Southwestern Union Record

Mountain Pine, Ark. » “Good morning, Sunshine!” My optimistic greeting garnered little more than a grunt from my groggy and recently-awakened son. It was Sunday, my one and only day off, and I was going to spend some much-needed “bonding time” with my son. I had an ingenious plan whereby I could get some log cutting, hauling, and stacking done, while also spending “quality time” with my son. Just to make sure that things would pan out with the father-son “bonding time,” I offered to pay him for his time. Surely that would make for a grand-slam Sunday success!

Fathers and sons, sadly, are family members who often experience some of the deepest frustrations.  How many times have you heard the sighing remark from a father, “I just wish I spent more time with him.” My father was no exception, and was both physically and emotionally absent much of my childhood. My father’s father was also largely gone as he grew up. My notion as a boy was that this was normal male behavior. Even with the best of intentions, we make mistakes while teaching the boys in our lives to be men. Our only hope lies not so much in what we do as in knowing the Father of our fathers, who alone can take our broken lives, accept us as we are, and walk beside us in our struggles with manhood and see us through our journey of becoming what we were intended to be. 

My bonding time with my son didn’t turn out like I had hoped. It is shameful now, looking back, how things went wrong that day. For one thing, I was hard to please. I still remember the things I said. “Don’t let the chainsaw hit the…oh, I knew it, now it’s dull!” “Don’t you know that logs stacked that high are going to… just like I was saying; now you’re going to have to start all over!” “Please go easy on the gas pedal, when you…son, you just peeled up my new lawn grass!” 

Fathers, you know how it is. Let’s just say that we didn’t end up with any warm, touchy, feel-good sensations from our “bonding time.” Instead of spending quality time that day, I ended up losing my cool and stressing our already fragile relationship even further.

“Every man carries a wound,” says author John Eldredge in Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul. “I have never met a man without one.  No matter how good your life may have seemed to you, you live in a broken world full of broken people.” Raising a child will bring out the raw edges of our brokenness faster than anything. 

Do you know what the important things are in your son’s life?  How are your son’s strengths different from yours?  How are you encouraging your son to become the man he wants to be? What type of man do you want your son to be? How are you building trust in your relationship? What’s the most difficult part of being a father? There’s no better time than the present to become the father that you always wanted in your own life. Start building a bridge that will heal wounds and set yourself and your son free so you can become the men God wants you to be.

To all of you fathers out there, I want to invite you to meet other fathers and sons at the Father and Son Retreat at beautiful Camp Yorktown Bay, March 2-4, 2012. We have planned a weekend of discovery, outdoor activities, interaction with other men and their sons, plenty of good food, good singing, lots of laughs, and maybe a few tears. 

Go to www.campyorktownbay.com for registration information, and call Sylvia Downs at the Arkansas Louisiana Conference, 318-631-6240 ext.115 for more information.