CHAPTER 12
Seven Situations Where You Will Need a Word Picture
MARV LEVY was the longtime coach of the National Football League’s Buffalo Bills. Many know him as the only coach in NFL history to have lost four Super Bowls. But dig into the man a bit more and you’ll find there’s a lot more there than just football.
Levy graduated magna cum laude from Coe College, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa (the nation’s most prestigious honor society). He was twice voted student council president. He earned varsity letters in football, track, and basketball. He served in World War II in the Army Air Corps. He came back from the war and got a master’s degree in history from Harvard. He’s a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In other words, he’s a real renaissance man, someone whose knowledge and experience give him an apt word for just about any situation.
A reporter once asked Coach Levy one of those “roll your eyes” questions: “So how important is your backup quarterback this year?”
Levy didn’t say, “Next question?” Instead his response was classic: “A backup quarterback is like a parachute. You don’t need one until you need one. And then you really need one.”
Likewise, we’re going to describe seven situations that, like it or not, are most likely waiting down the road for you, as surely as a roadside radar gun. These are times when you’ll really need a word picture. And you’ll be ready.
Situation One: There will come a day when someone does something that causes you to fear.
Have you ever wondered why it’s so easy for children to admit their fear? A storm rolls in at two a.m., and the next thing you know, a little head is right next to your side of the bed, saying, “I’m scared.” A dog barks, a spider bungee jumps from the ceiling, or a snake slithers out of the grass. The response is instant and unfiltered. “I don’t care what you’re doing or thinking about right now,” they seem to say, “but at this moment, the most important thing in your life is I am freaking out!”
Children do that because they know sharing how they feel is safe. They’re not worried Mom or Dad is going to get all over them for overreacting or being irrational —at least, they shouldn’t be. Like God Himself, parents are supposed to be a strong tower their children can run to and be safe (Proverbs 18:10). No questions asked. “The tower door is always open.”
Sadly, as we grow older, we learn “safe” people aren’t always that way. A parent fails. A friend or spouse betrays. A coworker plagiarizes. An employee steals. So we shut down and tell fear to stop barking and just sit there like a good boy. No one has to know. “I’ll make it through this.”
That’s great if you’re an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. But in the real world, we’re all afraid. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Congressional Medal of Honor winner or a new mom wondering how you’re going to care for your firstborn. There are things that stop us in our tracks and make our hearts pound like a bass drum.
People around us should know that. It’s part of “knowing and being known,” which is an integral part of deep, growing relationships. We need to help them connect not just with the fact of our fear, but also with the raw emotion of it.
Tom and Lisa were a little on edge. Their oldest, Ben, had just gotten his driver’s license. He’d asked for the car to go out with his friends that night.
He knew the rules. No drinking. No speeding. No more than two people in the car with him. “Home by eleven thirty, and always have your phone with you, on, and the ringer turned up. We promise not to call unless something comes up and we need to get in touch with you. You know you can call us anytime, no matter what.”
At eleven twenty-five, no Ben. Eleven forty —the car coming down the street was just a neighbor. They called at eleven fifty, no answer. Ditto for midnight. Nerves started to fray. A siren in the distance didn’t help. Lisa became convinced Ben was clinging to life in a ditch somewhere, calling for her with his dying breath. Tom was worried too —and he was also wrestling with a bit of anger.
At twelve thirty, Ben finally showed up. His phone had died. But now there was enough emotion running through his parents to power a nuclear submarine. They realized it wasn’t the time to get into it, however, so they told him they love him, and everyone went off to bed.
The next morning, Ben stumbled downstairs, grabbed some milk out of the fridge, and started texting while he and Cap’n Crunch did some catching up. A few minutes later, Tom and Lisa walked in.
“Ben, about last night,” his father said.
“I know, Dad,” Ben replied, “phone and curfew and all that. Listen, I’m sorry. No big deal, right? I got home safe. All’s well that ends well and all that stuff. It won’t happen again.”
“Good. Glad to hear it,” Tom said. “But it was a big deal, and it’s important you know why.” Suddenly, the captain had lost his crunch.
