exactly in my life, days unfolded easier and laughter more frequent and honest.
Here’s the thing about hurt and pain: it’s leachy and holding.
When you decide it ends, it just does. Hurt and pain give way to life and resumption. Pain doesn’t just run its course or simply end. It remains as long as you allow it. And pain defines throughout the time it remains.
Pain is hurt still hurting. So many allow pain residence and place in their heart. You can see it plainly on their face and in every move and seemingly every decision made. Pain becomes them.
Healing is the faith of painless living.
I heard a story years back of a man who grasped tightly to a specific hurt so grievously inflicted by another that he lived with it for years. Bitter still in old age, he walked right up to his offender’s house one day long beyond cause for remembrance and punched him then for reason still apparent only to him, the offended. The hurt one holding onto pain holding onto him.
That is precisely what pain does. It encapsulates you. Hurt happens. It will time and time again. Some hurts will be small, mundane jabs that threaten to cling to you and others will be near fatal deathblows that drop you to your knees. In both cases of pain and hurt and beyond, you decide when it ends and when you begin to turn your face north to a new day inviting.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23
In each day, both darkened by the stain of hurt and glowing in the goodness of God, his love gives certain cause for joyful continuation and resumption of life free of pain. When you decide it ends, it does because God's love never relents and is always present.
