It’s all in how you hold your tongue
There is no doubt in my mind that my Dad loved me. I needed to start with that because I need to share that he had a major problem that haunted him his whole life. He had a temper and blew up at people. Not physically, but verbally.
He knew that blowing up at his co-workers or boss wouldn’t be tolerated so, unfortunately, he’d have a bad day and come home short tempered. You don’t know how many times I heard the comment “you wouldn’t know how to pour pee out of a boot with the instructions on the heel” (slightly cleaned up). I dreaded helping my Dad by holding a flashlight (he absolutely didn’t care if I could see what was going on), and the worst was when he sent me for a tool and I brought back the wrong one (sometimes because I didn’t know the difference, for example Allen wrench, and sometimes he’d send me for a screwdriver and not specify which flavor of screwdriver to fetch).
After I graduated college and my wife and I got married, I would make comments to my wife that I did not want to treat any children we might have that way. Man has that statement came back to bite me… but that is another devotion.
My wife, being both perpetually supportive and willing to knock me down a peg when able, pointed out that whenever my dad was concentrating on doing something, he’d hold his tongue out. For the rest of my dad’s life, one of the two of us would notice this. So, marrying my expressed desire to do things different from my dad (coupled with my wife’s willingness to knock me down a peg), she’d point out whenever I’d concentrate on something… I would hold my tongue out.
It seems that the concentrating and holding the tongue out may be a genetic trait because I have been caught a lot doing it in our 39 years of marriage. In fact, my wife points out whenever our son concentrates and holds his tongue out as well.
“Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” - Luke 12:51-53 ESV
“In place of your fathers shall be your sons; you will make them princes in all the earth. I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore nations will praise you forever and ever.” - Psalm 45:16-17
I made plenty of mistakes in the raising of our son but yelling at him for not holding the flashlight right or fetching the wrong tool wasn’t one of them. I pray that if my son, at some distant future point, describes whether I loved him or not opens with “There is no doubt in my mind that my dad loved me.”
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” - John 15:9-11
