Participants:
Series Code: AFH
Program Code: AFH000019S
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00:01 A good father takes time to play.
00:05 He has strong integrity. 00:08 He is someone that is truly dedicated. 00:12 He is not afraid to show his love. 00:16 He is a caring provider. 00:20 And he's a kind spiritual leader. 00:23 These are just a few ways to describe a father's heart. 00:28 Hi, Welcome to A Father's Heart. 00:29 I'm your host Xavier. 00:31 And today, we're going to be discussing broken fathers. 00:34 You know, fathers go through many different things 00:36 such as divorce, maybe they lose a spouse, 00:40 and what are we doing to help these fathers to be, 00:43 to restore them, you know, 00:44 to have, be able to be complete for their children. 00:47 And with me to discuss that today 00:49 are my friends Gordon and Paul. 00:51 How are you, guys? 00:52 It's going good. Going good. 00:54 Blessed brother. 00:55 So broken fathers, you know going through 00:57 the process of grief if you lose a spouse. 01:00 Even grief when you get divorced, 01:03 you know, what are we doing to restore 01:04 these gentlemen to be fathers, whole fathers again? 01:10 You know, I haven't personally experienced firsthand 01:14 the brokenness as to I had losing a spouse 01:18 or you know anything of that nature. 01:20 Praise God. Praise the Lord. 01:23 What I've experienced is loss of my father-in-law, 01:27 my wife's dad. 01:28 And that in itself is traumatic 01:30 because I've been a support to her 01:33 trying to even keep my own self together, 01:35 my own emotions together. 01:37 And I think the best thing that we can do, 01:39 what I do is just being able to sit in the room 01:41 with a father and really just listen to them. 01:44 Give them that opportunity to talk about their grief, 01:48 talk about their pain, 01:49 talk about what they're struggling with, 01:51 and not trying to fix them. 01:52 You know, we like to fix, but I think this is one thing. 01:56 Grief is something that we can't fix, 01:59 something that we need to be able to, just be in there. 02:02 I call it ministry of presence, you know, 02:04 I just want to be there for the person to help them 02:08 along the journey. 02:09 That's the one I can offer, you know, 02:12 in this conversation for now. 02:14 Absolutely. Absolutely. 02:17 Being there would be paramount. 02:20 I don't think there's any other work 02:24 or supporting effort that we can give 02:27 that would be more helpful than our presence. 02:33 It's good to let individuals know 02:36 whether male or female, 02:37 we're talking here about fathers, 02:39 but I'm going to be inclusive as well. 02:41 When it comes to grief, hurt and recovery, 02:43 I think the hardest thing 02:45 for an individual is the isolation. 02:48 It's this sense of, this is what I'm going through 02:51 and no one else understands. 02:53 This is what I'm going through 02:55 and no one else has experienced this 02:56 or no one has experienced it the way I have. 03:01 They're right, you know, 03:02 the average person that would say to me, 03:04 you don't know what I'm feeling. 03:07 No, I don't. 03:09 So it's important to point them to if that is the void, 03:14 this isolation, this loneliness, 03:16 it's important that we point them to Christ. 03:19 And it is for most of us. 03:21 What a lot of people don't, are not aware of is that 03:25 Christ has suffered as them, 03:28 He has suffered as us. 03:30 We say at times, and it's almost become 03:33 cliché wrapped in reference. 03:34 We say, "Well, you know, Jesus died for me." 03:37 And it's important to understand that 03:39 Jesus did not just die for us, He died as us. 03:43 We go to Isaiah 53. 03:46 And we take some time of study and meditation in Isaiah 53, 03:50 and you go through the sufferings of Christ. 03:53 Look also through the Psalms 03:55 and see what it says about the sufferings of Christ. 03:58 And we contrast that to His experience 04:00 in the Transfiguration in the Garden of Gethsemane 04:04 that He had to bear the sin of the world. 04:08 So, it may seem trivial when we say, yes, 04:12 He faced every temptation. 