One day my daughter will be able to articulate the many ways I have failed her as a father. Today, though, I write about a time I got it right.
Bedtime with my kids is among my favorite moments of the day. I love making up stories, horsey rides on my back, and last kisses goodnight. Recently I pulled close to give one of my daughters a final hug. She turned with her doll and slammed its head against my nose. I screamed out in pain and rolled a reverse somersault that left me sprawled on my back.
Let me pause to say this: In terms of love languages, I can safely name that my girl loves touch. She hugs, kisses, and wrestles me with her love. She pulls me close to kiss my cheeks and wraps her arms around my neck. At bedtime she boldly tries to keep me from leaving with statements like, “You’re staying here.” Her physicality shows up in hard ways, too. She expresses her anger with hitting, ripping mail, and throwing toys. This is her glory and depravity, a package deal this side of heaven.
The princess nightlight illuminated my face as I lay there in the dark. My nose throbbed. I wanted to hit her as I crawled back over to the bed. She had tucked her head into the corner with her face buried in the pillow. I attempted to talk to her, but her head stayed hidden. Her heart must be seen, I thought. Her body language screamed shame. The part of me that did not care still wanted to hit her. Instead I sat with her quietly, explained that she hurt me and that I still loved her. She released her shame, popped up and apologetically said, “I won’t do it again, Daddy.”
In every exchange that moves a relationship toward intimacy, the heart must be seen. That is not an easy task, ever. But when it comes to marriage and parenting, you could add an exclamation point. The hard reality is that we fail to connect with each other more often than we succeed. Scarier is that, of all the people in our lives, our spouse and kids know when we miss them emotionally while we are often oblivious to the fact.
To connect with our spouse or kids, to see the heart of another, we must know our own heart, look at the way we talk, and consider the conversations we have.
Built for Connection
Cheetahs are built for speed. Volvos are built for safety. Jungle gyms are built to climb.
People? We are built to connect.
Walk into a nursery and look at the babies who cry to be held. Worse, visit an overrun orphanage. Google the number of people on the planet who have a Facebook account. Consider humanities’ two harshest punishments: solitary confinement and death. One cuts the convict off from relationship for a certain time; a death sentence communicates, “You are no longer fit to relate with us ever again”.
Our capacity and design to connect with one another are found at the level of our heart. When I speak of the “heart”, I refer to the feelings, desires, convictions, and hopes within us. We are made to see and be seen. Emotions, our ability to have them and give emotional response, reveal our unique purpose and potential as relational beings. While emotions certainly do not constitute all of who we are, they are the beginning place for connection. In moments of vulnerable honesty, when someone shares their emotional state, they have just cracked open the door for relationship. It is an invitation to peer into their soul. We long, as one writer put it, to feel felt.
The Questions We Ask
If at our core is the capacity to connect, then every encounter is an opportunity for that to happen. That is depressing. The majority of human encounters throughout the day result in disconnection. On a continuum between a genuine “How are you doing?” and “Would you like fries with that?”, most of our daily conversations likely fall closer to the latter.
The questions we ask reveal not only the position of our own heart, but also what we want from those around us. Pay attention to the questions you ask and hear on a daily basis. When will you be home? Where should we go for dinner? Is the dishwasher clean or dirty? Certainly a good percentage of our daily conversations must be practical in order for the household to function. But too often our questions remain practical for fear of what may be uncovered or stirred up.
When it comes to marriage and family, what questions characterize your relationships? Do they center on efficiency, personal survival, behavior, or seeing the heart? When the goal of a relationship centers on any of those first three, our relationships lose the power to connect. Larry Crabb writes, “The power to meaningfully change lives depends not on advice, though counsel and rebuke play a part; not on insight, though self-awareness that disrupts complacency and points toward new understanding is important; but on connecting, on bringing two people into an experience of shared life.”
To share life with a spouse or child, to mutually experience it together, you must invite each other to be known. The husband that says he cares but fails to see his wife’s heart essentially offers an empty glass to a thirsty soul. How is your heart? What are you feeling? Do you feel seen? To prioritize questions like these amidst dirty dishes, untrimmed hedges, and the car that requires an oil change will add water to the empty glasses we offer.
The Conversations We Have
Our questions matter, but we must go deeper. A connecting conversation starts with vision. When my daughter lay shamefully hidden in the corner of her bed, I faced a decision: Do I choose to respond to the selfish girl who cared more for her own self-protection than her daddy’s pain? Or do I dig deeper within myself to see who my daughter could be when offered grace? Both options are worthy discussions. However, confronting her selfishness without approaching her with the latter grace-driven vision misses an opportunity to connect. Her heart may be seen but without the invitation to deeper relationship.
C.S. Lewis described humanity as glorious ruins. When you engage with people on a daily basis, how often do you wrestle to look past their inadequacies to envision who they could become? Seriously, think about that. The stylists who cuts your hair too short. The barista who pours too much syrup into your mocha. The spouse that continually talks about themselves without asking about your day. Admit it, it is far easier to complain and dismiss people than dig deeper to visualize who they could become. Vision means seeing in each other the potential for restored glory.
When we consider what restored glory could look like in someone, we look beneath what we hear or observe. We begin to see their heart, and it changes the way we talk. One of the encouragements I offer marital couples is this: Listen for your spouse’s heart through his/her words. Look deeper than what you hear. What feeling do you hear in their accusations or complaints? Is it hurt? Is it sadness? Is it loneliness? Or perhaps all three. When a disgruntled spouse feels seen and felt, they are often disarmed.
Early in my marriage, I wasted far too much time trying to rationalize and make sense of disagreements with my wife. When we fought, the lawyer in me looked for holes in her logic. I begged and pleaded for her to see my perspectives. I am a really good lawyer-husband, by the way, sometimes more eloquent and forceful than Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men. Colonel Jessup would be impressed. My wife never was. My logic made more sense than hers, but the more I tried to convince her, the further she moved away. She needed a comforter, not a lawyer. As I began to see her hurt and sadness beneath her anger, a miracle occurred. She began to soften. When a spouse feels seen, when they know that they are known, the desire to win dies.
The Heart Must Be Seen
As I close, I reflect back on the opening experience with my daughter. It is only one of many, and I gladly share the time it went well. Many times it does not. Seeing the heart takes immense commitment and work. It often leaves me more disappointed than I would have been had I simply used hasty discipline. I could say the same for my marriage. No, I do not discipline my wife. Rather I speak of the times when I am confronted with whether to invest the type of energy it takes to see her heart when checking out would keep me from potential disappointment. The goal, though, is intimacy, and only it will satisfy. In every exchange that moves a relationship toward intimacy, the heart must be seen. We are all thirsty. Thirsty to be seen. Thirsty to be known. May we better learn to see the hearts of our spouses and kids, and in doing so, offer cold glasses of water to scorched souls.
