Broken Face, Broken Faith

Faith can be fragile.  The speed bumps,  potholes and detours on the road of life can cause it to shatter.  For one patient, the questions that came with her fractured face resulted in a loss of faith.

Who could blame her? The accident was pretty severe. She had multiple fractures in multiple places, including a shattered nose, along with severe facial lacerations and internal injuries. She was okay now, but it had taken months to recover. Physically she seemed fine but I wondered about emotional scars. I asked about her recovery and how she had handled the stress. She shared that it had been difficult, but she had dealt with it as best she could. I asked about her support network, about who she had been able to  lean on and whose shoulders she could cry on and inquired as to whether she was a part of a faith community.

She wasn't. In fact she did not really believe in God much at all. When I asked her why she gave a very common answer, “I used to believe, but then I decided that if God was there He would not allow all of this bad stuff to happen.”

I thought about what she said. Like so many it seemed that what little faith she had was dependent on how her life turned out. God was supposed to be good, so if He was real then her life shouldn't be bad. Her life had not been very good so God must not be real.

“I can understand that thinking, and in a way it makes sense," I replied, "You were led to believe that God would act in a certain way, and He didn't. Saying He isn't there is one possible explanation. There is another possible explanation. Maybe what you were taught about God was incorrect.”

Christian theology makes many claims about the nature of God. One claim it never makes is that God's ultimate purpose is to protect us from bad things!

Her story causes me to wonder... How much of what we have been taught about how God works is just plain wrong?

When it comes to suffering and blessing, it may be more than we care to admit. There have been so many times in my life when I looked at personal pain and asked “Where was God?” The truth is that He was where He always was, working to make me the person He wants me to be, the better person I need to be, and working for His ultimate plan. The truth is that sometimes this process is painful.

Those who have known me for a while will attest to the fact that I have changed significantly over the years. I am kinder, more gracious, more compassionate and more understanding than I was before. Those who know me best can also testify to how this change has occurred. God has used suffering, pain and loss to mold me into the better man I have become. I have learned that instead of pain being a sign that God has abandoned me it is much more likely a sign that God has not given up on me.!

If you are struggling through hard times, share it with someone. Message me through this website (use the contact link on the menu bar) so I can pray for you and encourage you. Have your own story of how pain worked in your life? Please share it in the comments, someone out there may need to hear it! If you think this post, or any post, might be meaningful to someone else please share it by clicking a button below. 

The Day My Dad Disowned Me

Most parents would do anything to be close to their kids. My father is not like most parents. He values power and control more than relationships, something that became painfully clear 20 years ago when he disowned me.

“Take your $100,000 salary and go to hell!” he said as he hung up the phone. With those angry words our relationship ended. I had dared to question him, dared to suggest he had done something wrong, and to Wayne Barrett that was an unforgivable sin.

Several months earlier, on Christmas of 1992, he decided it would be funny to play a joke on my son. He wrapped a large empty box and brought it in on Christmas Eve. When Nate opened the empty box, Grandpa declared that Santa had decided he was a bad boy. Nate didn't get the joke and stood in the living room with a puzzled look on his face. My dad laughed and then brought in the child-sized bicycle, thinking it all quite funny. It may have been slightly humorous to pull this prank on a teenager, it was cruel to do it to a child who was not quite three-years old.

I did not say anything that night as I did not want to further ruin the holiday, so I waited until a better time. That time came, I thought, the following summer. I do not remember how the conversation turned to Christmas but it did, and I seized the opportunity to address the topic. I gently told him that his empty box joke was not such a good idea and that a child so young could not comprehend that kind of humor.

“You can't tell me how to be with my grandson!” he quickly replied.

“Actually, I am his father, and I do get to tell you how to be around my son,” I calmly explained in as soft a voice as I could manage, “Not everyone is good with young children, and you may not be.” I went on to say that this was okay and understandable but that I may on occasion need to point this out to him so could be aware and adjust. The conversation ended soon after as no amount of critique or suggestion was acceptable to him.

I knew when I hung up the phone that in all probability I would never see him again. Wayne Barrett never apologizes, and he never accepts any terms other than his own.

I have thought about him often in the last 20 years as I have watched my son grow up to be a man and the granddaughter he never met develop into a beautiful young woman. I have often wondered, “How could a man purposely choose to lose his grandchildren?” The only answer I can come up with is that a normal man can't. Only a man with some sort of mental illness could do such a thing.

