For most of us, the holidays are about reunions. For many of us, reunions are all about reconnecting with those people from our familial past, many of whom are irregular, most of whom are genuinely fun to be with. It’s a hot-mess of stew.

So, this Holiday Newsletter may surprise you when I write that it’s not about Christmas. No dinner, no night before Santa, no baby in a manger. It’s something very different, however it IS connected to the reason for the season. Hang with me and see how it affects you. I’ll let you determine what it’s about for your own life.

Let’s begin with the irregular people in your life. Among the many people who have burrowed their way through your defenses, think of the one person who’s known you quite a long time – and (if you were honest with yourself) you REALLY wish you hadn’t known at all.

Got ‘em in your sights?

Ok. Here’s mine: my dad. Better put, the guy who fathered me named Bill Mansfield. Let’s keep it away from “daddy issues” for a little bit and just examine a reunion between two guys named Bill and Dennis…

My bride, Susan, took a phone call and I could overhear her talking to someone. Apparently the caller wanted to stop by and stay a night or two at our house, on the way to a high school class reunion. Susan hung up, turned toward me and smiled, and said, “That was your dad.”

The following comes from my second published book, Finding Malone (available for purchase here). Here ya go:

Too hard to read?

Maybe for some.

Not for me. Not even to write.

That internal response was not really something that I naturally had; it was an unnatural response of deep emotional pain that had me. It owned me and had my pink-slip since I was a young boy. I’ll explain what I did in a moment, but right now, let’s shift to you and the “Bill” of your life.

Who is that person?

Stop and seriously ask yourself who that one person is – the one who IS the ghost in your machine.

Deep pain? Ignoring your value? Reducing you to an unwanted little kid? Are you captured by an assailant who kidnapped you long ago?

Not everyone is, but many are kidnapped in one form or another.

Write the kidnapper’s name down. Now.

Then, take a deep breath. I mean a DEEP breath, during these days of holly and carols. And start a process with me. Stay with me…

Close your eyes and imagine them as how they are now – old, retired, dead (?), alone, lonely.

Trust me, people who intentionally hurt people do NOT live golden lives during the sunset shadows of their final days. They tend to keep drinking poison that never quite benefits their victims by aiding in the mutually desired suicide of their careers, families and maybe even their own lives.

And in a sense, I can almost hear you thinking out loud: “I hope so. I hope their lives are as tattered and torn as they tried to make mine.”

If that’s where your mind went, allow me to firmly grab both of your shoulders and look you in the face. Hear my words: “Stop drinking this poison, hoping that the other guy WILL die, because YOU are the one who is dying.”

Three things that will aid you in the resuscitation of your past (and your current life) during this holiday season of reunions, by embracing these three points:

1. The people who hurt you are deeply broken individuals. Hurting people hurt people. You were just a kid within arm’s reach, an awkward teen, a terrified spouse or an employee for them to disrespect.
2. They haven’t thought about you for years, if ever. You were a disposable human being in their eyes – and their deep painful and broken lives were actually focused on themselves, being full of self-loathing. It had nothing to do with you.
3. You can be free TODAY of their tethers and their ownership of you. You can regain your pink-slip when it comes to that person. You can lay them to rest NOW.

Hurting people hurt people.

In the case of Bill Mansfield, he most likely entered the world as an undesired pregnancy of a teen mom and a truck-driver dad. They got married and apparently amended the marriage certificate so that years later no one would see the math. It didn’t work. Billy became the kid always striving for attention – and there was none. He finally entered the military and served in the last days of WWII, the Korean War and in the first days of Vietnam for recognition – and there was never enough. He retired from the military at 38 years of age – the age I was, when he called my wife to stay at our house on his way to his 50th class reunion – he was at the age I am today as I write this newsletter. And this year, I’m on my way to my own 50th high school class reunion.

What would happen to me in the ensuing years between his 50th and my 50th? Stick around, I’ll show you…

His anger was always vitriolic. He had seven kids by birth and two by adoption. As kids we all hated him, all the while wishing we could love him. Yet, hurting people hurt people.

