MLTF-GR-Wrap up

The speaker and Robert enjoyed their conversation with Graeme, who emphasized the importance of owning mistakes and apologizing to family members. They discussed the pressure parents can put on their children to fulfill their expectations and the need to trust in God's plan for their success. They also admired Graeme's graciousness in acknowledging both the good and bad aspects of his relationship with his father. They highlighted the value of seeking mentors who don't hold onto bitterness and making wise choices in response to challenges. The conversation encouraged fathers to grow in their role and offered support through "More Like the Father." Well, I don't know about you Robert, but I really enjoyed our time with Graeme. He's a very honest guy. He was vulnerable and fallible. What did you get out of the chat? Yeah Kim, I really enjoyed meeting Graeme and that conversation with him. There were a couple of really obvious takeaways for me and I guess the first of those is, what do we do with the disappointments that come in life? I loved that story that he talked about that the church that he grew up in where they said that the second coming was coming in 1998 and it was really interesting to me that he said that none of the leaders in that church stood up and said, sorry, we got it wrong. And so right at the very beginning when he was talking about his relationship with his daughters, I thought it was really interesting that Graeme said one of the things that he really values is that when he's messed up, he has no trouble saying to his wife or to his two daughters, I'm sorry, I think I got that wrong. And I think whether that was an intentional reaction to not having his leadership at church stand up and acknowledge that, but he's made that a really strong point of his relationship with his family. I think that's really important. So where that came from, I think he said quite often there are lots of sources for the way he behaves, but his fallibility, his willingness to own his own mistakes was great. We've both got older children. At what age did you start doing that with your kids? I imagine you were going to them and saying, hey, I'm not sure that was the right call. Did you remember doing that yourself? Yeah, absolutely. I'm not quite sure what age that was, but it's certainly less than 10. Yeah. We recognize we don't have all the answers and we do step up sometimes and we need to own that. I think that's really important. Because there is a thing where up until a certain age, daddy's superhero and we think that that's the best. And to be actually able to go to them and say, hey, I might have made a blue there and I'm really sorry. It's modeling asking for forgiveness, which is such a great thing. And then it becomes more evident as you get more adult children, older children, which are the discussions are deeper. You've really got sometimes just got to go, yeah, I'm not sure that I got that 100% correct. Yeah. And I think that's really important. And what else did you get from it? Another takeaway that I took from that was around the story about his dad wanting him to become a civil engineer. And the pressure that he put on him for that. And it wasn't out of malice or a bad place. I think the words that Graham said that his dad said, I wanted him to be safe in the world. And I think that is a temptation as parents. We can try to enforce our expectations on our kids, particularly around things like careers, etc. And I really like the idea of Abraham in Genesis 13, where he and Lot were both being so successful, they decided to go the different ways. And Abraham had this beautiful statement where he says to his nephew, Lot, if you go left, I'll go right. If you go right, I'll go left. And it was this whole sense of, I actually trust God to bless me if I go right or whether I go left. And my success is not tied up in choosing the best pasture. And similarly, our kids' success in life is not necessarily tied up in getting this one career that I want for them. But can we believe in a God that's big enough to bless them no matter which- Decision, which path they go down. Absolutely. That was so reassuring, right? Because we sometimes look at the weightiness of certain decisions with our kids and go, oh, if we don't get this school picked out correctly or we don't take them down this path, then we might have really stuffed up irreparably. You know, we need to give ourselves a little bit of slack there, perhaps. Yeah. Trust that God is big. Yeah, that's so true. And that he is in control. And so we saw that also when he came to his daughter who started the uni course and found that wasn't for her, that he kind of didn't put the pressure on her. He obviously taken the learning from his childhood and he was just cool and relaxed with her. And I really loved that. Yeah. What about you, Kim? What was some of the takeaways that you took from that conversation? Well, do you know what? For me, it was his graciousness. He was so gracious. Clearly, some of these interactions with his dad have not gone the way he wished or wanted, but he was able to still speak of his dad as a man that he got a lot of values for, you know, when he was talking about making the bed and his discipline. And I really admired that he was able to take the – it wasn't a binary, I think he said. There was that, you know, dad had some good stuff and some bad stuff. And I just thought that was such wisdom mixed in with such grace that he was able to say, yep, that wasn't perfect. Neither am I, but I'm going to march forward and do the best I can. Yeah. It was just so gracious given that I recognized that probably we only touched the surface on some of the hurts that had perhaps gone on there. I think one more thing that stood out for me was that when we talked about looking for mentors and people in different generations, Graham mentioned that he looked for people who didn't hold on to bitterness. And I think that is such great advice to not just look for people who are a little bit further on the journey than us and also potentially a little bit behind on the journey than us that we can help bring along on the path, but looking for people who don't hold on to bitterness. And back to the original observation, he shared that there were some people in his church who took that revelation that Jesus didn't come back in 1988 and took that as a callous to just leave the church. And so they took hold of that bitterness, whereas Graham said, you know, I realized that the church wasn't perfect and no churches are, so I was just going to find another one. And so what do you do with that? And so I think there's two issues of looking for people who don't hold on to bitterness. That's great. But also, you know, choosing how we react to these different things that come in our life that can have the possibility to take us off track, but to choose well at that point. Yeah. The interesting thing for me in that was that it was peers too. I often personally lament, I sometimes think, where are some older guys that I can look to? He, I think, was referring to a cohort of men peers that he hangs out with, goes to the pub with. Personally, in my journey, that has been really incredibly… So I guess you're looking for people perhaps with less, maybe it's not wisdom, but similar character sort of traits and not holding on to bitterness. That's an awesome character trait, right? Yeah. Well, that's been a, I think it's been a terrific conversation. I hope that you have also gained something out of this conversation that we've had with Graham. We'd like to support you as fathers and we'd like to see you grow as more like the father. So if you'd like to get in touch, we'll send some out some information in the prelude to this or down below. Why don't you check it out? Be in touch with us. We'd love to hear how more like the father is a blessing to you as you strive to be more like the father.