Fight for a Kid
December 4, 2009
Just like in yesterday’s blog I’m going to basically transcribe a story from Reggie Joiner’s Think Orange
One afternoon he and his daughter, Rebekah, “were having a conversation—a rather loud one. It was one of those ‘you’re thirteen and you will do what I say and I am your father and you have to listen to me and that’s just the way it is’ kinds of moments.”
That’s when it happened. She took a verbal shot at me that totally caught me off guard. It hit me so hard I heard myself catch my breath. I had never dreamed one of my children would say what she said to me…
I was so shocked. I had no comeback. It was so personal that I was extremely hurt.
I did the only thing I could think to do at that moment. I left. I walked out of the room, down the stairs, through the den, into the garage, got into my car, and drove off. Have I already said that I was really upset, and very, very personally offended?
I was driving down the road, feeling betrayed, when about fifteen minutes into the drive, my mobile phone rang. It was Rebekah.
‘Dad, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You know I really didn’t mean what I said…But why did you leave? Why did you walk out? I need to know that our relationship is worth fighting for.’
Beautiful expression: a relationship worth fighting for. Do students know that their parents will fight for a relationship with them? What security that brings to a kid.
©2009 Fuller Youth Institute