One of my most productive moments in parenting took place when I lost control in anger and threw my son’s cell phone across the living room. I didn’t toss it. I ripped it out of his hands while he was in the middle of a video game battle, and then without hesitation I uncorked the best fastball that I had thrown in years. It rotated head over heels three times while it blazed across the long room in a straight line. Cell phones are a surprisingly good weight for throwing. The phone, which happened to be of expensive make, made direct face to face contact with the corner of our solid wood dinning table. I never had this type of accuracy when I was a little league pitcher. The crack sounded more like a baseball bat hitting the table than a phone. My son stood like a statue. His eyes fixed on me in distain and disbelief. My younger son, who was also in the room, burst into tears. Both from being startled by the explosive noise, and the explosive outburst of his father.
I was pretty sure the phone had disintegrated into its millions of component pieces, but I didn’t care. I was still blazing angry. My wife rushed into the room from the kitchen. She looked at the face of her son, red, contorted, and disbelieving. She tried to match up what she heard and what she saw. “Did you hit our son?” she asked in confusion. “No, I threw his phone.” My voice was sharp and fast. “Cameron!” My wife couldn’t believe it. I was loud and yet still articulate through my rage. “The joy he gets out of those games isn’t worth the compromise to his character!” “I know, but you can’t do that!” I was still too angry to feel any shame or regret. I hadn’t been sleeping well. My irritation with my kids’ attitudes, sneakiness, and lies had been brewing and boiling for days. It finally snapped. I stepped out of the room and went into the kitchen while my wife went in to clean up my mess, starting with the emotion trauma I had inflicted upon my sons. I took a couple of deep breaths. What I had been afraid of had come upon me. I could see this coming for days. It is easy to come up with lots of reasons why. It is true that there was fault in every corner of the room, and that at my core was a desire to see my children grow into upright, contributing members of society. But none of that mattered right now. There was only one important thing to be done. To be broken over my anger and the way that it was harming those that I cared most about. And then to do what I could to make it right. I knew I wasn’t ready to go give anyone a hug, so I headed to my bedroom. I fell onto my knees and buried my head into the cushions of my armchair. “Oh God, I am a wreck! And I’m wrecking the lives of Your children. Have mercy on me. I am irritated, and tired, and angry. I have rage and regret and fury and shame. I am supposed to be the adult, the man, the minister, and instead I am the one who is out of control and destructive. I am ashamed…” I could feel the tears fill my eyes as I bore my obvious depravity to the Lord. My anger in all its forms was obvious and out in the open for all to see. I might as well call it what it is. Bring it into the brightest light I knew how, before God Himself. This deepened my shame, knowing that these kids weren’t mine to treat as I wanted. They were on loan to me. They belonged to the Lord, and would be returned to Him one day. The children I hurt belonged to another. I felt the appropriate fear that we should feel when we hurt another of God’s children. The deepening shame and named sin actually helped trigger my desire to be right, not just with God, but with my family. I anticipated the path back to a restored relationship would be difficult and probably expensive in more ways than one. I started by apologizing to my wife, who was in the kitchen. The boys had gone to their rooms. “Jordan is really upset. You scared him.” She was earnest and direct. It is a deep wound in a man when he loses respect from the one person he needs respect from more than anyone else, specifically his wife. Some men give up trying to gain this respect. The deposits in this bank are tricky. The bottom line increases very slowly with incremental additions through perfect fidelity, daily communication, good parenting and consistent provision. It takes years before there is anything worth mentioning in the account. And then, in an angry or lustful moment, the account can be drained to the floorboards. As I looked in my wife’s eyes I searched to see how much I had lost with her in this moment of losing control. I couldn’t tell, but I knew if I acted quickly and with sincerity I might be able to mitigate some of the damages. I started with my younger son. He was more demonstratively upset, and I figured I could work my way up to my older son, who I had directly offended. He was cuddled up in the bottom bunk of his bed. His head was in a book. His face was still puffy and red from the episode. My wife had helped him calm down a bit, but he was still quite vulnerable when I slowly opened the door. Repentance, and the act of asking forgiveness is a delicate art. It can be met with open arms and a heartfelt, “I forgive you!” Or it can be met with, “I’m not ready to forgive you, and I will never let you hurt me like that again.” Not to mention the thousands of shades in between. It takes courage to place yourself at the mercy of another person with the freedom of choice to receive you or reject you. It brings me back to the days as a young adult when I would call to ask a girl to go have dinner with me. The heart races, the throat begins to tense and close. Why can’t I talk normally right now? Rejection, though less physically demanding, feels like death. It is a small death. It is the death of a relationship, at least for a time. And there is a part deep within us that knows that the quality of our lives is the sum of our relationships. When our relationships disintegrate, the rest of our lives aren’t far behind. Wisdom leads us toward the courageous act of asking forgiveness. “Son, I’m sorry that I lost control of my anger, and that I scared you.” Whew. That wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it was going to be. My second son can sometimes get lost in his emotions, especially when he is tired, and not want to relate with anyone. Would I get one of these reactions? He looked up at me, right in the eyes. He needed to see that I was