A Parent's Heart Hardened, A Child's Heart Broken

When life gets busy little things, and little children, can be overlooked. When parent's don't care as they should the pain can last a lifetime. As a child who was abused and neglected I have experienced this firsthand.

As a child my greatest love was baseball. It consumed my passion and my attention. I practiced with my brother for hours and played with neighborhood kids whenever I could. I read baseball books, collected baseball cards and watched the game of the week on TV every Saturday. In spite of my passion and interest I was only allowed to play one season of Little League baseball. Although my mother was a stay-at-home mom she considered taking us to practice too much of a chore. What was important to me did not matter at all to my parents.

While my childhood was characterized by significant verbal and physical abuse the pain of not playing baseball hurt the most and the longest. Beatings hurt for a short while and bruises faded but knowing my parents didn’t care about my heart brought a pain that endured for years.

While the feelings of a child were irrelevant in my family they were treasured in my wife’s. Through her I learned how important little things can be to a child. She taught me the value of listening to their music, watching their TV shows and playing their games, that when I valued their interests I valued them.

Over the years I have learned that caring about feelings and paying attention to the hearts of others is a Biblical value, one that was modeled by Jesus. He showed His love in the way He dealt with the silly fears and foolish failures of His followers and in the tender way He welcomed children and reached out to those in need.

Learning to love in this way has been a challenge for me. Overcoming the callousness and selfishness that I learned at home has required conscious effort. The brokenness of my parents was passed on to me and I am not naturally compassionate and caring. I am eternally grateful to God for loving me enough to help me change.

-          Bart

I share in detail about my childhood story and my life-long struggle to overcome in the third part of the series on Broken Thinking that is available on my vimeo page. Go to www.vimeo.com/bartbarrett and you can view it, and the other messages in the series online. You can go directly to the message on the importance of caring by clicking here.

Thanks to all who read and listen, and especially to those who share posts with others. Comments and questions are always welcome.

How I Define Marriage

Marriage is important to me. It is now and it was 33 years ago when Lisa and I stood before our friends, our family and our God and promised to be faithful for the rest of our lives. 

I was only 20 when we took our vows yet I understood the significance of the moment. That ceremony did not merely mark the beginning of a legal arrangement or the change of Lisa’s name, it was the declaration that we were entering a relationship ordained by God from the beginning of time. From that moment on we would be one. Personal agendas and individual goals were cast aside. Everything we did for the rest of our lives would be done not as a man and as a woman but as a husband and a wife. Every deed and every word would be a reflection of who we were as a couple and a family and not just as individuals.

As we planned the wedding I considered how we could communicate to those in attendance the significance and meaning of the ceremony. I desperately wanted to tell the world that our union was spiritual and holy in the eyes of God and that we were promising to serve Him together. We decided that the best way to accomplish this would be to take communion together as our very first act as man and wife.

At the completion of our vows, we knelt and took the bread and the wine together. Communion is a sacrament established by Jesus Himself, intended to represent the sacrifice He had made for His people. His body was broken and His blood was shed when He was crucified, nailed to a cross. He did so as payment for the sins of His people. By taking communion we were telling all in attendance that we recognized the sacrifice Jesus had made and that the primary purpose of our marriage was to reflect the perfect sacrificial love that Jesus had for us.

The Bible teaches that this is the purpose of marriage. The husband is to love his wife with the same sacrificial love that Jesus displayed for His bride (the church) and that the wife is to love and honor her husband as the church is to love and honor Christ. We wanted our marriage to reflect that level of love and sacrifice.

While we taking communion my friend sang a song, the words of which perfectly expressed our desire for our future-

“As for me and my house we will serve the Lord, now and forever more. He’ll be our God, we’ll be His people. And in the bond of His covenant, we share the bread that is heaven sent, ever mindful to be thankful of the One who sent His Son.”

This promise has sustained us for 33 years. When the tough times came, we reminded ourselves of our commitment. Just as Jesus would never leave us or forsake us, so we would never we leave or forsake one another. Just as Jesus saw our rebellion and sin and chose to die for us, so we also have worked to love and sacrifice for one another even when we did not deserve it.

