Friday, August 23, 2013

Brotherly Love

“We don’t treat each other like that. God gave you a brother as a gift. You guys are best friends, you love each other, you look out for each other! If you two are having a problem and you can’t work it out with your words, you need to come to me to let me help you. Now what do you think you should say to each other?”

He grumbles rebelliously under his breath with his head hung low, “I’m sorry I took the toy from you… will you forgive me?”

“Yes. I’m sorry I yelled at you… will you forgive me?” the other one mumbles in a like manner.

Such forced dialogues are a commonly rehearsed in our home, and are followed by a short speech that goes something like: “It’s important to learn how to admit when you’ve done wrong and ask forgiveness. You’re going to mess up a lot in life and it’s important to practice how to repair your relationships with people, even now, with each other. I can make you say the words, but I can’t make you mean them in your heart. Only God can help you do that. I pray your heart will change as you grow in your understanding of what Jesus did for you when he died on the cross and rose from the dead to save sinners like us.”

All they seem to hear at that point is “Waa waa waa waaaaa, waa waa waa waaa.” I take a deep patient breath, and wonder if God really will ever work in their hearts.

Once JJ asked, “Mom, why do make us say those words? NOBODY talks like that.”

“Yes I know,” I replied in typical mom fashion that all kids loathe, “but you’re not ‘nobody’. You’re somebody. And someday you’re going to marry a somebody, and the sooner you learn to admit wrong and apologize, the better.”

I can’t blame him. I get it. He’s right. It’s awkward. It’s not natural for us to admit wrong. It’s painful! It takes more strength and energy in the seconds it takes to say “I was wrong, and I’m sorry. Will you please forgive me?” than it does in the HOURS we’re willing to spend building a case to justify our offenses.

Christian and Coleman really are best friends. It’s almost as if they are the same person. They look out for each other. I have caught them on many occasions putting the other’s wants ahead of their own. They generally share and take turns willingly. They laugh and play video games and pretend to be super heroes all day. They get along. They rarely ever have a conflict, and when they do, it’s usually resolved easily. They’re guys, they don’t hold grudges anyway.

So I was heartbroken the day they got into their first real fight.

They were playing with legos in their bedroom when all of a sudden I heard Christian wailing. I walked in to find him boo-hooing with his face buried in a pillow under his bed. Coleman was sitting on the trundle, visibly upset, but not crying. “What on earth is going on in here?!”

“COLEMAN BIT ME!!”

“CHRISTIAN SLAPPED me REALLY HARD and it hurt REALLY BAD! He said he was NEVER gonna get off of me and he wouldn’t let me up!” When he turned his head I saw Christian’s handprint on the side of his face. I was mortified. This was completely foreign territory to me. Their conflicts had never escalated this far before.

As if on cue, Brad came home from work right as I had put them in separate rooms. Thank God, I thought. He will be much more effective in dealing with this. As he listened to the drama unfold, his face lit up with every word I spoke. I stopped mid-story.

“Why are you SMILING?!”

“Because they’re BROTHERS! That’s what brothers do! We should let ‘em fight, just bring ‘em out here in the middle of the living room and let them duke it out. Yeah! We’ll give ‘em boxing gloves and turn them loose on each other!”

“What? NO!”

Brad put his game face on and entered the room where Christian was.

“What’s going on?”

And then it happened, just like that: a genuine desire to reconcile began to unfold right before our eyes. After a few seconds of reflection, a look of disgusted self-awareness came over him. He raised an eyebrow and his forehead wrinkled, “It was actually not very important really… it was just about legos.” He proceeded to give an accurate account of the sequence of events from the beginning. It turns out, Christian was building an animal out of legos and Coleman wanted to use the eye for something he was building. Christian refused to give it to him, and Coleman started yelling at him, telling him he HAD to. Christian got tired of Coleman yelling, so he hauled off and put his handprint on the side of his face. Then they fought for a little bit. Christian used his size to his advantage, pounced on Coleman and vowed never to let him up. That’s when Coleman sunk his teeth into Christian’s shoulder, causing him to recant and hide under the bed. After this explanation, Brad asked, “So, who was wrong?” Christian answered, “Coleman was I think…” then he confessed, “actually both of us were wrong. And I just now thought about something… I should’ve just given him the lego.”

“Oh Christian, that would’ve been nice, but we wouldn’t have made you do that. It’s ok that you didn’t give it to him. We just want you to come to us if you can’t work something out using your words.”

Brad left to get Coleman’s side of the story. Meanwhile, Christian tried to hide the lump in his throat, but his voice began to crack and giant tears welled up in his eyes as he climbed into my lap and buried his face in my shoulder, “…but legos are not important… Your LIFE is important! Legos are just LEGOS. They don’t even mean anything…” Yes, that sweet music came right out of the heart of my 5 year old middle guy.


When we joined the two up again, Brad made them stand in front of him. “Raise your hand if you were wrong.”  Both boys raised their hands. “Good. That’s right. You were both wrong. Now, I want to teach you boys to grow up to be strong men, and strong men always THINK before they act. They use their heads: not their fists, not their teeth. Strong men always THINK first.” Then, all on their own, they apologized to one another, admitting their offense, and asking forgiveness of each other from their hearts. And I, well my heart swelled with thankfulness at the preview of what God is beginning to do in their hearts.