I recall vividly the first time I played Tackle-the-boy-with-the-ball. Long name and we just shortened it to, “Dogpile!” I was eight years old and was playing it with at least five other boys, most much larger than I was. From my earliest memories, I had always been terrified when my breathing was impeded even slightly. Forget putting my head underwater. When my grandfather picked up the sleeping bag with me sinking to the bottom while he swung me, I panicked. Even dusty roads caused issues for me and I never understood why. When it was my turn to have the ball and be tackled it was great fun up until the point I had five other bodies pressing me into the ground and my breathing was slightly hampered. According to the other boys I, “Hulked out.” I started throwing bodies off me like they were match sticks and I was furious! I turned into an animal trying to survive. When I came back to my senses all the other boys were standing around amazed at the transformation. Between fight-or-flight and adrenaline, I had become someone completely different. Fortunately, my friends thought it was cool and we kept playing, but I made sure I stayed on top of the pile for years after that, and eventually I “grew” out of it. But I always wondered why I had this difficulty. Several decades later the answer was revealed. Now a forty-something-year-old adult, I learned that, as a six-month-old infant, I had been abused by a babysitter and her son. They took great joy in placing me on the floor and placing their feet in my chest in order to gain compliance. I had known they had been abusive but had no idea the extent of their abuse. It took another twenty years for it to click. Their feet and overt efforts to control me had left deep scars on my soul, even at that early age. Somehow, in God’s mercy, I had just grown out of it, or so I thought until last week. My wife and I were learning a new game with my two daughters and their husbands when I perceived an infraction of the rules. When I brought it up, everyone started shouting and I was confused as to why. In my mind, it was a dogpile and I was on the bottom of the heap. The next thing I knew the discussion had changed from the rules of the game to my behavior and how I had become, “hostile” and aggressive in my tone and verbiage. What is worse is that this was a frequent behavior and I recognized it. I quickly dropped into despair. I had been emotionally abusive and I not only felt powerless to stop it but couldn’t even see it when it was happening. After a great deal of prayer and tears the next day, I realized that my feelings during the outburst at the game, were identical to my feelings at the bottom of the dogpile when I was eight. There had been a soul wound established as an infant I had known nothing about and my precious family had helped me to see it. God made short work of the wound and I am looking forward to testing out His patchwork during our next game. My point is, even as infants we are able to receive wounds that will affect us for the rest of our lives if we don’t take care of them. If you find repetitive behaviors that you can’t explain, consider your early years or even your mother’s pregnancy. God can and will heal those wounds, but we have to get on the operating table to let Him do it. So, jump on up! It is so worth it!!!
My life was a wreck. My marriage was on the rocks, my kids hated me, and my relationship with God was only a habit at best. I wanted more but had no idea how to get there. I had reached the bottom and life was just a routine I walked through in order to survive. Then Phyllis and I read a book together, and our lives began to change. The name of the book is unimportant for this blog, but life began to take new shape for me. Within a few short months I began to experience some very real emotional healing, soon followed by physical, scientifically proven, healing! The excitement in me began to build and I couldn’t keep up. Phyllis and I realized if this kind of healing was available, what kind of monsters would we be to keep it to ourselves and Crossing the Bar was birthed. Months later I realized I was living out 2 Corinthians 1:3-4. In the Message translation it says, “All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.” There isn’t a painful, hellish day from my past that I wouldn’t live all over again if it meant I could reach more people. My desire isn’t just to bring healing to people filled with pain so extreme that it holds them captive, but to watch as God heals them so completely that they then bring that same healing into their personal world. Nothing is more fulfilling!