A Battered Warrior

Risking It All

I picked up a book titled: Risk written, perhaps appropriately, by a man named Kenny Luck. The subtitle is: Are You Willing To Trust God With Everything?  The alternative is of course irrelevant.

I have a very good friend who is very good at dropping his nets and following God's direction. He does so in ways that are amazingly spectacular to me. But, from time to time he calls me and laments that he feels like he is stuck in the doldrums. God isn't speaking to him.

This is a guy who knows the industry of printing. He can print on anything, and he has worked a series of jobs where he has helped several business men build up thriving businesses under his direction. Then God tells him to ride his bicycle across the country to raise money and awareness for a cause. He returns, goes to work for another company, achieves incredible success, and God tells him to leave it all and head to Nepal to ease the suffering of orphans.

Most if not all of us want to just slip into God's slipstream. We want to be moved through our lives by a higher power so that we can be sure of what it is we are doing, and sure (no matter how strange it may seem) that we are in the right place.  It might be that my friend believes that if God isn't placing him somewhere exotic, that God isn't moving him. But, I believe that the times when he is building up another man's business might just be when god is planting the seed and fertilizing the ground.

Many of us have periods of dormancy in our lives. I suppose the important thing, and the message that I am getting from my new read, is that from time to time God expects us to act on the "risky" impulses that he has given us. Where we see a wall, he expects us to step forward boldly. It is for each man to recognize those occasions in his own life.

In the field of providing resources for men whose families have been shattered and for whom all hope seems lost and impossible, I gain strength from the fact that we are each equipped with a lifeline that guarantees our safety so long as we are tuned in and living unselfishly. Risks that seem impossible are nothing in the eyes of God. They are simply life in the slipstream.

Rick Ortiz is editor for DadsDivorce.com 

"I won't do it again... I promise!"

    My daughters are two years apart in age, they are best friends and at times they are mortal enemies.  At times it seems like they would fight over a piece of string... it is nerve racking.  The second they sense they are in trouble the promises start - "We won't fight anymore, we promise.  We won't do it again!  ..."  I am sure every parent has heard the laundry list of excuses and empty promises that children use to avoid punishment.  Today my girls were in one of their moods and I started thinking - Isn't that how we treat God?

   Human nature is self serving at best, so we tend to do whatever we want or what gives us pleasure and often ignore the consequences.  When it is time to pay for our actions, we cry out to God - "We won't do it again!  I promise if you get me through this I will never...." I am speaking from personal conviction, but figured I am probably not alone. 

    We often wonder why God allows us to suffer and go through hard times... maybe because it is the only way we learn.  I do not enjoy punishing my children, sometimes they do not understand just talking to them - it takes something more to make them understand and to be truly sorry. Maybe through our suffering or trials that God is hoping for us to have a true change of heart.  Next time instead of just promising God a change, maybe we should look a little deeper and ask "Why am I here? What did I do to help put myself here?  What do I need to change?"

Crushed

 

CRUSHED

“In the darkness, alone I sit,

Tired of being – dare I quit?

Battered and beaten – thrown away,

Hard to face my life one more day!

Pain of the past – cruel words spoken,

Wreck my spirit – my will is broken.

Destined a mistake right from birth,

Will anyone ever see my true worth?

The vicious cycle is all I know,

Retreat to self – inside I go.

Disappointment – life has for me,

All I’ve known – does it have t’be?”

Repeat patterns – results the same!

Believe in true love – let hope remain!

My hand I offer to you alone –

Our fairy tale WILL be shown!

Fear it grips and starts to squeeze,

Robs your strength – drop to your knees.

With you forever, I will stand –

At your side – hand in hand.

Come together and never part,

Best friends we are – that’s the start.

In my arms you’re meant to be,

Loved, alive, accepted, and free!

More precious than diamonds in your ring,

To your voice my heart does sing.

Your worth to me you’ll never know,

Each day for you, my love does grow.

                                                               

No more regrets, just take my hand,

The test of time, our love will stand.

To you alone – I’d share my life,

Me your husband – you my wife.

 -TG

 

 

 

Reflection

As I sit here I am forced to face all the mistakes of my past… stare each one in the eye and own my blame and accept my fate.  I have no one but myself to blame for my current situation – no one to hang my excuses on… they are mine and mine alone.  How can I expect others to trust me when I can not even handle my own life and have made a mess of everything I have touched?  A father is not supposed to have to worry about how his crying will hurt his children – or struggle to smile as he tells them he did not get a chance to go to the grocery store – when the truth is he does not have the money to get them the little extras they are used to.  It is easy to hate others for this situation – but I chose to marry, I chose to spend, and now I must figure out how to cope and deal with my mess I am facing.  It does make it hard to swallow that I have to give her more money than I get a month to live on, that she has profited from her lies and cheating… but I can not condemn her for that, it is her life and her lies and conduct are between her and God.  I can only try to work through the forgiveness and allow God to heal me – right now I have a hard time facing myself…

            Over the past year I have successfully isolated myself from most people – my days without the girls are spent alone in thought.  I have lost the desire and pleasure of working out or just doing “normal” activities.  I am haunted by my finances… everything I do is in the fear of money.  I wish I could escape and start over… I am tormented by failing my children – by being a disappointment to them.  Will they look back at me when they are older and resent me?  Will they remember me as an isolated and broken man?  They know that I love them, but sometimes that just doesn’t seem like enough.  In my head I know that is the wrong attitude… but my heart hurts.

