This past week I had the privilege of hearing the words I long to hear, which is great… or should have been. What happened is I ended up redoing the roof of the family shed. Of course, we don’t have an ordinary shed. My dad built it, and it’s actually two sheds in one with a special roof, which looks great, but is a lot trickier than a normal roof to do. When I was three quarters done my mom looked at my work and said to me, “It looks great; your dad would be proud of you.” The next day my sister also looked at my work and said, “It looks great; dad would be proud of you.” I should point out that my dad has been dead for nine years now. He doesn’t pass messages through family members because he refuses to talk to me. He hasn’t excommunicated me because I’m so amazing, or some other more likely reason. As a man, hearing your dad is proud of you is pretty huge. It’s what guys long to hear because it makes you feel like you really are a man. Growing up, these words were generally only written in my graduation cards… no, that’s not why I ended up with 3 Masters Degrees; that’s for a whole other silly reason. Commitment? No thank you; I’ll just keep going to school so I don’t have to get married or pick a career… that’s a joke… or is it? Each time I heard these words, ‘your dad would be proud of you,’ words that should make me feel warm and squishy inside, they meant nothing. If anything, they made me frustrated: (me) “Why would he be proud of this? I’m redoing what he made. He built the shed from an idea in his head while I’m just copying it.” That certainly wasn’t how my mom and sister wanted me to react, especially since these were words meant to encourage and lift me up. Did I reject these words because I’m screwed up? Don’t answer that; that’s rhetorical.
The day after my sister said my dad would be proud of me I was talking to a woman I really respect who is said to have the spiritual gift of prophecy (i.e. someone who shares messages from God). She’s a wonderful woman who has made a huge impact on many lives. While we were talking she paused and said, “God wants you to know He’s proud of you.” Again, these are words that should lift you up and inspire you to continue on your path, but all I could think was: (me) “Screw that! God’s not proud of me. If He is, I guess He’s not so smart after all?” Of course, if I were to push away all the negativity I’m facing right now, I’d be able to think of a few reasons why God would be proud of me, but at the same time I’m left thinking, “Why would God be proud of me?” The way I handled these words prove I’m not feeling myself right now, but more importantly they demonstrate one very important lesson:
Words only have power when we believe them.
The good thing about this, that words only have power if we believe them, is the same should go with insults; we shouldn’t be affected if we don’t believe them. That means the words of a bully won’t have power unless we believe them. The problem is many of us are more likely to believe the negative words. For instance, if a homeless person begging on the streets said to me, “You need to get your life in order,” and I agreed with this, I’d likely think, “Man, even the homeless guy can see I need to get my life in order.” But if I didn’t agree, I’d be more likely to say, “I think someone’s talking to himself again.”
Words only have power when we believe them, so we need to be careful what we believe. If we can see the good in ourselves, we’ll be better at receiving compliments and rejecting the insults, which helps build self esteem and leads to healthier relationships. Probably something we should all consider doing.
This week may you start to see the good in you in order to fight all the negative words we will inevitably hear.
Rev Chad, www.ChadDavid.ca, Learning to love dumb people