While painful and sad, my father's rejection has motivated me over the years. I have dedicated myself to being different from him, to being a better person and to being the best father I can be. It is a reminder to me that no thing is more important than people and that no people are more important than family.

Some who read these words can share their own story of relationships lost. As a family doctor I have seen and heard many stories over the years of parents who have rejected their children and children who long to be loved by a father or mother. Every one of these stories is a tragedy. 

You may wonder how it is that I have handled the loss of my father and succeeded where he failed. I was able to cope with this for two reasons- First, because I have embraced the reality that my Heavenly Father loves me and will never leave me or forsake me. Second, God blessed me with a surrogate dad in the person of my father-in-law, who for 23 years loved me like I was his own son.

If you have been rejected by a parent, my heart goes out to you. I pray you will know the love of the Father whose love is eternal and the hope that such love brings and find someone who can give you the support you need. If you are estranged from your children as a result of your own doing, I beg you to reconcile. Swallow your pride and reach out.

- Bart

If you know someone who may need to hear the message of this post, please share it. It's the only way they will know about it! Also, if you want to receive future posts by email, click the button to subscribe, on the web below my photo, scroll down on a tablet or smartphone. I can be followed on twitter @bartbarrettmd. For more on the topic of dealing with dishonorable parents, I invite you to listen to my talk on the topic "Honoring the Parents God Gave You" on my Vimeo page- https://vimeo.com/142703584

The Three Most Annoying things Christians say to each other

We can all be annoying at times (I for one have been told I am annoying most of the time!) While we all have our off-putting moments, we typically save our jerkiness for special occasions. It seems that it is in times of suffering and loss, those times when people are most in need of encouragement that we say the dumbest things. With this in mind I give you the three most annoying religious phrases ever spoken to me.

In reverse order:

3- “Just have faith, it will all work out.”

2- “Just trust God.”

1- “Let go and let God”

I hate cliches like this, primarily because they imply so many falsehoods about how God works.

“Just have faith”- Really? Exactly how are we supposed to do this? This is the spiritual equivalent of telling a morbidly obese patient that they “Just need to lose some weight.” The phrase implies that faith is a switch that we can flip on a whim, and that once we do, life will be unicorns and rainbows. Baloney. Faith is hard. It is hard because it requires us to believe in someone and something we cannot see and cannot feel (See Hebrews 11:1). It is hard because faith requires that we have faith in God with no clear concept of what that will mean in this life. This is why the “it will work out” part of the phrase, while an eternal truth, is a short term lie. Countless martyred Christians testify to the truth that their faith did not work out so well in the short term, as can the millions of oppressed and persecuted believers around the world. This life does not work out for everybody!

“Just trust God”- For what exactly? I have heard this said to people who have lost jobs, relationships and their health. Often what is implied in this cliché is that by trusting God or having faith we can be sure that a better job is around the corner, our spouse will soon return or our health will me instantly restored. I don't see these things promised anywhere in the Bible. Yes we need to trust God, but so often we are being encouraged to trust Him for the wrong things.

“Let go and let God”- I have NO IDEA what this is supposed to mean. I think some people say it to imply that we should quit worrying about a problem and that once we let go of our worries it will all be better. As an individual with anxiety disorder, let me just say that this is not that easy! It also implies passivity, that we need not work or expend effort resolving our issues, which is simply false.

So what should people say instead? Like so many misstatements, the truth is just a few words different from the error.

The truth is:

1- God has an eternal plan that is never changed by our earthly circumstances. When something bad happens we can be reminded, “This is terrible, but our faith in God's ultimate plan allows us to endure.”

2- We need to trust God, not that He will rectify every wrong in this life and bring health and prosperity, but that His love for us never changes and that He will give us strength to deal with our pain and loss.

3- When we see someone struggling with fear and worry, instead of telling them to “let go”, let's give them something, and someone, to hang out to. We can share how we have seen God sustain us and others through hard times, and we can reach out and “grab” them, literally with a hug, and figuratively with support, time, and encouragement.

The apostle Paul told us what we need to do- “Share each other's burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2 NLT

We need to get involved in the pain and suffering of others, to take some of their pains and struggles as our own. Cliches actually do the opposite, serving as a distancing and degrading pat on the head. Let's bury meaningless cliches and work to truly encourage one another.