“I want you to imagine something with us. You and Jessica [Ben’s girlfriend] want to drive up to the Grand Canyon for the day. A couple Jessica knows wants to go along. You don’t know them that well, and the guy seems a little creepy, but you want to spend time with Jessica, so hey, whatever it takes for the two of you to be together.
“You get up early, grab a bite at Starbucks, and you’re at the South Rim by eleven. You knock around for a while, then you and Jessica start taking selfies with a good shot of the canyon in the background. You’re having a hard time getting the shot, so the guy offers to take the picture for you. He keeps telling you to back up farther, closer to the rim. You know it’s right there, but hey, he’s not going to let you get too close, right? He frames the shot and tells you one more step should do it.
“Without looking, Jess steps back, ahead of you, and suddenly all you hear is a piercing scream. She’s stumbled and gone over the edge. After a few seconds of disbelief, you’re on your stomach, peering over the edge. She’s fallen about 30 feet to a ledge that’s 18 inches wide. Eighteen inches between her and a 1,500-foot drop. Her arm looks broken. She’s crying and says she can’t feel her legs. People are screaming and freaking out. And you’re scared out of your mind.”
Tom let the words sink in. “That was your mom and me last night, son. We didn’t know where you were or what might have happened. We were peering over the edge of the canyon, scared out of our gourds that something had gone wrong and we might lose you. Do you understand how tough that was for us?”
Ben hung his head and said, “Yeah, Dad. I get it. I’m sorry. Sorry, Mom.”
“That’s okay, honey,” Lisa said. “But that needs to be the last time, okay?”
Word pictures such as that one are like the leftover images you see when you look into a camera flash. The light’s gone, but the image remains floating in mid-air. By syncing their experience with Ben’s emotions, Tom and Lisa left a flash image in Ben’s emotional eyesight. True, he’s a teenager and there’s no guarantee he won’t ignore house rules again. But when the temptation hits, Tom and Lisa can pray God will flash that image into HD again, making it harder for him to dismiss Mom and Dad’s guidance.
Situation Two: There will come a time when you need to express “righteous indignation.”
It’s okay to be angry. That’s coming from a pastor and a counselor. In fact, it comes from Almighty God Himself. “Be angry,” God says. “And” —and here’s the important caveat —“do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26, ESV).
In The Message version, that verse reads (and remember, this is the God who created you saying this), “Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry —but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life” (verses 26-27).
When you see eight people run over and stabbed to death near London Bridge by Islamic terrorists —it’s okay to be angry. That attack is sin. It’s wrong. God Himself was righteously indignant at money changers in the temple and hypocritical religious leaders who misguide their followers. It’s understandable to be angry at terrorists who kill women and children and anyone because of a twisted ideology. But anger is like starting a fire inside your house. It should be rarely indulged. And if it ignites, it should be extinguished. And soon. Or it can consume you and the whole house.
So, with that clear restriction in mind, it’s okay if you get really upset sometimes when someone does something to you.
In most cases in personal relationships, anger is about blocked goals. A person or situation hinders something we want to accomplish —when we want it to happen —and we get angry. (If you’re angry about a more-serious offense, like abuse or infidelity, you may need to seek counseling or other professional help.)
Injustice in society can arouse anger that moves us to action. And a wrong suffered in a relationship can motivate us to fix the problem so we don’t have to deal with it again.
Some anger, obviously, is misplaced and isn’t good. Is it really the other driver’s fault we left too late and won’t make the appointment in time? Is it reasonable to be angry with a waitress working double the usual number of tables because one of her coworkers didn’t show up? Does our goal of watching the ball game uninterrupted justify our irritation at being asked by our teenager to help with homework?
But if our anger is justified, the next step is to determine how to communicate it in a way that solves the problem and deepens the relationship.
The goal isn’t to attack the other person. The goal is to raise the issue, help the other person understand where we’re coming from, and seek a solution that keeps it from being an issue again.
That means keeping a couple of things in mind. First, remember that just as there are two sides to love, so also there are two sides to anger. One is the emotional side, the other is the factual. Too often, our temptation is to believe that if we express the emotion, we’ve gotten it out of our system and solved the problem. The other person knows how angry I am. He won’t do that again. That’s that. But that puts pressure on the other person to operate from fear —and that’s not how God wants us living with each other. “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18, ESV).
