Spiritual Survival Guide
5: Complicated Stuff
Your particular family may not have been through all of this, but they’ve been through a lot. And what many of them need right now is time to decompress, to be free from your chaos, to heal a bit. And that’s tough on you, because the timing couldn’t be worse! Just when you’re finally ready to reach out to them and have a healthy relationship, they find that they need to pull back from you to heal and protect themselves for a while. Maybe the number one spiritual challenge facing you when it comes to your family is putting you and your needs to the side and putting their needs first. When you’re locked up, the natural tendency is to become even more focused on yourself. And this can be a good and healthy pro- cess for you. It’s a good thing to look inside yourself. It’s a great thing to focus on your relationship with God. But at the same time, you can become so self-absorbed that you forget the needs of other people. You can act like it’s “all about you.” And truth be told, your family may have had enough of you for a while. What would God have us do about this period of time while we’re feel- ing extremely needy and our family is feeling the need to heal from the wounds we inflicted on them? How can we love our family members during this time in practical ways, and hopefully grow those relationships? Here are a few suggestions. 1. Pray for your family. Remember, it’s not all about you. Set aside what you need for the moment (don’t worry, God’s got your back) and focus on them. Pray for them to heal emotionally. Pray that they might survive and manage financially. Pray that they might get along with each other. Pray that they might have strong faith in the Lord. Pray that they might make it through whatever struggles they might be facing. Don’t forget to thank God for every one of them. 2. Ask God to give you patience. Many people who are locked up have
trouble being patient. We’re impulsive and demanding. Ask God to change that part of you. Ask for help in not forcing issues with your fam- ily. Give people the time that they need. Don’t force people to follow your sense of urgency. 3. Ask God for help with understanding and forgiveness. This is a process, so be patient with yourself. Work on truly forgiving the father you never knew, or who abandoned you. Work on forgiving your family when they instinctively pull away from you. Forgive them when they let you down. And on the other side of forgiveness, apologize individually to people that you may have harmed. Don’t make excuses for yourself—simply admit your fault and then ask for (don’t demand) forgiveness. 4. Ask God to help you let go of things you can’t control. You already know that you don’t have control of things inside prison, right? So why try to control what’s happening on the outside? Ask God to quiet your jealous and suspicious nature. Stop trying to second-guess every decision your wife or girlfriend has to make on her own. Give them space to make the decisions they need to. Caring is not the same as controlling. Keep on car- ing, but stop the controlling. Ask God to help you figure out when to let go of relationships that may never be healed. 5. Ask God to help you be a better man. And then show it. You may be ask- ing God to help you change—and change may already be happening— but your family has no way of knowing it’s for real. Demonstrate consis- tent change and concern for them. Keep showing a steady interest in their lives. If you have children and you love them, ask God to help you keep up a steady communication with them. Be disciplined in the way you show your family your love. Remember, it’s not all about you! 6. Finally, ask God to lead you to a new “spiritual family.” God will provide you with brothers you never knew you had, with some spiritual fathers that you only dreamed about. They’re available around you, if you have
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