“...it feels like the heart gets ripped out in little pieces, and somehow is supposed to keep on beating… and it hurts to breathe. And I think these honest conversations are generations overdue.“
Those were my words to a parent earlier today; a parent I have idolized from afar and wished I could measure up to. A parent who is hurting, grieving mistakes, longing for the best for their children. If you are a dad… If you are a mom… Most likely you understand this. We fail, and there are consequences. We misunderstand our children, and they misunderstand us. We don’t do conflict because it’s not polite to fight, and Christians just forgive quickly and silence the chaos and messy of conflict. So we ‘forgive’ and expect to be so easily forgiven, but scars remain on our hearts and one day those scars rip wide open and bleed years of pain, or they thicken the walls of our hearts so we cannot feel. The former is harder, the latter kills.
I, for one, fear pain. I am terrified of relational pain. That’s just the truth. But I am learning, slowly, deliberately, to let the scars rip open. It is the only way to heal and stay tender… or become tender. And I’m sharing this because I have heard story, after story after story of parental grief in recent weeks, from professionals, from church leaders, from friends. Some just sharing a story, not knowing if I will get it. Some seeking advice… at which point I simply confess, “I get it. I blew it so often and am living in the aftermath of that” and the advice I have for them? Face it and hurt like hell, so you can heal; don’t run and die. Because you will die – something in your spirit will die – if you run. I came pretty close… and it’s a hard recovery.
Why share this? Because it should have been openly discussed many generations ago. I never knew, and because I didn’t know, I was completely blindsided and lost more than I could afford to lose when I turned to survival. And I don’t want that to happen to you. So know this. I made early vows, and I mostly kept them. They were many vows. Vows of all the things I would not do, all the things that were not ideal in my story. I would not let a child molester near them if I could help it. I would not call them degrading names, or say they are useless and never amount to anything. I would never take their money; if they worked, they would save up for school and their future. There were many things I vowed I would not do. But there were many things I should have done; things that I missed. And I expect, if you are a parent, you understand some of this.
Parenting is the most beautiful, the most painful, the most rewarding, the most devastating and the most wonderful thing you will ever do. You will fail your children terribly. And they will fail you. And if you don’t talk and face the conflict, a day will come when it will cave in on you and you will have to stay and dig yourself out of the rubble, or you will outrun the debris, and lose everything worth fighting for.
So start young. Start now. Face the hurts, the betrayals, the misunderstandings (on both sides… it’s not just them and it’s not just you) and fight for your family like you’ve never fought before. Fight *for*, not *with*. Maybe you think they hate you, maybe they think you hate them. Fight with truth, and fight with love. Fight against the hate and the darkness that steals relationship and joy. Fight resentment, and fight for honest conversation, and deep listening. Dare to go to hard places; don’t retreat in passivity and comfort yourself with being a peacemaker.
That is’t peace. I thought it was. I hate conflict. I hated it when I saw my parents fight. I hated it when dad threatened to kill us, or mom threatened to beat us. I hated it when a parent and one of my siblings threatened one another, or when a sibling threatened me. I became the master of forgiving and letting go, of avoiding the conflict, and expected the world around me to be as ‘gracious’ and ‘forgive’ as easily; but it was neither grace nor forgiveness. It was a blend of fear and apathy. For me, more the former than the latter.. It isn’t worth it. It communicates dreadful things to our children. To my children.
In the past year I have studied Conflict Resolution, Conflict Analysis, Restorative Justice, Negotiations (a lot of mediation focus), and have learned good ‘fighting’ (aka conflict management) skills. And I am convinced we Christians need to unlearn a lot of the passivity we have adopted and learn a new way of facing conflict, especially as I face the consequences of years of avoiding conflict. Avoidance – even with ‘cheap forgiveness’, as I call it, that doesn’t resolve the deeper story – kills meaningful relationship. Conflict, well managed, is a good and beneficial thing.
So fight for your family relationships. Get a mediator or support person involved to prevent escalation if that’s something you can’t manage. Do it for them – especially for them, do it for you, and do it for the next generation. A cycle will continue; you choose which one it will be.
I promise you, avoiding the conflict isn’t worth it. Choose your pain; the pain of working through conflict, or the pain of feeling your heart torn as you decide whether you will run as far and as fast as you can, or stay and let your heart bleed back to life, as you face what you ran from in the past.
A Splash of Love.... 
Trudy, good to hear from you…seems that many times, the easier way & sometimes the expected unspoken way in our communities is to avoid conflict & leave them alone & the problems may just go away on there own….appreciate the wisdom that you have shared.
Hello Trudy! My name is Kristy Bender and I’ve been following your post since early 2016. What you share rings with me. And to b honest, i long to talk… I am from MO, USA, and I’m wondering if you accept doing phone consults, and if you do, what is your charge per consult. This article hit pretty deep home…it’s where I’m struggling, and why i spent the morning crying BEFORE i saw that this article came in…i somehow know that the timing had to be God’s. And yet where i struggle is, my husband and i are not at the same place in our journey. So i showed him the title of your article actually expecting him to be curious and want to read it…and instead he responded quite negatively. Probably my deepest heart question at the moment is how does one live this out ALONE? How do I honor and respect where my husband is in the journey, who he is now, and yet deal with the ongoing damage because of ignorance and a lack of willingness to recieve truth from a woman, and a stranger at that. What you have to say would ring with him…we have journeyed enough for me to know that…but he flips back and forth between 2 people…one who longs for healing for himself and our family, and one who cannot enter on the fringes of “apostasy” from what he had been “taught” all his life(that Mennonite men don’t recieve truth from women, that women are not trustworthy…ahh, yeah it had to do with his story, and the damage he had recieved, and i know that, and i know too that i have only added to the damage because of my own pain and my own reactions to that pain…oh what a mess…and my heart cries for our children)….and i feel battered in between those 2 scenarios, and wonder what a wife, what a mother is to do???? There is so much more i could say….but how and where to begin? And what there is to say would take days. A party of me feels guilty for having the courage to email like this, but the other desperate part days i must else i perish, lest we all perish… Well,there it is…thanks for listening. Kristy
On Nov 27, 2017 11:10 AM, “Trudy Metzger’s Blog” wrote:
> Trudy Metzger posted: ” “…it feels like the heart gets ripped out in > little pieces, and somehow is supposed to keep on beating… and it hurts > to breathe. And I think these honest conversations are generations > overdue.” Those were my words to a parent earlier today; a p” >
Hi Kristy, If you get this message, can you send me an email at info@generationsunleashed(dot)com? I found this comment and am wondering if you meant for it to be public, so wanted to touch base, but am not able to reply to it via your email. Blessings to you!