My book, Finding Malone, deals with the stark reality of my sips at the lip of that poison cup. Hurting people hurt people.

It had nothing to do with you.

Reading those words may seem somewhat trite to you. Bear with me. When someone owns a pink-slip they can damage the engine, destroy its beauty and sell it cheaply. You have worth and no one has a right to mistreat you. A particular carol during this session of Christ’s birth has a penetrating line: “He appeared and the soul felt its worth.”

Your value is already set. The issue is in becoming aware of how valuable we are to the Lord. And when he appears in our life, our own soul feels its worth.

That incredible epiphany comes from the Lord to our spirit and then and only then to our mind. It’s a good and healthy cleaning of our brain, a washing of our past.

The indiscriminate injuries and damages you incurred had nothing to do with you

Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we are free at last.

MLK’s ending comment of his “I Have a Dream” speech is the beginning comment of you and me when we realize that the only way to be free is to choose not to be in bondage to those who have hurt us.

It’s a matter of honor. We each have the capacity to choose to give tribute to those around us.

Susan and I went to a marriage conference. After it, someone showed me a book by Dennis Rainey that captured what we learned at the conference. The concept of extending a tribute to my dad changed my life. I write in Finding Malone about what my bride asked me to do:

Susan then said to me in a loving, tender voice, “It doesn’t have to be this way about your dad. You can overcome the years of hatred you hold for your dad. You may not believe me but there is a way, I’m telling you upfront that my way doesn’t seem to make sense at first… but it will work.”

She had my attention.

“Go on…” I almost inaudibly said.

“Den, do you remember when my mom turned 50? I had been reading a book by Dennis Rainey. Its title is “The Tribute”. In it he writes of coming to grips with the folks who most love us and who most hurt us…family members may fill both those slots… most often our fathers and mothers. Then in the book he suggests writing them a formal letter – a tribute of sorts. You know my mom and I always had a great friendship; I realized that I needed to honor her for all the things she did that were right. Remember? And I wrote that one-page tribute to her and read it out loud at her party.”

I was sort of sideswiped. Yes, I fully remembered the wonderful tribute that Susan had written and then read to her mother at an event, a few years before. It was beautiful. Susan loved her mom deeply. They had a deeply fun friendship, full of laughter and respect.

A letter to people like that made sense to me.

But to my dad? Writing such a letter made no sense. None at all. Write a tender, compassionate tribute to a man that I wished I have never known, let alone wished had never been my father? I was stunned to silence until like a volcanic eruption I stood up and convulsively blurted into her face: “What are you crazy?”

Silence met me in return.

Susan would not back down, “It’s easy to love the ones who love you, Den. We all do that. Yeah, I am blessed to have a mom whom I love. But that’s not the point. It’s no mistake that your dad was your dad. God didn’t do right by me and then blow it with you. He knew you would be Bill Mansfield’s son and He’s waiting on you to wake up and realize it.”

I slumped over the back of the overstuffed sofa chair. My passive response fueled her strength to go on. She picked up a yellow pad and a pen. “Take this pen and paper and go into our bedroom, kneel down and ask God to show you what to write – write a tribute to your dad – for your sake, if not for his! It is time to be set free from the handcuffs of hatred, Den.”

At first, I stood there unmoved.

Then, I slowly turned in response and stretched out to my full six-foot stature, grabbed the tools of this foolish exercise from her and looked at all five feet three inches of my then-38-year-old wife. “Ok, great…I’ll do this stupid little thing for you, but realize this – that I’ll only be able to write something like ‘Thanks for not killing me when you beat the hell out of me as a kid. Thanks for teaching me the power of hating people.’ This thing you are asking me to do is an effort in futility. It’s going to take me hours – watch and see.” I walked into our bedroom with the almost-expected thud-thud-thud of a man headed to his own execution.

I slammed the door, placed the yellow pad on bedspread and then slowly knelt down to pray.