04:14 He may not have faced your literal exact experience, 04:19 but He faced the same magnitude of that experience 04:23 and He had to carry that to the cross, 04:26 all of your brokenness, 04:27 all of my brokenness, it was upon Him. 04:30 That's what Isaiah 53 says. 04:32 So all of that hurt and pain, from whatever it was, 04:38 if it was the result of a rape, 04:39 if it was the result of relative committing suicide, 04:43 if it was the result of a divorce, 04:45 if it was the result of a loss of a loved one, 04:49 He had to carry it, He felt it. 04:51 He had to take it to the cross. 04:52 And that's why I guess my favorite text is, 04:55 I will look to the hills, from whence cometh my help, 04:58 my help comes from the Lord 05:00 which make heaven and earth. 05:01 So anything that we feel, 05:04 we go through any brokenness 05:06 is that's where we have to look, 05:08 we have to look for Christ. 05:10 Because He is the one 05:12 that is going to take this the pain, 05:14 He's going to take all of this from 05:15 and we're not... 05:17 I'm not going to say that 05:18 we're not going to feel the pain 05:20 because you're going to feel the pain. 05:21 You're going to feel. 05:22 I remember looking at my, 05:24 looking at one of my family members 05:26 go through divorce, young man, two young children, 05:32 and it ripped him apart. 05:35 And as a close family member, as an uncle, 05:39 I'm there just standing in the gap with him. 05:43 Not only did he lost everything, 05:48 and it really tested his relationship with God, 05:52 to the point where, you know, he was just going, 05:55 he would go through the motions of what it feels, 05:59 what is it means to go to church 06:01 and be a Christian. 06:03 But I don't believe Christ was in him 06:06 because that brokenness 06:08 caused his relationship to be broken. 06:12 And so it just, it was a spiraling effect. 06:14 So I've seen the pain that I've seen the heartache, 06:18 as I know, it's not easy. 06:20 So ministry just been there and I was just there for him. 06:23 We are listening, listen in the air, 06:26 just to hear what he has to say. 06:28 And I think that's critical, you know, 06:30 they do appreciate what you're saying. 06:32 But if somebody has gone through divorce, 06:34 I can tell you firsthand that 06:36 I wouldn't want to know anything about Jesus. 06:38 Seriously. 06:40 You know, here I am, 06:42 first year seminary going through a divorce. 06:47 You know, and I'm thinking back to my worldly days, 06:50 and I had gone through a divorce 06:52 at a very young age. 06:54 So here I am following a perfect being, 06:58 His name is Jesus. 07:00 And what does He give me? 07:04 Another ripped, you know, it's the ripping of... 07:06 That's why it's so critical 07:08 to let God marry to the right person. 07:11 I'm not saying those people are bad, 07:13 not saying my ex-wife is bad. 07:15 She's a good person. 07:16 But God had other plans. 07:18 And when the two fleshes rip, it hurts. 07:22 I can tell you firsthand right now. 07:25 I sat in the basement of the house 07:27 that I was renting and I drank. 07:31 Mercy. 07:33 And this is somebody who has been a future pastor, 07:35 being trained in every kind of theology. 07:39 And I drank. 07:41 I went, I didn't want to, but that's the only way 07:43 I knew how to cure the pain. 07:46 I got through divorce care. 07:48 When I went, I still hurt so bad. 07:52 And I have a child, you know, and all these mixed emotions, 07:58 you know, this is because on one hand, 08:00 I go to this church, the church say, 08:01 "Oh, that's not supposed to happen. 08:02 God hates divorce." 08:04 Okay, He does but it happens. 08:06 What are you going to do about it now to help me? 08:09 I'm hurting. 08:10 I want to kill myself. I'm suicidal. 08:12 But wait, you're self-professed somebody that's being a pastor. 08:16 Doesn't mean I'm not human. 08:18 Doesn't mean I'm not going to suffer. 08:20 So here I am going through that. 08:22 And you know what helped? 08:24 Actually God 3 o'clock in the morning woke me up. 08:28 Mind you, I had drank everything 08:29 I could imagine. 08:31 So I wouldn't wake up, woke me up. 08:33 Hallelujah. 08:35 And the Bible just became clear that day. 08:39 And it wasn't anything theological. 08:42 It was something that was hard hitting for me 08:45 to know that restoration was just around the corner. 08:49 You know what helped? Community. 08:50 Community. 08:52 You know how many of my colleagues in seminary 08:54 came to my house to pray, 08:56 to circle me with prayer and support. 08:59 A ministerial presence is so key, so vital, 09:02 you know, and that hurts. 09:05 You know, it hurted to the point 09:06 where I refused to love again. 09:09 I refused. 