pTm

Today, I was waking you boys up at different times, but I had the same memory come back to me.  I was touching your cheeks and hair with my hand, and I was remembering my father doing that very same thing to wake me up.

It also made me remember a story about a college student from Cornerstone University I had heard about.  She had gone to Russia and was in an orphanage.  What I remember hearing was how she was taken with a baby that didn’t make noises or have emotion of any kind.  As she gave this baby attention and loving touch, the baby began to become more interactive, showing emotion and making noises.

Yes, all of this was going through my mind as I was touching your cheeks this morning.  With everything that has been going on with school shootings and such, I find my mind analyzing how I love my boys and my wife.  I want to love them well, patiently, and caringly, but I find that I don’t always do a very good job of that.

Side note:  It’s mornings like these that I cherish, and as you boys turn in to men, it is being able to touch your cheek in a loving caress that I will miss.

My thoughts went to how touch (loving, un-loving or a lack of) can be so instrumental in how our children turn out.

From that story of the Cornerstone student, it seems that a lack of touch results in a lack of emotion in a child.  I imagine the child wasn’t talked to and was completely ignored.

Loving touch brings smiles and cooing in babies.  It also brings rest and trust in all ages.

Un-loving touch can be many different things, but it brings the opposite of loving touch.  It brings crying, unrest, and distrust.

Can you imagine growing up in a family where there is no trust?  Where you are not safe?  Where the touch is harmful in one way or another?  No, and I can’t either.

In the same way, can you imagine being touched by a friend’s mom or dad in a way that mom and I would touch you?  Getting a hug and kiss, or a caress of your cheek like we do…that’d be just weird, right?

When you leave home, you are in public…meaning you are with strangers.  People who do not have a right or relationship to touch you in any way, and you do not have a right or relationship to touch them in any way.

You may recall mom and I talking about our circles of trust.  This is what I’m talking about.  Nobody but family is in the bullseye…and only immediate family at that.  Therefore, there should not be intimate touch until they are in the bullseye…meaning someday, you will fall in love with a woman and make your own bullseye.

Side note:  we’ve never called it the bullseye, but maybe, we will start.

What I’m trying to say is that you should always be careful in public with whom you trust.  Seneca says this about friendship, “When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment.”

What does this mean?  Well, it goes with the circle of trust that mom and I talk about.  Nobody jumps from an outer circle into the inner circle (or the closest circle to the bullseye) quickly or easily.  There is deliberate thought and contemplation that results in a decision (or judgement) on where this person falls.

Touch, in a way that a husband and wife touch, will only bring confusion into any relationship you have with a girl.  It will cloud your judgment and make you want to put trust where it doesn’t belong.  That’s because some touch (like husband/wife touch) is meant to be the most intimate, loving of touches.  It requires the most trust of any relationship and should only happen when there is commitment beyond all other relationships…marriage.  As the Bible says, “the two will become one.”

With marriage, you are no longer just you…your first thought needs to be your wife.  Always.  No exceptions.  No excuses.  We will get into this in another post, but you need to know that entering into marriage means finding the one person you can trust fully and put that woman’s well being in front of your own.  That is what it means to be a man.

Quickly:  Lest (yes, I said lest) you think that you putting your wife first means you not being taken care of, I would like to quote Seneca again.  “Regard him as loyal, and you will make him loyal.”  Translation:  treat your wife as the queen, first in all things, and she will see your devotion and love and put you first in all things as her King.

This is love, and it is deliberate and intentional.  It doesn’t just happen.  Sometimes, it is hard.  It is work!

Sheesh, I really strayed from my discussion about touch.  Suffice it to say that you should hold back your touch proportionally based on where someone falls in the circle of trust.  When someone makes the bullseye, hold no loving touch back.  Give with all you have!

I love you boys so much!

Dad