Testimony of a Father by Bob Wright

Recently I have been coming to the conclusion that the problems I faced as a father and husband are being faced by most men. We don’t want to admit to failure as husbands or fathers and so we go on with life oblivious to the obvious. Of course, we may have a sneaking suspicion that things just aren’t right but it seems too big a problem to deal with. In our busyness we want to be able to break it down to small enough parts to deal with in a few minutes. So we keep applying these relationship wreckers hoping they will somehow resolve the problems we are creating. That doesn’t work. It’s insanity – doing the same things over and over and hoping for a different outcome.

Now, as I look back on the earlier part of my marriage, I see that my wife and I enjoyed a special relationship, working together teaching high school (she helped me figure out how to deal with special problems related to the running of my classes), and we also were dorm parents in a school for missionaries’ kids in Africa for 6 years. Our two children were young and we were energetic. Those were some of the best years of our lives.

I see now that in my 40’s and 50’s as my children grew up, I was withdrawing from my responsibilities as a husband and father and looking for approval outside my home. We started home educating our daughter when she entered high school and joined ATI. Because of a series of health related circumstances, both my wife and daughter were at home all the time. In the last 5 years I realize that I was getting farther and farther from my daughter and wife. We tried many different ways to bridge the distance, having long discussions about what I was and was not doing to build a stronger foundation in our family. We read the Bible together and prayed together daily. We read books together, talked together about a wide variety of subjects and did many activities together.

However, we were missing out on the one thing that gave us joy in doing all these things. We did not have a unity of spirit, a oneness in our souls that bound us together in Christ. Every time we tried to discuss this problem we ended up being a little farther apart rather than closer together. I remember often going off by myself and asking the Lord why I blew it so many times. I was so focused on my own needs. Since I was failing at home, I looked for approval from those who did not know me very well, like my students at school, people at church, or even in the grocery check-out line.

The tension was building at home, I knew it, and I didn’t have any plan for correcting the situation. I prayed, read the Bible for hours, memorized and meditated on Scripture, asked the Lord for guidance and for answers. In moments of vulnerability I’d talk to my wife about it for extended times, and we’d come to some conclusions and within a few days and sometimes it was within a few hours, the old tension would be there again and I’d go back to my ways of dealing with the “problem”—withdrawing by working on my computer, reading a book, working a crossword puzzle, writing letters to others. All the while my family was dying and I was letting it happen, convincing myself that I just didn’t know what to do to fix it. As I look back on it now, I can see that I wasn’t able to “hear” the heart of my wife and daughter because I was too busy justifying myself when they’d bring up an issue. Sometimes I’d hear a speaker point out that the problem was related to an incomplete giving of my whole heart to the Lord, focusing on loving the Lord my God with all my heart. I made many commitments at Basic Seminars, ATI conferences, and other places but they didn’t seem to hold up for very long. I told myself that I had given myself to the Lord many times.

Then, at the ATI Conference in Nashville in 2005 I heard Chris Hogan talk about the Courageous Conversations and bought a DVD of Chris talking about Noble Identity to watch it at home to see if this could help. Since my wife and daughter had quite a few health problems, we decided we should go to the Health Conference in Indianapolis in October of 2005. I had retired from public school teaching in May of 2005, earlier than I had originally planned. One reason for this was to work on the relationships in our family. When we were at the Health Conference, we had the opportunity to meet Chris and asked him if he would help us with a Courageous Conversation. He scheduled it for that same day in the afternoon.

During that conversation which I had with my grown daughter, my eyes were opened to the specifics of what I was doing to her in shutting her out of my life and not pursuing her heart. If nothing changed, the future looked awful—continued silence, shutting off of communication, “putting up with each other”, and increased tension. I saw in my daughter a person who really loved me and longed for me to let her into my life. Also she longed to be able to freely share her heart with me but my insensitivity towards her was making her not trust me nor want to open herself up to me any more.

Chris commented a few times during the Conversation how fortunate I was to have a daughter who could so clearly articulate the issue and who had refrained from giving her heart to any other man.

We’ve had several Conversations since then at home working on issues as they arise. Since we have three people at home, whenever we have a conversation, the one who isn’t involved in the issue serves as the “facilitator”.

A few months have passed since that time and we’ve had time to reflect on the changes that have taken place since that initial Conversation. Some conclusions that I’ve come to as I reflect on this whole process are as follows:

• I was lying to myself, (saying that my family relationships were good—even teaching classes on them. On the outside we looked like such a good family.) wanting to serve in various capacities in the church while my wife and daughter were “dying at home.”
• It’s amazing that I was willing to destroy my family in order to hold on to my pride.
• A start has been made but I still find it hard to respond the way I’d like to. But now I know a way to get me back on track. I need to “die quickly.”
• When I’m in a conversation with my wife or daughter, it helps so much to die to my own issue and hear their issue. I’ve got so many good justifications for why I did what I did—but the Lord is reminding me to die to my side and hear them. I’ll get a chance when they are done with their issue. (Often I see my issue is irrelevant after I’ve heard theirs.)
• So much of the problem relates to my own pride—It relates to my desire to feel adequate as a father and husband. God is in the process of breaking my pride and I find myself not wanting to be completely broken. I think I’m wanting to hold on to just a “little” of my own “dignity.” But I’m learning the quicker I die to that, the sooner I get real life.
• Usually if there is a recurring problem, I am not dead to myself.
• I’m realizing that my most important aim is not to acquire things, not to hold on to my bank account, not even to serve Him, nor to be admired by others—but to know the Lord. And beyond that, my aim is to know my wife and daughter and fulfill my role in demonstrating God’s love to them in a tangible way.

Click here to read Christy’s article on How to Win a Daughter’s Heart

Posted by Chris Hogan on Thursday, March 30, 2006 at 07:00 AM