Lazarus

Real men don't Cry. I had to think a bit on what to call this latest blog entry. Part of this story is another detail about the story of Grace. Part is another insight into the normal chaos that is me. Part of this entry is about growing up and reminiscing. I think I have to settle for the sarcastic just because that's me. Part of me wanted to call this entry, "I kill things" but that wouldn't make much sense until the end of it so I skipped that one.
Lets start by going back to "The Story of Grace" , which means I am going to assume you've read the story already, otherwise you might miss some of the meaning but you will understand enough anyway.
Okay, God and me have already had our little chat and I am still getting my sign posts delivered regularly at this point. Brief synopsis, we have no children but God has said we will. God is in the process of telling me about children and teaching me things I need to know. If you have ever had God get on your case, so to speak, you know what I mean when I say he is relentless and it feels a bit harsh at the time, but its for your own good.
Let me paint the picture for you.
Real men don't cry, better yet, real mean don't feel emotional pain at all and real men don't even over react to physical pain. Real men are in total control of themselves at all times, particularly when loved ones are involved. We must be the strong ones and help with everyone else. We must be strong enough to deny any hurts so that we can take care of any others who might need it. We must not feel pain so we can be the rock for our wives, our parents, our family, our friends, whomever. Real men don't cry, we simply say things like, yes that's sad, yes that's unfortunate, everything will be okay, its better this way, or the ever popular, they are in a better place now. Real men don't cry because we have learned not to. We learned as boys that crying is weak and we cannot be weak. It is a conditioned response. I had become a very strong and very real man during my childhood. My conditioning was excellent and complete. I learned every trick there was to learn. I not only learned how to hide my emotions at a young age to project the image of strength, I learned deny them by my early teens. By the time I was an adult, I could keep them from happening all together. I will say this, when it comes to defense mechanisms, building barriers, and manipulating ones self conscious, I am a master craftsman. Let me present you with the latest visual metaphor. I have grown fond of metaphors as of late. When something presents itself to me as a threat of causing me pain, I kill it, bury it, roll the stone over the grave and forget it. Its dead, its buried, its gone. Got the picture? Oh, must not forget the best part, I can do this in a flat second and once its buried, it is really gone from my conscious memory, it never happened, neat huh? Well this leads back into the story I have to tell tonight from the man cave. The night when God sent me a message, I killed it, and my Pastor brought it back to life. Two little girls about 6 or so years old about made my world implode, the system failed, it never fails.
Okay, here is the story.
Angie and I were at a gathering at the Pastors house. There were 3 or 4 couples there that night which added up to something like 7 kids. Gracie was still an unknown entity at this point, this is the place when God is preparing me for the answer He already gave me. This story became the first sermon I would ever do without notes. I digress. I am sitting in the living room on a small chair with kids running amok all over the place, chasing each other, playing tag, hid and go seek, etc. The adults are all sitting around just chatting about whatever. And then it happened. One of the little girls was running away from one of the others. She ran towards me and jumped in my lap, mushed up tight and cuddled in close. The chaser followed her up into my lap. I know have two little girls on my lap snuggling in tight. Having no children and not yet to the point of understanding that I will be a father one day, I am of the mind that I will have no children. This circumstance of cuddling with this little girls is oddly suitable at this second, it feels natural. But then one of them, the chasee, squeezes a little harder and says, "protect me daddy". Now, if I wasn't a real man, that would have been emotionally crushing. If I had not been a real man, that would have brought tears to my eyes. If I had not been a real man, this could have been awkward and painful. Ah but at last, I was a real man, a very talented and Strong man who took that phrase, killed it, buried it, rolled the stone across the door and forgot it. I did this in a blink of an eye and therefore never felt any pain, never shed a tear, never flinched. Angie was sitting across from me and instantly felt remorse and awkward for me, but she made the observation that my facial expression never moved so therefore it must not have been as bad as she perceived it to be. All was well and all was forgotten, except one small detail. God knows me, and God wasn't going to let me kill His message. Conveniently he happened to have a servant nearby in the form of a Pastor. Pastor chimes in right about her with a bit of a sarcastic comment. "well, I guess Chris and you mom have some explaining to do" this resurrected that which was dead. He brought the memory back into my consciousness. I was calm enough to let let it eat me alive, but now in my conscious mind I would have to struggle with this until it made sense to me. God had two messages for me that night, the first was Him still telling me about Grace and that he had changed my name to daddy, the second was that He didn't like me killing things because by doing that I would not address them. By not addressing them I could not forgive. He forgave me and He was letting me know that I had some work to do. I needed to address everything that was dead and forgive. Forgive others, forgive myself, forgive it all. He was not going to allow me to keep this tomb closed.
Back to the metaphor. I am going to keep this in metaphorical terms so that you might apply it to your lives as well as to protect the reader from all the horrid details of what I was forgiving. I had a tomb with a big stone in front of it. Every time someone nearly caused me pain, I would kill the memory, toss it in the tomb and roll the stone back in front. This thing was dead to me now. God told me to forgive, as He had forgiven me. That meant the tomb had to be opened. The thing in there were not pretty and most had been there for quite some time. They stank alot when they were alive, they were even more rancid now. I stood before the tomb as the door was rolled open with the assistance of my Pastor. God stood with me as the dead things were resurrected one by one. One by one they came out, I forgave and another one followed. One by one until they all came out. All but one. The last one had a name, its name was Goliath. He was the reason the tomb was built in the first place. God pointed me towards a creek bed from which a retrieved a smooth stone with which Goliath might be slain. I dropped Goliath where he stood because he was not a dead memory come back, Goliath was the fear of the memories. I didn't have to forgive him, he needed killin'.
From that day forward I have struggled to keep the tomb from returning. These days I cry at movies, at the sound of my daughters voice, I cry pretty much whenever I dang well feel like it. Why the change? Don't you want to be a real man anymore?
The answer is this: Real men don't cry. I don't want to be a real man anymore. I want to be like my saviour and Redeemer because my Redeemer lives.



John 11:35 "Jesus Wept"