09:11 Now mind you, you know, God is love. 09:13 I refused to want to experience love again. 09:15 I'll experience God's love, 09:17 but I don't want to experience relationship love, 09:19 because all the church is going to tell me, 09:21 God hates divorce. 09:22 We're going to put you in divorce care. 09:24 No! What are you doing to help me? 09:29 Where's Simon, you know, Simon, where Simon like... 09:33 You know, where's Jesus' Simon, 09:36 where he helped carry, you know, 09:37 even though he was forced to carry that cross, 09:39 who somebody wants to carry the cross with Him, 09:42 for Him, you know. 09:43 And when I went to, 09:46 when I started having feelings again 09:48 for this young lady, I told her, I said, 09:53 "My heart is guarded. 09:54 I have snipers on the roof. 09:56 And I have pit bulls at the gate 09:58 and I have this barb wire fence with electricity. 10:01 Mercy. That nobody's getting in. 10:04 And you know what God did? He just laughed at me. 10:06 He said, "Okay." 10:08 And now I've been married for quite some time now 10:10 to a wonderful woman, 10:12 but I would not be able to see that at the time. 10:15 I was unresponsive and I was not willing 10:18 for anybody to talk to me about any type of Jesus, 10:22 because I'm hurting and while, 10:24 you know, it's good to talk about Jesus. 10:29 I also see Jesus as somebody 10:30 who was very human, a humanistic psychologist. 10:36 The woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, 10:39 every single instance 10:41 in which society went to condemn people. 10:44 He didn't say stop. 10:46 He just says, He's with them in the trenches. 10:50 When they're hurting, He's hurting, when He, when... 10:53 That's what I saw about Jesus is the fact that 10:56 He wasn't saying, I hate divorce so stop it. 10:59 Well, we should never get divorced realistically, 11:02 because that's not the ideal thing. 11:04 It happens and it's happening so much more in our churches. 11:08 So much, so much. 11:11 Jesus says, you know what? 11:13 I understand. 11:14 I see it, 11:16 because of the hardness of your hearts. 11:17 This is why it's happening. Yeah. 11:19 So here's what we're going to do. 11:21 And that's one thing that 11:22 I want to understand as fathers, 11:26 how do we, when somebody's grieving, 11:28 especially a father, 11:29 a man is supposed to be big and strong. 11:31 How do we teach our kids 11:33 to see beyond the exterior persona 11:36 and see the brokenness inside to restore? 11:40 I think we just, we have to be real to them. 11:43 Well, a lot of times we don't sit down 11:45 and talk to our kids about our pain. 11:48 We don't talk to them about 11:49 what we're feeling because we're trying to be this 11:52 whatever macho is, don't cry, kind of, person. 11:58 But if we will talk to them 11:59 about our pain and our feelings, 12:02 and I want to, something you said 12:05 that really hit me. 12:07 God could have stepped in and stopped your hurt, 12:12 but He allowed you to go through the hurt. 12:17 And then when it was right, 12:19 He came, He stepped in and changed. 12:21 He allowed you to go through alcohol, 12:24 all that stuff that you were going through, 12:25 He allowed you to go through. 12:26 Now, that's an awesome God. Indeed. 12:30 And so, when we meet people with brokenness, 12:32 we all want to get into, okay, you need to do this, 12:35 so you need to do that. 12:36 No, you gonna let them go through it 12:39 because when they go through it, 12:40 that's when they know that God could take them through it. 12:43 He's going to bring them out of it. 12:45 And, but we need to back, 12:47 we need to be just transparent 12:49 with our family, with our children. 12:51 They're going to hurt, they're going to feel pain. 12:53 It's okay. 12:55 I think that's very important. 12:59 Quite often our children 13:01 don't get to see our potential for vulnerability. 13:05 Right. 13:06 We're afraid to express 13:09 or in any way allow our children 13:11 to know that 13:13 we have been vulnerable at times 13:15 in our own lives. 13:17 I pray, I pray that someone watching this program 13:20 here can see three pastors 13:25 as imperfect individuals 13:27 who have struggled in their own life 13:29 in various areas, 13:30 and yet God has chosen to work in and through us. 13:34 And it is such evidence of the love of our God, 13:38 you know, three degrees 13:42 and X amount of years of professional experience 13:44 in this then and the other and I'm still broken, 13:47 I'm still not perfect, I still hurt. 13:50 I still have situations where I have to cry out 13:55 and after in retrospect, 13:58 I look back at one experience or the other. 