On the other hand, the factual side deals with the issue —and solving that brings lasting resolution and peace.
So how do you do it?
First, give the emotion a chance to subside. Proverbs 16:32 says, “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.” Count to 10, take a walk, exercise, give it to God, and get some sleep before you respond. In short, give yourself a chance to settle down and ask, “Am I justified in this? What goal is being blocked? Is that legitimate?” If you’re struggling to figure that out, ask God for wisdom, which He promises to give “generously and without reproach” (James 1:5).
That said, never make the mistake of thinking that when the emotion subsides, the anger is gone. It isn’t. It just goes subterranean, sneaking along under the surface until another opportunity comes that gives it a chance to double down and come back stronger than ever. That’s why God tells us not to let the sun go down on our anger. In other words, don’t let it fester. Be intentional about solving the issue. Otherwise, as we read earlier, Satan gets a free pass to wreck our relationships (see Ephesians 4:26-27).
And —you guessed it —really dealing with feeling angry means you need to talk to the other person about what happened. It’s like actually attending to that warning light in your car instead of just saying, “That doesn’t really matter.”
A word picture that captures how you feel, even when what you feel or felt was anger, can open the door for resolution. Consider how it worked for Margie and her sister.
Margie and her younger sister, Shari, weren’t particularly close. Margie never measured up to Shari’s good looks, talent, and grades in school. Unfortunately, her parents not only took sides, but they even rented rooms on Shari’s side. More than a few days rarely went by without a dig or a cheap shot at Margie and what she lacked in comparison to her sister.
It didn’t help that Margie couldn’t remember even one time when Shari stood up for her with their parents. She resented Shari —but also, deep down, admired her. And loved her. And wished that somehow, she could gain Shari’s love, respect, and acceptance.
Then the girls’ parents died.
True to form, their parents had named Shari executor of their estate. There was some quibbling over who got what furniture and keepsakes from the house. As usual, Shari got what she wanted. And with the exception of a few things Margie wanted that Shari didn’t, Shari came away with more stuff.
Two months after the estate settled, Margie found out that in addition to the executor’s fee stipulated by the settlement paperwork, Shari awarded herself an additional $10,000 for “additional work commensurate with the demands of serving faithfully as executor.”
Margie was furious. Shari and her husband made a wonderful living. Margie and her husband, on the other hand, struggled to make ends meet and had two kids heading toward college and a third who needed $600 in athletic gear because he made the hockey travel team.
Mix money together with a near lifetime of hurt and pain and you have a recipe for anger —at her sister and at herself. At her dead parents for creating such a mess. At God. At the cat. Anger is like that fire that moves from room to room.
Margie had something going for her, however: She was in love with Jesus. And ever since college, where she came to Christ, she had really, truly, experienced God’s love. If someone had asked her to answer the question, “Did you get your parents’ and sister’s blessing?” she would have dropped her head and not answered. But she knew Jesus loved her. Died for her! Walked beside her, no matter if her parents’ and sister’s love seemed, at best, uncertain.
And Margie had a husband who worked hard to provide for his family and wasn’t concerned if others made more money. His goal was to love his family, Lord, and others well, and that included Margie. Throw in the fact that Margie had great kids and three dogs that were crazy about her. All that tempered the desire to lash back.
Yet Margie knew she had to say something.
And having read the earlier version of this book, she decided she really needed a word picture. She struggled to come up with one until the Lord reminded her of something that happened when Shari and she were teenagers.
She called Shari and asked if she could see her. They met for coffee a few days later. After circling the field for a few minutes with awkward small talk about how the kids were doing and summer plans, Margie came in for a landing.
“Shari,” she began, “remember Tim Hastings?” Shari’s face grew sullen. “As long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever forget how devastated you were at how he treated you. Mom always said that if ever a girl had a crush on a boy, yours was the one to end them all.
“Shari, you may not know this, but I saw you in your room one day pretending he had just asked you to marry him.”
A faint, sad smile crept across Shari’s face.
