WLSU: An Intervention (Transformed by Love)

Hi friends. As you may know, I am currently on sabbatical and we'll be out until August 11th. Throughout my time off we have a couple new episodes that I recorded prior to leaving that are related to my sabbatical journey. We will also rerun a couple of previous episodes that are connected to the ongoing theme of transformation and best of all.

This blog is also available as a podcast

I was 13 the first time I was caught smoking by my parents.

My cousin had somehow convinced me that we could get away with smoking in my Granny’s bathroom. I have no idea why I believed him. There wasn't a chance that we weren't going to get snared.

Later, when my mum questioned me, I knew that we were busted and there was no point trying to hide it. So I told her the truth. And — as our conversation went on — I told her the whole truth. It wasn't just the smoking. My friends and I had been stealing booze, getting drunk and putting ourselves in seriously dangerous situations. I knew I had screwed things up. I knew I had broken the rules. I knew I was in serious, serious trouble.

My mum, as you can imagine, was devastated. It was heartbreaking to come clean and see what I was putting her through. What scared me, however, was what would happen my dad found out. I begged her not to tell him but she wouldn't keep it from him. He was away for a couple of weeks so I lived in fear of what was to come.

When he came home, mum told him everything and he came straight to me. He told me to get in the car. Too afraid to ask any questions, I obeyed. I got in with no idea where we were going.

Fear can do strange things to a person. It can cause him or her to question things that should never be questioned. I was so afraid and ashamed that I forgot my dad’s heart. I assumed that he would tend towards punishment, not because of who he is, but because of my own perception of what I deserved.

We drove to a hotel where he brought me inside to the restaurant and ... ordered me dinner. Just as our main courses arrived, he finally spoke out loud the only thing we were thinking about and asked me a simple question: ‘Why?’

He wasn’t angry that I had broken the family rules. He wasn't offended by my infractions. He was scared. Scared of the choices I was making, of the dangers that I was putting myself in the path of, of the things that would drive me — at just 13 — to drink at every opportunity I could find.

At that dinner, I saw that my father cares more about my wellbeing than my obedience. That he loves me more than the rules that are there to protect me. That the binary of 'did you' or 'didn't you' is of no interest to the father asking, 'why?'

My father was gutted to discover that his barely teenage child felt drawn to alcohol to numb the pain of being bullied and to seize the chance to feel like someone else in the midst of his insecurity. By wanting to know 'why', my father gave me the gift of the chance to tell my story. The gift of feeling known and cared about. The gift of the permission to be honest. This kind of love transformed my life.

And that dinner with my dad taught me more about God than I ever learned in church — though it's only in adulthood that I'm able to truly understand what I couldn't fully grasp back then. When our 'God-talk' is reduced to the binaries of "did/didn't", "are/aren't" and "do/don't", it reduces the God of grace and goodness to an inscrutable, unaffected and otherworldly box-ticker. The God of the 'Why?', however, is the God of the open-ended question who invites you to answer in story, silence, soliloquy or scream. He is the God who knows, who hears, who understands, who cares. As we learn to respond, we find that love that asks 'why' brings a transformation that 'behaviour-modification-religion' can't compete with — a transformation that comes from the healing power of being heard.

I felt heard that night. And I heard my father when he asked me to promise not to drink again.

I made that promise. And broke it. But that was OK because my father had shown himself to be a safe place to go when I felt broken and lost.

The following summer, we returned to that same restaurant. This time, however, it was to talk about the year that had passed and the highlights and lowlights it held. We talked about what had been, what could be and what we dreamed could be — for me, for us, for our family. What began as an intervention became a tradition.

This I have come to see is the heart of the spiritual life. It is the process of allow myself to take my seat at the table of the God who asks 'why' and, through the healing power of his love, invites to me to consider what's next — for me, for us, for the Kingdom he is building and the world that he loves.