The oneness that we declared on the sixteenth of July 33 years ago has become a greater reality with each passing year. We are who we are as individuals because of who we are together and I could not be more grateful. While Lisa is not perfect, she is the perfect wife for me. 

Bart

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She Lost a Lover and was Happy

I was shocked to learn that they had called off the relationship. They had been together for 12 years and there had been no sign that there was any trouble between them. What happened? The answer was even more surprising then the news of the change in relationship status. She blamed Jesus.

The relationship had gotten serious shortly after Sally’s divorce from her abusive husband. She and Adaline started as roommates but soon became lovers. They did not hide their love for one another and the relationship endured many challenges. Sally was nearly disowned by her children. She was not invited to their weddings and excluded from the lives of her grandchildren. She talked many times over the years of the pain she felt at the loss of relationship. She desperately wanted to be involved in their lives but did not think it right that relationship with her children would require the loss of relationship with Adaline. Sally and Adaline seemed to be deeply committed to one another.

At a recent visit the topic of marriage came up in conversation. Given that same sex marriage is now legal, I asked what her feelings were on the subject. Her answer caught me off guard, “Adaline and I are not together anymore in that way.”

I was stunned. “What happened?” I asked. Her answer stunned me more.

She told me they had been going to Bible study together for a while, and one day they realized that they couldn’t be together as lovers and be followers of Christ. “We want to go to heaven, so we decided we wouldn’t be involved like that anymore.” They continued to live as roommates but had ended all romantic involvement.

It was a remarkable conversation and it revealed much about her new faith. The conclusion she had reached about abstinence seemed to be a personal one based on a realization that she had reached on her own.  No one had forced it on her, no one had told her that she had to do it. She had not been bullied or badgered into the decision. What was even more remarkable was how she and her partner had reached this conclusion together. They simply decided that eternal happiness was more important than earthly intimacy, and that heaven was worth the sacrifice. 

Their reasoning was simple. They believed in Jesus and the Bible. They believed that following Jesus meant that they would need to set aside their ideas of right and wrong and follow the teachings of Scripture. The Bible's teaching on sexual morality was clear- sexual intimacy outside of traditional marriage was sin. They knew that they could not continue living in sin and follow Jesus. Following Jesus came with the promise of eternal life in heaven. They did the math and made a decision.

Being new to the faith she was unaware of the power in her testimony. She was not preachy or arrogant, she did not condemn others with her words. They had simply decided that Jesus was worth it.

She did not know it but she is a living illustration of the truth found in many of the parables of Jesus. Two of them are found close together in Matthew 13.

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

Jesus’ point was that eternal relationship with Him is so valuable that we should be willing to sacrifice everything for it. In other teachings He makes it clear that all who follow Him will need to make sacrifices and that self-denial is one of the hallmarks of true faith.

Sally has true faith. As with the man who found the treasure in the field, her sacrificial decision was made with joy, not sorrow. She embodies the truth that when we focus on the promises of Christ, of the joy that awaits, we will find ourselves wanting to let go of anything that could get in the way.

-          Bart

Note- There may be some who will read this post as anti-gay. Such a reading misses the point entirely. The post is not about the specific actions laid aside, it is about the fact that faith requires us all to lay aside things of value to us. The Christian faith does not require that we give up something to follow Jesus. It requires that we give up everything, and she models this.  A previous post addressed a similar issue in a heterosexual couple. In each case, I simply related the truth of the story as it occurred. 

The Danger of Our Assumptions

“Doctor, I am short of breath,” the patient said to the medical student, “I feel that it is harder for me to breathe.”

A look of concern came over the medical student’s face. I could tell he was worried. I could almost see the wheels of his brain turning as he internally reviewed the causes of dyspnea (doctor speak for short of breath.) With a tone of deep seriousness he began to review the symptoms of heart disease and lung disease. He asked about swollen legs, chest pain, chest pressure, and irregular heartbeat, about high blood pressure, high cholesterol and a smoking history. He questioned the patient about asthma, chronic cough, wheezing and cough. All of the answers were negative.

