Wild at Heart, Chapter 4: The Wound, part 1

"Every boy in his journey to become a man takes an arrow in the center of his heart, in the place of his strength... Every man carries a wound."

I'm still trying to figure out how to tackle this chapter. At first glace there didn't seem to be all that much here, but on my second read through my mind struggled to wrap itself around the subject. There is a lot here, and if I remember correctly there is more to come on this, and a lot of this chapter talks about more than the wound. But this is something that every man faces. All of us are wounded at some point, some multiple times. Some of us stitch them up and heal, others cover them with a band-aid and hide it from the world.

All men have been wounded. Some from a father, others from other men, some even from their mother. As I look at my wounds, mainly they have come from coaches and bosses.

I wrestled, a sport I loved and picked up quickly. I worked hard and I was pretty good. I had a goal to be a State Champion, and honestly, I think I had a decent shot at it, but I never got the chance to find out. Long story short I ended up losing my spot in the line up three weeks before the post season began to a kid who had never made his weight, had missed most of the practices, and was boarder line academically ineligible. I never wrestled another match.

The first church I worked at I wasn't ready for. I was a full time college student who, at 19, thought he knew everything about ministry and the Church. The guy I worked for wasn't very helpful. Had a lot of expectations that a full time staff member would have had difficulty meeting in that situation, and offered no help. I remember him telling me, "This is what I expect, I've never been a youth pastor I don't know how to help you" and left me to figure it out, and fail.

I worked for another guy in another church. At this point in my life I had a degree, had matured and started to learn who God really is and what He had intended for His Church. I had an idea what I was doing at this point, and things were happening with the teens and young adults that I was in charge of, but I wasn't doing things like they had been done for the last 50 years. I was confident and didn't need a ton of help or insight(if I had I would have asked for it). At the same time I was still figuring out life. I was on my own for the first time, in a new city in a new state, where I knew no one. Skipping a lot of details, I asked some questions that didn't go over too well because they challenged things. Money was tight, $20,000+ in the red, and so I was let go. In that meeting I was told I had "Character flaws" because of something that I hadn't done eight months prior when I was still very new.

Finally, I was a lead pastor at age 24, (who's idea was that?) and during a January board meeting this lady unloaded on me, and two of the other three people in the room quickly joined her. It was one of the most difficult hours of my life. I had very little idea of what to do, I was in a struggling Church doing the best I knew how, and now I was being told everything I was doing wasn't good enough, and that I was failing at the one thing I was supposed to be doing.

These are my main wounds, you have yours and they have similar stories. Some of them are more subtle, an absent father who was never there, which I am grateful I never had to experience. But all of them go right to the heart. All of them cause us to question ourselves and attack our confidence. All of them try to question our masculinity.

We all have wounds, and for some of us, they haven't had the chance to become scars. Some of us, as I said, have put a band-aid over it and covered it up as we put on a front to hide it. The wound doesn't heal, and you have a boy who puts up a front hoping that no one will see through it, and dreading that something might tear it down. I've met a lot of them.

But there are some who have been healed from their wounds. Some who have allowed a man to come and stitch up the wound so that it can really heal. I had another coach, Deke, who was more like a big brother. He was supportive of my decision not to continue in the sport that we both love, and helped me through the rest of my junior year. I remember the night when I was with my one mentor Jeremy (different guy from the earlier post) at an over night teen event. We had finished talking with the teens about the events of the coming day, and after they left he and I just started talking. I was getting ready to graduate in a few months, and I don't remember everything he said, but it was kind of like the scene at the end of Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon's character finally gets it. It wasn't that intense but he helped bring healing to my first church job experience.

And for the last two I've had another mentor, Doug, who has poured more confidence and encouragement into me than any other human being, except for my wife. I talked with him a lot while in Michigan, and after I came back. Just a few months ago we were with a group of pastors and as he introduced me he still was encouraging me past that event. The day after that board meeting I called him, and he spoke so much confidence and encouragement into me.

I've taken several arrows to the chest, and I'm sure more will be fired, but my wounds have been stitched up, and because of the men in my life (the three I mentioned are just some I wrote a post on Father's Day a few years ago on my other blog listing most of the ones who have impacted me the most), I have confidence in my masculinity that acts as armor against them.

We all have wounds, have your's been stitched up or simply coverd?

To God alone be the Glory!

Strength and Honor