sincere. I was fortunate that throwing things around the house wasn’t a part of my normal routine, otherwise it would have been much harder for him to receive me. To my relief he nodded his small head. “Will you forgive me?” I asked him, wanting our reconciliation to thicken and grow. “Yes dad. I forgive you.” “Can I have a hug?” Another wonderful sight. He nodded again. What a glorious gift to me those nods were. My soul breathed a deep sigh. I felt a wave of relief knowing that this could have went much worse. There is something very close to our core that needs to receive those nods. The Christian faith explores this need. At the heart of the faith is the declaration that God is willing to give us those nods, if we would be willing to ask. According to the Christian faith the Amazing One that called us forth, and placed us in families that cared for us, and maybe gave us a squirmy child in our arms, or a majestic view from the top of a mountain, or a dear friend that listens to all our deepest hurts, that One is ready to forgive. When we lash out Him, and tell Him to get out of our house, or decide to stop talking with Him for years on end, or refuse to sit down and dine with Him at His Table, He is ready to nod at the question, ‘Will you forgive?’ He has a tender heart. He cries like my second son, but He is willing to go to any length to see that the relationship is restored, even if costs Him His life. I lean over my son and press my chest against his. He puts down his book, which is no small gesture for my little bibliophile, and wraps his arms around me. I kiss his straight hair which lays flat across his forehead, and whisper, “Thank you.” It is a significant action when someone, who could choose otherwise, chooses to forgive. I am deeply thankful. I will set aside extra time to help him with his math homework in the days ahead so that he will know that I am earnest in my desire to be reconciled with him. That was the easy one. The five feet across the hallway to his brother’s room feels like running the mile in middle school. I dread it. I drag my feet. Ugh! I have a pain in my side. This is difficult. As I approach the room of my passionate red head, my firstborn, I smell a hypocrite. How many times have I told him to be angry, and to express it with his words rather than by hitting the wall, or throwing his books? I’ve lost my moral high ground. I have no right to talk. At this point I can only curl up next to him as a fellow sinner. And yet, he needs me to be more than that. He doesn’t just need a broken, permissive grandparent for a dad. He needs a parent that will continue to have the courage to coach him toward wisdom and growth and behavior that will grant him favor and success in the world. He needs an environment at home that gently introduces him to the way the world really works, within a context of love and support. He needs to deal with his impulses and duplicity, and late-night videogame binges now so that they don’t mess up his life later. Parenting! What an impossible task. Who is adequate for the challenge? He too is laying in his bed. He is looking straight ahead, processing the chaos of the evening, and worn-out from a long day. There is no reassuring glance or smile. I have a clear mirror of the damage that I have caused. It is written across my son’s slumped shoulders. I am committed to apologizing and to omitting all the excuses, reasons why, and empty promises of not doing it again. I gently sat down on the bed next to him. “Son, I’m sorry that I threw your phone. I should have never done that. And I feel ashamed. Please forgive me.” He mumbles something. It is one or two sentences and I can’t make out what he said. I could have him say it again, but I think he might have been apologizing for the decisions that led up to the incident. There is a part of me that wants to grab onto his apology, maybe have him repeat it clearly and turn this into a learning moment. But I resist this urge. This isn’t why I’ve come. “Son, I often talk to you about controlling your anger, and then I went off and completely lost control tonight. I need to grow in dealing with my own anger.” “I forgive you dad.” He looks at me, and he means it. His forgiveness is a sacrament to me. It helps me know that my faults, even in their worst state, can be overcome and our family can move through even our darkest days. We embrace and I ask to pray with him. “Heavenly Father, I have mistreated your children tonight, and I am so sorry. Thank you for my son making the decision to forgive me… (Then the thought came to me) When I fail as a father, please help my son to know that there is one Father who will never let him down, who will never lose control. Please use even my failings to draw my son closer to You, and help him to know that he always has a perfect Father to lean on. In Christ’s Name. Amen.” “Thanks dad.” “Thank you.” I am surprised at how my son seems quick to connect with me. I am usually a fairly self-disciplined, and well-spoken person. Maybe the fact that I lost it tonight, and have to ask his forgiveness is actually a relief to him. He needed to know just how human I am. How I can be overcome occasionally by the same impulses and dark emotions that often send him flying. And maybe he even needed to see how angry it makes me when his little pleasures cause him to compromise his character and his honesty. For several days after the event he seems connected with me, and he makes good choices about his use of technology. I give him a kiss and walk back to the kitchen where my wife awaits. She is holding the phone. It has a bright orange case, and to my surprise it isn’t dangling with wires hanging out. She pulls a little bit of the plastic back, and says, “Well, the case is a little broken but the phone seems fine.” I can’t believe it. I apologize to her again, and in the days to come I am a bit more contrite than usual. I have a fuller awareness of my propensity toward anger and destruction. I have a stronger sense of my need for grace. I am grateful for my wife’s forgiveness. And that is the moral of the story. When you buy your kids a cell phone, purchase an Otter Box case. They are indestructible. Even when exposed to the hottest flames of anger.
0 Comments
|
AuthorFr. Cam Lemons' interests include faith, Scripture, mountains, art, story, family and music. Archives
January 2025
Categories |