After about 5 minutes I interrupted the student. “Let me see if I can clarify things,” I said, turning to the patient. “Tell me what you mean when you say you are short of breath. Do you mean how you feel if you tried to sprint a mile, or do you just feel as if you have to think about a breath? Some people say they are short of breath but they can still exercise, they just feel different in their chest. What do you feel?”

The patient quickly answered that it was the latter. There was no true shortness of breath, no lack of air, which meant the symptoms were not due to heart or lung disease. The symptoms were not due to any significant illness at all. The medical student’s questions had been unnecessary. He assumed he knew what the patient meant by “shortness of breath” and based all of his decisions on that assumption. In the case of the student the error was harmless. Doctors are not always so lucky. I have seen many patients harmed over the years by false assumptions.

The harm of incorrect assumptions is not limited to the medical profession. It can be especially harmful in relationships. There have been far too many times in my life when I made a judgment that later, when more information was available, was proved to be false. If I had slowed down and listened much harm would have been avoided.

Our natural tendency to assume is a part of the brokenness of our thinking. It is something we all need to work on. It is also the subject of the second part of the series of talks I gave on brokenness. The talk can be found on my vimeo site, www.vimeo.com/bartbarrett.

-          Bart

I often speak to church groups on a variety of topics, from relationships to Bible teachings. Many of these messages are available on my vimeo site. If you are interested in having me come and speak to your group, please contact me through the website.

An Atheist Asks for Prayer

“Doc, you know I’m an atheist, but I know you are a man of faith and I am going to ask you to pray for me.”

Atheists do not usually ask for prayer but this was a special circumstance. Being diagnosed with cancer causes people to reconsider beliefs they had previously rejected, to look for help in new places. Although my phone call to him delivering the biopsy results was not unexpected the diagnosis still hit him pretty hard. He had cancer and it was serious. He took only a moment to absorb the information before telling me he was not ready to die and he was afraid.

He had been battling a number of health issues for several months. First had come an unusual cancer of the skin and superficial tissue of his back, a cancer so rare that none of the doctors had seen it before. Shortly after the final surgery and radiation treatments for that cancer he developed an irregular heartbeat and was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. Blood thinners became a part of his life. He had always been strong and healthy and now he was on chronic medications. He was no longer invincible.

While he dealt with the stress of these diseases he began to battle another problem. He developed severe stomach upset that made it difficult for him to eat. Heartburn, indigestion and nausea became his daily companions. He lost 50 pounds. He saw a specialist, but the specialist was concerned about doing an endoscopy and biopsy while he was on the blood thinners so definitive testing was delayed. After several weeks of waiting he called me and asked for a new GI doctor. A few weeks later the new GI doctor called me to let me know that he had done an endoscopy and discovered a cancer in the stomach. That news led to my call to the patient and to his unexpected prayer request.

A few weeks later he scheduled an appointment with me to go over his options and ask my opinion. We discussed what we knew (which was too little for me to give him a decent prognosis) and we discussed several possible outcomes. Although the cancer is serious and life threatening he is determined to survive. He again asked me to pray for him. I told him that I had been praying and would continue to do so.

As often happens during life and death conversations the discussion drifted to other areas of his life. He talked being estranged from his son and how difficult that had been for him. He shared about a recent school reunion that was bittersweet, as the joy of renewing old friendships was tempered by the gravity of his diagnosis. He told me about his journey away from faith many years ago, how travels to Europe and Africa had included visits to concentration camps and  areas of mass genocide. Faced with such evidence of evil he had rejected the idea of God's existence.  

Time and circumstances made deeper conversation inappropriate but it seemed to me that there was much he wanted to discuss, many more issues of the heart he desired to explore. It seemed that my years of caring for him had resulted in me being someone he felt he could trust. I wrote down my cell phone number and handed it to him.

“Anytime you want to talk, I’ll buy the food or the coffee. Not as your doctor, but as your friend.”

He promised he would take me up on the offer. I pray I will be an encouragement to him if and when he calls.

When he left I was again reminded of how important it is to not only care for my patients but to care about them. Sometimes the greatest therapeutic tool available is our ears. We just need to listen.

- Bart

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