14:00 Sometimes I'm embarrassed. 14:02 You know, I look at myself and say, 14:04 gosh, you know, what happened to you, man, 14:07 you know, but we all have those experiences 14:10 and we have to let our children know, 14:12 especially our young men know that 14:15 it is okay to be fragile at times. 14:18 It's okay to be hurt, 14:20 to be hurt is human, it's right. 14:23 To be hurt only proves that that you are human, 14:28 but nothing stronger than that presence. 14:31 There is such a statement as when prayer is not enough. 14:36 When prayer is not enough, 14:37 so there's so many things 14:39 that we tend to attempt to pray away. 14:42 And, you know, we approach the person 14:45 and we lay hands on them 14:47 and we pray and we say, 14:48 behold, be healed, which is necessary. 14:51 Even James instructs us to do that. 14:54 But then we still have, we need to remain. 14:57 We need to remain and we need to be present 14:59 and we need to let that person know listen, 15:02 I'm here for you, I'm not to be Eliphaz 15:06 or can't remember 15:07 the other two were Job's friends, 15:10 you know, we'll have to be like that. 15:12 But you don't have to be there to bombard them with advice 15:15 and psychology and all this kind of stuff. 15:18 Just being a brother and being there. 15:21 I remember that experience, the loss of a son. 15:26 And it was a traumatic loss. 15:30 Up to now, that member can't pull themselves together. 15:35 And they believe in prayer, they believe in that power, 15:38 but for some reason, 15:40 they can't pull themselves out of it. 15:44 They have to go through it. 15:45 And so we can't just try to fix things. 15:50 The fact of the matter that all of us are broken. 15:54 And so, in my brokenness, and in your brokenness, 15:58 and in your brokenness, 15:59 we all are going through at a different level, 16:02 at a different experiences, 16:05 but the one thing 16:06 I want to recommend and suggest, 16:08 as men, fathers without children, 16:11 being able to come together like this 16:14 and talk about your brokenness, 16:16 talk about what you're going through, 16:17 talk about what your experiences. 16:19 In that way we can learn to embrace 16:22 and connect with each other 16:24 and gain strength from each other. 16:27 The problem with us that we live in isolation. 16:31 We take all of our burdens 16:33 and all of our brokenness and we tell, 16:35 I'm going to hold on to this 16:37 as some kind of a pet child or whatever, pet animal, 16:41 but we need to be able to sit in community 16:43 and talk about it 16:45 and teach our young men to do the same thing 16:47 because they will perpetuate the same things 16:50 that we are dealing with. 16:52 They're going to just keep on this continued cycle. 16:55 And I believe in going back to the basics. 16:57 You know for me, 16:59 when I reread again the story of Jesus. 17:04 I was blown away. 17:06 Because I'm like, here's the Son of God, 17:09 coming from a blended family. 17:12 You know, to me, I had to reread it again. 17:15 Because, you know, now I'm married, 17:18 and we're a blended family. 17:20 And that's supposed to be statistically wrong, 17:24 like you're supposed to fail. 17:26 We even had a particular people of high esteem 17:31 that told me to my face, "Xavier, 17:34 we're going to pray that your marriage fails." 17:35 Mercy. 17:38 I had to learn what, 17:39 turn the other cheek to men at that point 17:42 because I was livid. 17:43 Said, "Okay, okay." 17:46 But we're seeing Jesus coming into a world. 17:50 That's a man that's broken. 17:52 Being in a young girl, being born, 17:56 being birthed from a young girl and a man 17:59 who now is about to get married to this girl says, 18:01 wait a minute, you're pregnant. 18:05 How does this happen? 18:06 You know that, and obviously the angels reveal 18:09 and God reveals Himself 18:10 and told them what the plan was. 18:13 But the same circumstance happens today. 18:17 You know, restoration for me came 18:19 when I understood that here's Joseph, 18:22 he doesn't have to pay any child support. 