“All you could talk about was how wonderful he was, how noble and trustworthy he was, and how he constantly told you he loved you. You bragged to us about how any girl at school would fall over backward to be on his arm —and that he chose you above everyone else.
“Then you found out the truth. That he wasn’t who he said he was. Again, I don’t think I’ll ever forget how hard you cried. How much that hurt.”
“Well, thanks for that walk down memory lane, sister,” Shari said, exchanging the sadness Margie had tapped into with anger at her sister for bringing back those memories. “So, what does that have to do with anything?”
“That’s how I feel, Shari.
“The lawyer called for Mom and Dad’s estate, and I learned a few days ago that you awarded yourself another $10,000 from the estate. I love you, Shari. But I’m angry, and I believe I have a right to be.
“Tim took from you, and it hurt. I feel like you took something from me and my family that isn’t just money. It’s trust. And honesty.
“Shari, if you really need that money, then it’s yours. But we need to talk about it. I need to find out why.
“I want to fix this, Shari. I’m angry, yes, but more than that, I want to fix this. I want to fix us. Please work with me to do that.”
For the first time in years, Margie and her sister talked. Shari apologized, and the floodgates opened. It was the best conversation they ever had. Sure, there’s still work to do, and that will take time. But the road to a deeper relationship began to open with a word picture. And a check from her sister for $5,000 in the mail a few days later helped Margie as well.
Situation Three: You will need a word picture someday to help someone who’s hurting.
We live in a “Just Do It” society that wants us to believe we can power up and power through anything. Everywhere we turn, we’re getting the not-so-subtle message we can be our best all the time. The new version of us is within reach, and all we have to do is will it to happen and it will happen.
But there are things we can’t explain away. There are times when we watch someone lose something —or someone —and it’s not going to be fixed.
Sadness comes to someone we love. Perhaps depression stops by for a visit. Lack of joy slimes in and just sits there like a slug. And we can’t just explain it away or pretend it didn’t happen.
Even David, the great king of Israel, knew what that was like:
“Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses. Look upon my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins” (Psalm 25:16-18).
I (John) have a friend who went through some very deep waters. While there are always two sides to a story, his actions ruined his family and ended his marriage. And he was a broken, grieving wreck —not just for a few weeks, but for many years. Lonely. Empty. Years.
Then the day came when I happened to be in Chicago. And someone gave me tickets to a Cubs game. I had never been to Wrigley Field. Turned out, my friend who had been hurting for so long —and lived in Chicago at the time —hadn’t been to a Cub’s game either.
We sat on the first-base side, 10 rows up and right behind the Cubs’ dugout. It was one of the most beautiful, historic sites in all of baseball. And the only reason I had received the tickets was that the weatherman said there was a 90 percent chance of rain. Yet we sat the whole game in beautiful sunlight.
This was a few years before the Cubbies won an incredible World Series in 2016. Yet we sat in a sold-out stadium full of blue-clad fans —and their team had failed to win the Series every year for 106 years.
But it didn’t matter to them, even on that day when the Cubs would lose . . . yet again . . . giving up four runs in the top of the ninth.
The Cubs fans still cheered. Some sang the Cubbie song at the end. There would be next game. And next year.
That’s the word picture I talked to my friend about all during that game. There is nothing like a baseball game’s snail pace (punctuated by a few seconds of action every few innings) to really provide an opportunity to talk.
I asked him to look around. To realize that people —lots of them —hadn’t given up on the Cubs. I reminded him that people who loved him hadn’t given up on him. That God hadn’t given up on him. Still loved him. Had a special future for him.
I said that someday, the Cubs might even make it to the World Series again. And that God was going to do the same thing with him. Give him hope. Lift the guilt. Bring home to him the forgiveness that Jesus has already granted. Free him to move forward with his life.
In other words, the whole game was a nine-inning, three-hour-and-14-minute word picture he couldn’t miss.
And two years later —the year the Cubs did win after 108 years —I had the honor of standing up for my friend at his wedding. Two broken, imperfect, restored, forgiven, beautiful examples of God’s redeeming love and restoration joined their lives into one that day.
