Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Why Brokenness


There are a number of "Mom" books out there. Some are focused on the idea of motherhood as a battlefield, while others are focused on fun and fluff. I'm trying to be somewhere in the middle of this - recognizing the pain and sorrow that can accompany this important "job" while reveling in the joy.

So why am I focusing on "brokenness"? It is so very important for us to seek to be whole and healthy people. Broken, unhealthy people beget more broken and unhealthy people.

I attended a meeting this morning which was an overview of the Philip Project, created by Cherry Street Mission's very own Dan Rogers. Cherry Street will seek to be a partner with churches and church leaders to help transform the parent-child relationship. It's very exciting stuff!

Dan said something that stuck with me this morning, but first you need a little background to understand it. When we talk about the "downstream" of life - which he at Cherry Street and I at Food For Thought deal with on a daily basis - we are referring to the image of a "river of life." The upstream is the point of the river that makes a difference. If that point is damaging - think of the image of a broken bridge - bodies start falling in the water. When someone is broken, damaged, hurt...that's the downstream. In our daily jobs, Dan and I are the ones at the downstream, pulling people out of the river and trying to heal them. But something we share is a desire to help the upstream, to keep bodies from falling in the water in the first place. This is where the phrase "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" comes in handy. It's a heck of lot more effective to fix the bridge than it is to keep pulling bodies out of the river downstream.

So, this morning, Dan said, "there is no greater upstream than parents." How true! We are constantly healing people's brokenness, which largely takes place at the hand of their parents. Yes, there are a variety of other factors, but parents are - as Dan put it - the greatest upstream.

Which is why I'm working on this book and why I talk about brokenness. In order to fix that bridge for our children - or keep the bridge from breaking in the first place - we need to wade back upstream and figure out how to fix that bridge for ourselves. To some that may seem selfish - to spend so much time focusing on ourselves instead of our children. No, it is anything but! It is the greatest form of care and love for your child - to heal the parts of you that may damage parts of them.

Good luck as you head upstream...

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