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A revealing outfit that revealed a lot

She was 14 years old, but she looked 18. She was well developed for her age and her outfit left nothing to the imagination. She wore extremely short shorts and a very tight and very low cut top displaying a sexuality that was inappropriate for a girl her age. I did not know if she was aware of the message she was sending by her attire but I was pretty sure that the message would be clearly heard by every teenage boy. Should I say something?

I wondered. Was it my place? Was there a way I could phrase a comment that would be well received?
It is typically a parent's place to instruct their children in appropriate dress but experience had taught me that fewer and fewer parents were stepping up to the plate in this regard. I thought of something a pastor friend had shared with a group of parents with teenage children, "Dads, you need to teach your daughters about modesty. Moms will sometimes not realize how revealing an outfit is. You know how boys think, so you need to tell your daughters when an outfit is too revealing."
Saying something would be risky, but wasn't it worth it?
I pondered my relationship with the parents. I had cared for the mom during her last pregnancy and delivered the baby. I had cared for the father after he had been severely injured. I knew them well and felt I had their trust. I decided to take a chance and address the issue.
At the completion of the visit, I turned to the patient and her mother. "I am going to say something to you that I think is important. I do not want to offend you but I think you need to know. The way you are dressed is very revealing, and I fear it may be sending a message to boys that you do not want to send." I hoped it was enough.
It turns out that to that family it was too much. It was the last time I ever saw the family. Looking back I ask myself if I would do it again.
I think I would, for I believe that part of love for people is saying the difficult thing, the painful thing and at times even the offensive thing. If we are to encourage one another and improve, if we are to grow and improve to be the people that God wants us to be, we will need people in our lives who will tell us what we need to hear instead of telling us what we want to hear.
Perhaps the writer of the Proverb had this in mind when he wrote- "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy." Proverbs 27:6

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Dumbest. Patient. Ever. And what we can learn from him.

He had high blood pressure, diabetes and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. He didn't want to take additional medications, did not want to change his diet and definitely did not want to stop smoking, yet there he was in my office, presenting for medical care. He had no interest in changing any behaviors but said he wanted to be healthy! What could I do? What could I say?

I did my best to reason with him. I explained the effects of high blood pressure, diabetes and smoking on the body. He wasn't interested. I changed my approach, bargaining with him at each visit trying to get him to do a little more to improve his health. I focused on his blood pressure first as this was where he seemed to be least resistant. As this came under better control I turned my attention again to his diabetes, only to run into a brick wall of resistance. He had no desire to change. He was going to eat what he wanted when he wanted.
Frustrated, I resigned myself to a long process. He failed to follow up for his scheduled appointments, only coming in when I refused to refill his blood pressure medications. Each time he did come in I addressed his diabetes and his smoking. Between visits the office sent reminders and made phone calls, encouraging him to address his health. After several months of this he decided enough was enough. He had his wife call the office and leave me a stern message, "Bill says that if you talk to him anymore about his smoking and eating he will find another doctor!"

I was taken aback at his words. It was as if he was saying, "You can be my doctor as long as you don't act like a doctor!" It was the most absurd message I had ever received. My reply was simple, "He will need to find another doctor."

It is easy to say that Bill was strange, that refusing to listen to someone with medical knowledge, wisdom and expertise, someone who had his best interests at heart, is something we would never do. It is easy to think that we are better and smarter. It is easy, but I think it is wrong. We are all like Bill at times, we just aren't as obvious!

Don't think so? Physically, relationally and spiritually we all have a tendency to trust ourselves more than concerned others who have our best interests at heart. Think about it-

Physically- We struggle with obesity, watch too much TV, don't exercise enough, drink too much, and engage in so many other self-destructive behaviors. We know it is bad, but we do it. Why?
Relationally- We are selfish, don't spend enough time with our family, watch too much TV, and hold onto grudges and anger, even when we know better. Why?
Spiritually- is perhaps where we are most like Bill. We want to make our own rules, pick and choose which sins to hang on to and which ones to put aside. We don't want God to tell us what to do and we even want to decide for ourselves what God is like! We ignore the truth that God knows best and that the only wise response is to simply do what He tells us. Why? Because we are broken people who need to change!

We are all like Bill, but we can choose to be different. Let's start the same way I started with Bill. Let's pick one area where we know we need to do better, and let's do better. Start with something easy if we need to, but start. Most importantly, let's make a promise to ourselves to never stop!