Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 3-047 (Family Issues)
HOW’S YOUR PERSPECTIVE?
by Mikal Frazier, LMFT, LPC
I recently watched the 1998 movie Affliction. I was drawn to this movie because of a comment I heard about the family dynamics exhibited in it. The dynamics were definitely there, and most true to form. Wade, a divorced father played by Nick Nolte, is portrayed as being much more concerned about his needs than the needs of his young daughter. Throughout the story, Wade seems to beat his head against one brick wall after another, never choosing to examine himself. Wade is a very haunted man, a victim of severe abuse from an unloving father.
Toward the end of the movie, after the family drama comes to a tragic and perhaps predictable climax, Wade’s younger brother speaks about his older brother. He says, “You will say that I should have known terrible things were about to happen. You will say that I was responsible. But even so, what could I have done? Wade lived on the edge of his emotions. He was always first to receive the brunt of our father’s anger. He had no perspective to retreat to, even in a crisis.”
Wow, what meaningful words!! “He had no perspective.” That is exactly what many hurting, angry and desperate people need. They need to be able to step back from a situation, consider the cost of their options, and then make a responsible choice. With a healthy perspective they would be able to make a reasoned response, instead of a costly reaction.
So many divorced parents are just like Wade. They are so interested in winning. They have no perspective. And they will try to defeat the other parent at any cost.
A fearful mate, who cannot step back and give his partner some space to examine her own feelings, needs a perspective.
A parent, who flashes into anger over a typical childish behavior or misbehavior, needs to get a perspective.
When Peter jumped in to cut off the ear of the servant of the High Priest, he needed a perspective. Jesus offered him a perspective. He said, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”
Jesus makes his perspective even clearer in John 13:3. John writes, “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God.” Because of this perspective, in the most difficult of times, Jesus was able to gently wash the feet of those who loved him and the feet of the one who would betray him.
We are presently living in extremely troubled times. I have recently visited with some folks who are exceedingly distressed with the threats we are now living with every day. God has given us a perspective for these times. This perspective is clearly described in Romans 8:28-39. Starting with verse 35 we read, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
‘For your sake we face death all day long; We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Our perspective in the face of marital strife, difficulty with a child or missiles aimed at us from across the sea must be that none of these can separate us from the love of God.
What else can matter? What a perspective!!
– Mikal Frazier: <>
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