A Man's True Scars
By Dave Brown

Steven Spielberg's 1975 classic, Jaws, is the complete cinematic package. It combines a riveting storyline about a great white shark that terrorizes a New England resort town;  terrific acting by Robert Shaw (maniacal shark hunter Quint), Richard Dreyfuss (Hooper the young oceanographer) and the late Roy Scheider (Police Chief Brody); and, of course, that haunting musical score from composer John Williams.

My favorite scene is when Quint and Hooper compare their scars and share their stories over a bottle of brandy in the boat's galley. Quint tells young Hooper to put his hand under his ball cap and feel the knot there. "That came from Rocker Nolan in a St. Patty's Day brawl in Boston," he says. Rising to the challenge Hooper shows a scar on his arm: "Moray eel! Bit right through my wet suit."

Quint then rolls up his sleeve and shows a gnarled elbow from an arm wrestling contest in a San Francisco bar. Hooper pulls up his pant leg to show another scar: "Bull shark! Scraped me when I was taking samples." Quint lifts his leg across the table and says, "Thresher shark tail." Then Hooper declares: "OK, I've got one. The crème de la crème! Right here," and points at his chest. "Mary Ellen Moffatt—she broke my heart!"

Most of us could probably recount stories about our own scars. I have a scar on my right thumb from a cut I got at age 10 when a chemistry set blew up, and another one on my right thigh caused by a collapsing ladder. Whether our scars are from accidents, surgeries, bullets, shrapnel or whatever, there's always a story behind them. But I think Hooper's joke about Mary Ellen Moffatt breaking his heart hits close to home for so many of us.

I'm talking about the wounds we carry on the inside—wounds we don't talk about; wounds no one sees, wounds that mark us for life. They're from past insults, betrayals, neglect, lies, shame or abuse. They lurk deep inside a man's soul infecting his relationships and how he lives.

Physical scars never completely go away—but neither do they continue to hurt. But emotional wounds from difficult or broken relationships never quite heal, and the hurt lingers for a lifetime.

One of the deepest wounds many men bear is from a physically or emotionally absent father. In my pastoral counseling, the things men often come to talk about are rooted in this "father wound."

That's why I'll ask, "So tell me about you and your dad." Whether a father truly engages his son's heart depends on whether he's engaged his own heart, especially about his relationship with his own dad. Fathers—whether abusive, authoritarian, absent or authentic—shape our idea of manhood and how we live our lives for the better or worse. Whatever a father thinks a "real man" is has a lifelong impact on his wife and children, especially his son or sons.

Hollywood movie star Burt Reynolds once told Parade magazine in an interview: "My dad was the chief of police. And when he came into the room all the light and air went out of it. There was a saying, 'No man is a man until a father says that he is'. It means that some day when you are 30 or 40 this man whom you respect and love, and wants to love you, will put his arm around you and say, 'You are a man now and you don't have to do all those crazy things and get into fist fights and all that. You don't have to prove anything; you're a man, and I love you.'

"But, you know, my dad never said that to me. We never hugged, we never kissed, we never said, 'I love you'; we never even cried together. So what happened was I was desperately seeking for someone who would say: 'You're grown up, Burt. I approve and love you, and you don't have to do those things anymore.'

"I was lost inside, I couldn't connect with life. I didn't know then what I needed to know."

Why do Burt Reynolds and so many other men long to hear their fathers say, "I love you"? I believe the answer is in Proverbs 17:6, which says, "The glory of sons is their fathers." The Hebrew root for "glory" is "weight." So you could translate the text as, "The weight of sons is their fathers."

In other words, when Dad provides his son substance for love, life and manhood, his son is weighted down. He's anchored. He has a mooring and an authentic reference point to guide and direct him in relationships.

If Dad is not that anchor, the son can drift into isolation, passivity, addictions, counterfeit masculinity and living without passion or purpose. That's where tens of millions of men and boys find themselves today. So a man's deepest wounds are not physical ones; they are wounds of the soul.

Many men try to mask them or even "medicate" them. But, as Robert Lewis writes: "Unaddressed wounds become unfinished business. We hedge, dodge and compensate until our whole way of living is shaped by the wounds we've ignored."
An absent, abusive or passive dad can mark a man for life. So how can we deal with a father wound? Here are four things you can do to begin healing your wounded soul.

First: Acknowledge the wound and your need for healing by your heavenly Father. You need to discover "the greater love of the Father" that no earthly father can give you. As incredibly important as an earthly father is, he is never the final answer to life. Remember, the perfect Father is our heavenly Father—the one whom we call Abba Father. He will never leave you or forsake you.

Second: When a man comes to understand that his wounding is often fueled by his dad's own brokenness, then he can begin to forgive him. A boy cries from his father wound, but a real man cries for his father's wound. My dad was emotionally and physically absent for almost my entire life. Before he died 16 years ago, I came to see his brokenness. As his health deteriorated, I saw his contrition and repentance as he reached out to me to say he was sorry. Seeing his brokenness enabled me to forgive him for the wound I long carried. Before drawing his last breath, he settled his accounts with my mother and the rest of the family and especially with the Lord. Because my dad died in faith, this one thing I now know for sure: my dad will be a bigger part of my future than he ever was of my past!

Third:  A man needs to build healthy relationships with healthy men who are not posers. These are brothers he can trust, with whom he can be honest and transparent, and who will cheer for him and affirm that he has what it takes.

Fourth: You can reclaim the relationship with your own kids that you never experienced growing up. Commit to not passing your wound to your children by accepting and pursuing your God-given responsibility to be the spiritual leader of your family. Every man leaves a legacy to his children. The question is whether you're living a legacy of the lavish, sacrificial and unconditional love of God the Father.

Dave Brown is the director of the Washington Area Coalition of Men's Ministries. Check them out at wacmm.org.

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