Look for those times, those situations. The word pictures are right there to help you help someone else realize they have a hope and a future in Christ —that they need to keep pitching. Keep swinging. That it’s okay to laugh, cheer, and move forward in life.
Situation Four: There will be someone who doesn’t need a plaque but a word picture to know he or she is incredibly valuable to you.
While on the surface this may seem like a no-brainer, remember we live in a negative world that does a great job of communicating to people that they’re worthless and broken.
Neuroscience is unmasking how terribly damaging negative words can be. For example, in the outstanding book The God-Shaped Brain, Dr. Tim Jennings, a Christian psychiatrist, talks about how negative words and actions can affect people (especially children) at the cellular level: “Children exposed to adverse psychosocial experiences have enduring emotional, immune, and metabolic abnormalities that contribute to their elevated risk for age-related disease.”[49]
But just the opposite is true as well. Researchers are finding a powerful correlation between positive messaging and everything from better health choices[50] to an increased sense of well-being and the likelihood of making good choices.[51] That shouldn’t surprise us.
Solomon affirmed it 3,000 years ago when he said, “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” (Proverbs 16:24), and “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Proverbs 25:11, ESV).
And yes, a word picture can be a way of praising and encouraging someone that stays on the refrigerator for 35 years.
I (John) get the great honor of speaking at conferences to men and women in our armed forces all over the world. Sometimes it’s “post-deployment” events, bringing our warriors and their spouses back together after a year or more of being apart. Other times I’m speaking to deployed troops on how to keep a relationship strong at a distance. But that also means that if I’m not careful, I can travel the world and try to help everyone else’s family . . . and miss out on blessing or being there for my own.
I have worked hard not to be “that guy” who talks about the blessing but, if others talked to his family, they’d hear a different story. That doesn’t mean I always get things right. But one day, just before a several-day trip to Germany to encourage some military families, I did something that has left a 35-year-long impact on Cindy. Our refrigerator proves it.
I was playing in the yard with Kari and Laura the evening before I headed overseas. And I was thinking and praying about a way —a word picture —that I could leave with Cindy to say thank you. For her love and support, but also for the way she was helping those military families by holding together everything at home when I flew overseas.
And then Laura, our younger girl, ran over and handed me just what I was looking for.
A clothespin.
Now, if you were born in the last 40 years, you may never have seen one of these. It used to be, before clothes dryers, that you would hang clothes on a clothesline. And if it didn’t rain, and if there wasn’t a dust storm so that you had to re-wash everything, that’s how your clothes dried. The clothespins were what kept the clothes on the clothesline instead of letting the wind blow them onto the ground.
We didn’t have a clothesline. So, obviously, this clothespin had been in the rocks or yard for years before Laura dug or kicked it up. It was old. Really old. The metal was all rusted. The wood was bleached almost white and was cracking. But it was perfect.
Cindy called us to come in for dinner, and as we all raced to the back door, I pulled my wife outside for a brief moment, just the two of us.
“Hey, I wanted you to have something,” I said, taking her hand and putting the clothespin in her palm. “Cindy, this represents just one thing that I am so grateful about for who you are. Especially with my taking off tomorrow morning early.”
“Super,” Cindy said, obviously not as enthused about what I had handed her as I was. “I’m old. I’m breaking down. I’m rusted out . . .”
“No, wait!” I said. “I know it’s not new. But hang on a second. One of the things I love so much about you is that whenever I have to head out on a trip, you do such an incredible job of holding everything together here at home.
“I never worry about you and the kids not doing well. About you being unable to handle whatever comes up. I know you get a ‘vote’ on any conference I do, and that you voted yes for me to head to Germany. But while I’m gone, I just want you to know that you’re a solid gold clothespin.”
And I gave her a kiss.
Fast forward five days, and I’m back home.
And guess what Cindy had done?
She had taken that old clothespin and painted it white. Painted a small red heart on it. And glued a magnet to the back. And guess where it is, still today, after 35 years? Right where everything goes that is most important in our family. On the refrigerator.
Everyone else walks by and sees a clothespin holding a picture or note and thinks, Something cool the kids did for Cindy. But it’s really something that says to her, I’m a clothespin. I’m really good at holding everything together when John goes out for our family and ministry to encourage others.