18:25 Okay, fine, great, but he has the responsibility 18:28 of raising a son that's not his 18:31 and a son that is the Son of God. 18:34 You know, and what I drew from that 18:36 is the fact that our churches, 18:38 we need to do more beyond divorce care, 18:42 really, really come in and counsel these men 18:47 who are now thinking potentially 18:49 to get remarried 18:50 and educate them through God's Word, 18:53 not through our personal feelings 18:54 and emotions, 18:55 even though we have experiences 18:57 but through God's Word 18:58 as to what this restoration looks like 19:00 and what it's going to look like 19:01 down the road. 19:02 I don't know, what do you think? 19:04 I wanted to speak to the element of faith 19:08 and faith's role in recovery, 19:12 faith's role in loss. 19:15 You talked about redeeming. 19:17 We have a culture where I think 19:20 we inappropriately address 19:25 a measure of faith or lack thereof, 19:28 you know, there are times 19:29 when we're praising people for success 19:32 that they have had absolutely nothing to do with. 19:34 Let's say, let me be playing 19:36 even within our culture of pastoral work and the call. 19:40 I hear people wax eloquent all the time 19:42 and about all this that and that, 19:44 that the other and it wasn't because 19:45 they did it in the last minute, you know, 19:48 this happened and this happened because we don't know. 19:51 You know, we really don't know. 19:53 But someone who is hurting 19:58 they're not hurting because they lack faith. 20:02 Someone who has been through a loss 20:05 and is unable to cope with the loss, 20:08 they're not necessarily hurting 20:11 or unable to cope because they lack faith. 20:16 2001 which is about my second year in seminary, 20:21 packed up truck, left Florida, 20:23 sold home, you know, and all this kind of stuff. 20:25 Get here and I'm making 20:26 this commitment towards ministry. 20:29 My wife becomes pregnant with our second child. 20:34 She has a high-risk pregnancy, wife is hospitalized. 20:38 We try our best 20:39 with all the different medical, you know, 20:41 practice and all of that to get her 20:42 to where she needs to be the gestation 20:45 until it's time that it's okay, 20:47 we have to deliver the child now 20:49 and that was just I think little past six months 20:52 and so daughter was born. 20:54 Daughter was fine in physical appearance. 20:58 Arms, legs, 10 fingers, 10 toes, eyes and all of that. 21:01 Fully functional as a child, 21:04 but she was yet birth with lungs 21:06 that were not fully developed. 21:09 And so after they delivered my daughter, our daughter, 21:13 and they placed my daughter in my arms and wrapped her. 21:17 I knew she wasn't going to live, 21:19 you know, they told me that. 21:20 And I told the nurse no, when she, 21:23 when the nurse came to me and said, here's a child, 21:26 you know, we need you to spend some time with her. 21:28 Not, aside, you know, no, that's okay. 21:32 And the nurse encouraged me and encouraged me until I did 21:35 and I held my daughter for close to an hour. 21:37 Nurse told me, put your thumb right here by her heart. 21:41 And when you stop feeling that, you call us and let us know, 21:46 and just put me in a corner by myself in a rocking chair. 21:49 Let me tell you, 21:50 when I felt my daughter's heart finally stopped beating, 21:53 I started to pray 21:55 and ask God to resurrect my child. 21:59 And let me tell you, 22:00 it wasn't for lack of faith in what God can do. 22:03 I believed 100% that God 22:07 would restore my child's heartbeat, 22:09 place breath back in her lungs and that she would live. 22:12 She didn't. 22:13 I ended up burying that child. 22:16 But we need to understand as I said, stop labeling people 22:21 and attaching measures of efforts 22:24 and faith and belief and all, but God is God. 22:27 And we need to accept what God allows. 22:30 And we need to allow God to be God. 22:33 There will be a day 22:34 when we will understand the unanswered, 22:36 why the inexplicable, how the ambiguous so what, 22:40 and all this stuff, 22:42 all of this stuff will be remedied in eternity. 22:44 You know, so I want to speak specifically to the person 22:47 that's going through that kind of loss, 22:50 that kind of struggle, that kind of hurt, 22:53 wherein it's the lack of closure 22:56 that's persecuting you. 22:57 It's okay. It's okay. 23:00 Let it go. Let God be God. 23:03 And let us all look forward to that day. 23:05 I'm looking forward to it. 23:07 You're looking for it, I know you are, you know, 23:10 where everything will be made right, 23:13 and we'll understand why God allowed 23:17 whatever it is that He allowed to happen. 