Today is getting started early as Kathy and I are heading to Charleston for the day to tour a plantation and do a walking tour of the historic city.  I look forward to all of this.  After posting yesterday’s blog I spent the next 3 hours talking with Kathy.  As people of our generation it is easy to look back onto our lives and see how society influences how adults parent, what abuse looks like, etc.  The interesting thing is, no matter what society or culture says and does, abuse still leaves huge holes within the makeup of us.  This is shown throughout time.  What I find interesting about abuse and men is that we men are not easily able to talk about it.  Our present culture is so oriented towards “buck up,” suck it up,” etc., we will rarely take time to address the holes in us.  We much more easily address the addictions we use to hide the pain of past abuse.  In so doing we never get to the core of our issues.  Satan has a hay day with this too I believe.  If he can keep us tuned into ourselves instead of to God in these vulnerable areas, we will continue to fail at finding God’s true strength for our lives.  Thus we will never find true freedom in Him.

I am becoming more and more convinced that this message is what God is wanting me to share with our men and our people.  Women want men to be strong.  It takes a mighty strong man to stand up and say, “I need help with this area of past abuse.”  Writing this makes me recall a statement a gentleman in our church made a couple years ago after I had done an interview with our pastor on a Sunday morning around the topic of homosexuality.  I had told of my past abuse and how it had impacted my own thinking about sexuality.  As this gentleman left our sanctuary he said to my brother, “Wow, that man has balls.”  He didn’t know the one he was talking to was my younger brother.  Men do recognize the strength of telling once it is done.  A woman can say it and still be a strong woman.  A man can only say it if he recognizes the truth of what Christ wants him to say.  For Christ wants us to let Him fight this battle.  So much of it is a spiritual battle and not a human flesh one–at least the part of admitting we need help is.  Once we admit our need for help, much of the gap in our wall strengthens for Christ is able to stand in the gap at that point.

I’m not going to try and expound on this any further.  I am a novice at this point.  What I do know is that God is wanting me to be a voice for Him with our men.  “Be strong and take courage….” II Chronicles 32:7.  This has a whole new meaning when I don’t try to stand in my gap of abuse denying its grip on me and finally admitting its truth.  Christ is now the very One I will let fight this battle.  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.