At a cellular level, I want Cindy to know every day that I’m grateful for her. But some word pictures keep saying that over and over.
Situation Five: You will need a word picture to help someone who needs courage and confidence.
A close cousin to society’s negativity is the assault on our confidence and courage. We face a daily barrage of messaging that leaves us feeling inferior and inept. We see athletes and models, and yeah, they’re chiseled and beautiful —and we’re not. We see late-model cars and new model homes we can’t afford —and we’re just not good enough.
Unfortunately, Christians aren’t immune. Yes, our image should be grounded in who we are in Christ, in the self-image He secured on the cross, in knowing He sees us as the Father sees Him. But too often we hand that off to the TV ad, blog, or web page, and there we sit, looking at what we are not and never can be.
For many, that has bred a crisis of self-confidence —not the fake professional wrestling stuff that uses fear and intimidation to convince others you’re something you’re not. I’m talking about the gentle yet powerful confidence from the Lord that “I am who I am in Him,” and “I’m capable of doing anything He calls me to through His power and presence with me.” It’s the kind of confidence that says, “I don’t need to be perfect because He is —and whatever I lack, He can more than make up for.”
Take Joshua, for example, who had to take over for “the guy” (Moses) and needed some confidence in his new job of leading God’s people. The Lord did a number of things to encourage him.
He told Joshua, flat out, “Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).
But did you know the Lord also gave him a word picture that would stand for years as a place he, and every family in Israel, could come back to for encouragement when times got tough?
It happened just before Joshua’s big day of leading the people out of the desert wilderness after 40 years of wandering and having them cross into the Promised Land.
When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, “Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man, and command them, saying, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests’ feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.’”
JOSHUA 4:1-3, ESV
This is one of the most amazing scenes in all the Bible. The priests and Joshua have everyone line up. The Jordan River is huge and, at that time of year, at flood stage. And yet with every step they take, the waters on both sides of them part! Now everyone behind them crosses on dry land. And when they’re all on the Promised Land side of the river, one person from each tribe runs back and picks out a big rock from what was dead center of the river.
Those water-covered stones are carried back. With each step Joshua and the priests take, the water falls back into the river behind them. And the stones are piled up to make a “memorial marker.”
Why? The Lord was giving His people a great word picture that they could come back to —and in this case, literally touch —when times got tough in their new land:
Let this be a sign among you, so that when your children ask later, saying, “What do those stones mean to you?” then you shall say to them, “Because the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.” So these stones shall become a memorial to the sons of Israel forever.
JOSHUA 4:6-7
You don’t have to pick a rock. But your word picture can be a great tool for bringing courage and confidence to someone who needs it.
Situation Six: You will need a word picture to help someone know that someone knows where he or she is coming from.
Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion is a provocative, outstanding book. It’s perfect for today’s world in which people think the problem with empathy is that we don’t have enough of it. Author and Yale researcher Paul Bloom shows how pity-based, emotional, “doing for those poor people” thinking can harm, not help, hurting people.
What he argues for, and what I (John) believe is biblically empowering instead of emotionally discouraging, is to be compassionate. Meaning, we “come near” someone who is hurt. We don’t give them sympathy that leaves them feeling down. Instead, we move in and help them get up and move forward, with God’s help.
Every so often, God gives us a heart of compassion for someone, and we want them to know we get what they’re going through.
I have a good friend with a ministry to sick children —in particular, children who have lost a limb because of illness or accident. He’s been trained as a hospital chaplain, but he doesn’t do much talking. He just walks into their rooms. Sits with them. And over time, the questions come. The tears often come. The prayers and hugs come.
That’s because he does two things.
First, he carries an object into the room. He didn’t have to do much searching to come up with this “word picture” based on what life is like for him now. It’s an early version of his prosthetic arm, with a hinge at the elbow and a ceramic hand on the end. It isn’t as “cool” as his current high-tech arm. But it was part of his new normal when he lost an arm in an IED attack as a soldier in Iraq.
The second thing he does is just sit with the kids. And as he does, his metal leg and prosthetic arm are more than a word picture. They’re a picture of the fact that he lost something just as they did.