23:19 There are many times I'm called by a member 23:21 for counsel in one area or the other, relative to loss. 23:26 I'm speechless. 23:28 What do I say to the mother 23:30 who has just lost her 16-year old child 23:33 before he's even really experienced, 23:36 you know, life in this world? 23:38 I had one, not so very long ago, 23:42 was lost by auto accident, 23:44 simple auto accident. 23:46 You know, it could be any of our children. 23:48 You know, we lose children, 23:50 we lose spouses, we lose parents, 23:52 but the church and especially us as men, 23:56 we need to be real. Yes. 23:58 We need to be real. 23:59 Don't hide behind doctrines and cultures of doctrines 24:04 and who's got faith and who doesn't have faith. 24:08 Didn't Jesus Himself say while 24:10 He was there in the garden bearing your sin and mine 24:13 and it was crushing Him, "Father, if it be possible." 24:17 Why did He ask that? 24:19 Why did He ask God for an option? 24:21 Ah, mercy. 24:23 Because He didn't want to deal with the pain. 24:24 The pain was... It was excruciating. 24:27 It spilled blood. 24:28 So if our Savior 24:31 can express that level of vulnerability, 24:34 that level of humaneness, what about you, what about me? 24:39 You know, it's like looking at a mother 24:42 that's sitting on the porch with her son. 24:46 They're just sitting there having a good time. 24:48 Someone drives by, bang, shots ring out. 24:52 She escaped, but her son lying there, dead. 24:56 And then here I am. 24:58 What am I going to say to that mother? 24:59 What can I say to that mother? 25:01 I can just look, I can just be there. 25:04 Because again, 25:05 we are living in a broken society. 25:08 And because we're broken 25:09 because sin has made this world so broken, 25:12 we just need to be there to be a support and be real, 25:16 just be real with the support that we give. 25:18 I think that's critical because no matter 25:21 what kind of loss you've experienced, 25:22 you know, a loss is a loss. 25:25 Grief is something 25:28 that we were never meant to experience. 25:30 You know, I was working in hospice for a while. 25:33 That's something that I had to make sense 25:36 of for people that I counseled. 25:38 I don't even understand it. 25:40 But grief is something that is beyond us. 25:44 Yet God in His infinite mercy and grace 25:47 finds a way to help us understand, 25:50 little by little, maybe not everything, 25:52 but little by little, why certain things happened. 25:56 And grief is just something that unfortunately, 25:59 we're going to have to deal with 26:00 until He comes back again. 26:03 I don't know, do you, 26:05 is anything else that you would like to add? 26:06 Oh, yeah, yeah. 26:07 Definitely, on the practical side. 26:10 We're not magicians, some of us are gifted 26:14 or fortunate enough to have multiple skills, 26:18 but we don't have everything. 26:20 Every pastor should be skilled in the ability to refer. 26:26 Know your resource population, 26:29 know your resource population. 26:31 And so, you may not be a psychologist 26:35 or you may not be a licensed social worker 26:40 or a counselor per se that that you can deal with every, 26:43 you know, nuance of mental health need, 26:46 but at least know 26:48 the resources of your community. 26:50 So that when a member comes to you, 26:52 and or maybe does not come to you, 26:55 but you observe, then be able to either 26:59 meet that person where they are and say to them, 27:02 you know, this is where you can get help. 27:05 I appreciate everything you guys have shared 27:07 and it's such a deep topic for the people, 27:13 for the fathers, for everyone who's watching. 27:18 Grief as a father, whether you've gone through 27:20 the loss of a marriage, loss of a spouse, 27:24 any type of loss, you're a man, 27:27 you're not God, you're not perfect. 27:29 It's okay to cry, and sharing the brokenness, 27:33 as pastors that are out there watching, 27:36 create an environment of sharing 27:38 with your brothers and sisters, 27:40 specifically with the men in the church, 27:42 showing that even Jesus wept, 27:45 and Jesus bore our sins 27:47 so that we can have this community of believers 27:49 in which we can share our grief. 27:52 And fathers, don't be afraid to show your kids you can cry. 27:55 Thank you for watching. |
Revised 2020-10-06