Raising Giant Killers Part 2

 

Your fighting your daddy's demons...

I've been told that a time or two. That what I was dealing with was something generational. Something that I never asked for or invited into my life but it was this thing that had attached to the bloodline of my family. Sounds almost like the plot to a horror film. It's not just Hollywood imagination though. There are things that follow us because of the choices and actions of not only our parents but also long dead relatives. The bible gives us enough teaching to call them generational curses. 

Numbers 14:18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love, forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. But he does not excuse the guilty. He lays the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations.’

Doesn't seem fair does it? That the guilty can sentence the generations after them to suffer because of their actions. It is biblical though and it ought to make us stop and take a good hard look at the things we do. How we choose to spend our moments now WILL have an impact on our children and their children and their children. That generational impact multiplies as well. Statistically we know this to be true. Studies as recent as 2017 have shown that a little over half of adults (51 percent) who were abused as children experience domestic abuse later in life. They are fighting their parents demons.

I have personal experience with this. You see I was born out of wedlock. My parents were never married. My mom met my biological father while serving in the military. He convinced her that he was unable to have children but he was wrong and I am the result of their relationship. There is more to the story and I may share additional details down the road but for now understand that my biological father fought a giant called Lust.

He never killed that giant and it followed after me.

When I was 9 years old it called me out onto the battlefield and beat me to the ground. I would wrestle with that giant for nearly 2 decades before finally killing it for good. That fight never should have been mine. I inherited that battle from my biological father. Even though that man was never an active part of my life I was still left to fight his demons.

Sometimes they aren't so easy to spot either. Sometimes the giants don't storm violently onto the battlefield calling out your name. Sometimes they come quietly and sit with you everyday until you don't even notice their presence in your life. You come to accept them as just a part of who you are. I was born this way.

I grew up in a house owned by hoarders. My mom and step dad (he was my real dad) were the best parents that they could be but they both fought with giants called Lack and Poverty. Because of that, they lived as hoarders, holding on to anything that they believed might be useful, maybe, one day. That was my normal. My everyday. I was used to it and believed it was just part of how you should live. You should hold on to things that could be useful even if that meant piling things up and letting stuff overwhelm the space you lived in. There isn't anyplace to store that, just set it on top of that pile over there.

This caused a lot of issues between Felicia and myself early on in our relationship. I couldn't understand why she wanted me to throw so much away. She didn't realize how useful these things could be eventually. All the while Lack and Poverty sat on either side of me whispering into my ears about how I was right and she was wrong. You see, sometimes our giants aren't trying to fight us directly. Sometimes they speak into our lives and feed our egos so we end up fighting the people we love the most instead of them.

Fortunately, Felicia has proven that she is far stronger than my giants and she helped me see them for what they really were. Once I saw them and realized they never should have been there I was able to fight them instead of fellowshipping with them. 

Occasionally, I find myself acting out of old habits but the giants that were with me are dead and buried.

When we fail to kill our giants then our kids have to fight ours and theirs.

There are few things that truly frighten me. The one thing that I fear the most is dying with regret. While there are many things I could regret on my death bed there is one in particular that I think about the most. Leaving a giant on the battlefield that I was meant to kill. If I do that, I know I'm leaving a larger battle for my children.

I can't protect my kids from the fight completely. Helicopter parenting have raised an awful lot of individuals who think that if is something is hard then it is unfair and unjust. Hard is a part of life on this earth. We all experience hard at one time or another. The best I can do is teach my kids how to face the hard things, the giants, when they come. And come they will.

When I was 19 I started working in a power plant. All the older guys kept giving me advice on life. One of them told me that time goes by quicker the older you get. At 19 I thought yeah, right (as I rolled my eyes). Now, at 40, I'm thinking yeah, he was right (as I look at my kids growing up)! I don't have a lot of time. I need to go find some stones, grab my kids by the hands and take them out to the battlefield with me so I can show them. So they can see with their own eyes. There are giants here but we can beat them! I don't want to leave my giants alive for my kids to fight. I want to leave them with the memory of their daddy slinging stones and killing giants. That way when their giants come to fight or fellowship they can have the confidence that if my daddy could do it, then so can I!!!

So, here we go kids.

Help daddy pick out some stones.

I got some giants to kill.