Clasping my hands together, in a whisper I prayed a desperate prayer “God what is this, a cosmic joke? I hate that man. I hate everything about him. There is nothing I have that’s a good memory of him, nor any attribute from my father that is good. Nothing.”

Then there was silence.

But not for too long.

I heard God’s voice say to my spirit. “Nothing?”

I was more than a bit surprised. I wondered if I should even answer.

“Lord is that you?”

“Nothing?” He replied. “Really?”

I’d never had this happen in the 15 or so years that I’d been a Christian. I’d heard others say that the Lord “speaks” to them… but that always happened to other people, not me. Normally I’d read about it in books or heard third-party stories at some overly dramatic church service somewhere.

However, I was in my house, my bedroom, hearing God’s voice ask me two one-word questions.

“Nothing?”

“Really?”

I knew it was He because there was no way I would have posed those questions to myself. I KNEW my dad. I KNEW what he had failed to do. I KNEW there was nothing of any value that he had imparted to me. No gift, no attribute.

What I apparently didn’t KNOW was that God was asking me two profoundly simple questions.

Nothing? Really? I repeated to myself and was sure it wasn't me asking the questions.

This jarred me.

I picked up an ink pen and woodenly placed the tip of the ballpoint pen on the first line of the lined yellow page.

What happened next was remarkable, even after all these years.

The pen in my right hand began to move.

I could feel my finger muscles holding the pen. I could see the initial movement of the very normal blue ink pen move in such a very abnormal fashion across a yellow page. A word appeared. Then another. It became a list of words.

I was seeing my hand write the words; more than that I was acknowledging the words on the list as true. “Movies. BBQ. Leadership.” On and on the words rolled… out from under the obedient placement of pen on paper.

I slowly became an active participant. I thought of other words, placed them on the growing list. I wrote full sentences and connected some dots. I saw a picture appear before my eyes of the many things that my father had done with me and for me.

And before I could count the minutes that I had invested – for somehow time had changed course and was no longer dependent on the arms of the nearby clock – I was finished.

I stood up from the side of the bed where I had been kneeling and as I walked through the bedroom doorway, I was like a man who had witnessed an angelic visitation. But my name wasn’t George Bailey and there was no angel named Clarence.

I had witnessed, first-hand, the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

I looked like it, too.

Susan saw me exit out of our bedroom and walked over to me as if to ask me if I was either in need of something else from her to complete the task OR whether I had given up on even attempting it – for it had only been a few minutes.

Then she looked at my face.

She saw in my facial features that something else had happened. I simply extended my left arm and held out the yellow pad for her - as a deaf man would. I had no words. She received back the pad, now with the writing on it, she walked over to that same sofa couch to plop into it, as I had earlier done.

She read the words I had written.

Then Susan slowly looked up and with surprise in her eyes, said “This is beautiful, Den. Beautiful.” I can’t wait for you to read this to your dad when he gets here.“

At dinner that evening, I asked everyone to listen to me before we served up the BBQ meal. All eyes came my way. My dad focused on me, as I slowly picked up the tribute that I had written. I placed it directly in front of my line of sight to my dad. I read it out loud. When I completed it, I was afraid of what I’d see as I lowered the framed tribute to the table. To my surprise, Bill Mansfield was not in his chair at the dinner table. He had risen and was suddenly next to me. He hugged me and kissed me. I hugged him back. He began apologizing to me for things I hadn’t even remembered him doing to me as a child - but he remembered! Then a major thing happened. Something in the Heavens broke free for me, and for him. I felt a deep love for him. And he for me. It was utterly breath-taking. And for the final 17 years of his life he and I became best friends.

My story is not your story, but the journey of honor and paying tribute remains the same.

You can do it too. It’s up to you.

Let this season of reunions be a time of personal health for you.

Your soul will indeed feel its worth.

More later.
Den

Den's Latest & Greatest

• With the 10th Anniversary of the publishing of Finding Malone, here’s a CBS interview that came out a decade ago.
• Check out this radio interview between Dennis Rainey and me regarding my first book, Beautiful Nate.
• Please download the ebook version of Finding Malone here.