            I am a romantic and often dream of the happy ever after – but am I just a foolish dreamer?  Can anyone really love me and rely on me… Will they ever take the chance to let me love them?  Am I that screwed up? At times I do not want to know the answer to that… because I think I am.  I get all these grand ideas – I write poems, believe it when people tell me I have a gift to write and I should pursue publishing them…. I let my dreams begin – why?  I have never completed anything in my life!  People think I have it together, but I have failed at so many things it is absurd. I want so bad to do well and right by my children and by my future wife…. Am I destined to fail them too? To quit is wrong, to not try is a sin!  What do I do? 

            How do you explain to someone that they are all you want? That you understand their heart ache – you might not have experienced all their pain, but you can relate and have had and still have your own issues. That each night when you go to sleep you think and long for the day you can hold them and them alone!  The thought of them not in your life is unbearable!  You physically ache to touch their cheek! Even when you can not see good in yourself, you want to give everything to make them smile!  One kiss will erase years of pain… one hug will bring hope and security to a world of chaos.  Alone we spin and slip deeper into the mire we are in… together we will thrive and our darkened would will be full of color and suddenly become alive.

            I can not explain to anyone how I got to the place I am at now… no one put me here – this is the result of decisions I have made throughout my life… each one built upon the other. Hindsight I can see a lot of my mistakes and I have learned from many of them – why am I here, I am not sure.  What will I learn through this? – I can not answer that either.  I hope that I will gain my partner in life – the one I will spend the rest of my life with and together we will provide the stability and love OUR family will require.

            When I take the time to detach my emotions from things I can see where I need to separate myself from the world.  To not allow the repeated disappointments I feel from my father to impact my self worth… the repeated rejection from the women in my past to determine my future… the failures of my biological father and my step father to determine what kind of father I will be… my history of isolation and rejection, of not having friends and being judged to limit my ability to interact… how simple rejection and cruel laughter still impact my self esteem and how I perceive myself! – I know inside that I am doing these things and I should not allow them to have power over me, but how do I stop it? She does not see how scared I am to give everything I am to her… that inside I have the same voices she does… but I HATE where this vicious cycle leads and I do not want to find myself here again.  That is why I want to be with her and never let go… I know that we are right, but we have to act on faith and determination… that is our only hope of getting out of this. 

            When I stop to think about it – I am scared to death!  What if I fail her, if I disappoint her, if I can not meet her needs?  What if she leaves me? What if… What if… What if… Then in a moment of clarity I think… We will be happy! We will love each other forever! We are meant to be!  That little word, “if”, can destroy all hope.  We simply commit to each other and to our family – renew that each day and take each day as it comes.  The Bible tells us not to worry, if is a word of worry!  We need to hope; we need to believe; we need to love. – Corinthians tells us what Love is – and it will heal all things, though Love, time and God’s grace we will be whole!

            Our past does not define our future, it only influences who we are to the degree we allow it. God can heal all things, if we allow it.

Tough Times For Military Marriage

Editing a divorce website for men, I am often faced with the variety of ways a marriage can end -- all of them as painful as the next. As anyone reading this can probably attest, the difficulties of keeping a marriage together when the partners are separated makes the 50/50 prospect of remaining intact even more grim.  Military divorce is especially difficult because of the fact that great distances without the opportunity to simply drop everything and rush back to salvage the troubled relationship further compounds the everyday difficulties that non-military families must endure.

One of the common difficulties that the men who visit our site often speak of is one of feeling frustration because the divorce proceedings essentially strip them of the ability to have any control over the situation. By the time that one partner has served the other with divorce papers, the decision has already been made. And while for the partner who is still in the same town with the partner who wishes to divorce the feeling of still having some control over the situation might seem illusory, there is no doubting that a deployed partner is certainly in a position more clearly removed from control.

Recently, marriage expert and counselor Jon Benigas explained that the male method of coping can often lead down roads that are more destructive if not tempered with thorough consideration of the problems that have lead to the divorce. Benigas stated that it is precisely the effort to remain "in control" of the situation that often lead men to make mistakes that neither help them save the marriage nor put themselves in good positions during the subsequent divorce.

A recent Associated Press article confirms the sad fact that the trend of divorce for those in the armed forces has just increased from 3.5% to 3.7%, though spokesmen from the army call the numbers statistically small. These numbers may seem small, but it is important to remember that they reflect only "active-duty" military. The numbers catch up to national average after leaving the military.

For anyone going through the difficult situation of divorce statistics that point either way are usually of little if any consolation.

And, while it is true that this is the third-longest war that America has been engaged in and the longest since the Revolutionary War fought with an all-volunteer Army, the statistics have a hard time reflecting the emotional turmoil that a long separation causes a couple and the emotional fall-out that accompanies a divorce heaped upon the other massive adjustments that must be made when one or both partners must leave for deployment, serve and return.

The original article can be found here.

Rick Ortiz is the editor of www.DadsDivorce.com