He’s not there to pity them. To make them feel they’re “special” because they’re broken. It sucks and it’s sad that something that personal, that everyday, is missing. But they, as people, are not missing. And his ministry is beyond helpful to young adults and children who think their future is over.
For most of us, word pictures can and will be actual words that bring encouragement or “rational compassion.” But sometimes word pictures are human pictures of heroism and sacrifice as well.
Situation Seven: You will need a word picture one day to reframe something tough into something God helped you through.
I (John) have mentioned several times that I grew up in a single-parent home. Not knowing Christ, and being filled with so much anger, I used to hate my father. Then I became a Christian and just intensely disliked him. But after I really came to know and love Jesus, I realized I needed to forgive him as Jesus had forgiven me.
That wasn’t easy. I wrote a whole book about it, Choosing to Live the Blessing. I described the choice I had to make to embrace Jesus’ love and put aside the anger. To “reframe” the trials into the kind of thing Joseph could say, even after being sold into slavery by his brothers: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good . . .” (Genesis 50:20).
For me, that came from going to my father and asking him to forgive me for being so angry with him, for so long. I got a predictable unsatisfying response of, “Well, if you need that, that’s fine.” Nonetheless, I walked away from the table without those angry, emotional leg-weights I’d carried for so long draining my energy any more.
“Reframing” or moving forward also came with a word picture I made for my girls but actually ended up helping me tremendously.
I was trying to help our young daughters come to grips with the fact that their grandfather, my father, never visited. Wouldn’t visit. If the truth be known, he didn’t even know Laura’s name.
I had long since been tremendously helped by learning about the terrible trials he went through as a combat infantryman in the Pacific in World War II. He came home trying to drink away all the pain and anger, and he simply never could.
But there was so much I didn’t know. And amazingly, the War Department helped me a great deal. That’s because military records are public domain, at least from that far back. I wrote and was able to get an incredible amount of information. I went to the National Archives. I saw pay stubs, enlistment documents, and after-action reports. Tragically, many records were lost in a fire. But there were his Silver Star citation and his Unit Bronze Star citation.
I took all the service ribbons he came home with (he was throwing out his uniform, and I grabbed it), and, as I write this, I’m staring at a shadowbox holding all his ribbons, his three Purple Hearts, his medals for heroism, and his blue combat infantryman’s badge for close combat in war.
It’s beautiful. And I had it made so I could put it up above the piano when the girls started taking lessons. I told them that anytime they wanted, they could look up and see all the heroic things their grandfather did in serving our country and fighting for his fellow soldiers.
It hangs on the wall in my office now. And, to me, it’s a word picture from his life that helps me “Honor your father,” as Scripture tells us to do (Deuteronomy 5:16).
That shadowbox helped me reframe, or move forward, from anger to trying to love and even give to my father the blessing he didn’t get from his father.
Now let me give you one last example of how the hard work of dealing with difficult times and situations can be reframed and celebrated with a word picture.
I worked with a couple where the husband had been married and divorced twice as a young man. Then he moved across country, started going to church for the first time, and came to Christ. For the next eight years, he worked on who he was and growing in the Lord.
That ninth year after he’d moved away from his past hurts, he finally started dating again. And in year 10, he got married to a wonderful young lady in our church. But he had never told her, before or after they got married, about the two previous marriages.
His rationale? “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come,” (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV).
That sounded good theologically. But in year two of their marriage, when she discovered the truth, it was devastating to her and their marriage. “If you were married twice and didn’t tell me, what else aren’t you telling me?” she demanded.
The young lady filed for divorce. But they did come in for counseling.
It was very touch and go. But thankfully, with God’s grace and lots of work and tears, they ended up having a recommitment service. And years (now decades) later, they’re still married with grown children.
But something I gave to them —to him, really —in their last counseling session still sits on the wall of their home.
It wasn’t just a gift. It was a word picture.
In that last session, I handed him a wrapped package. He opened it and found a picture frame. It held two one-dollar bills. The one on top was “funny money,” a fake dollar bill. The bill below was the real deal, crisp and uncirculated from the U.S. Mint.
“This is you,” I told him. “When you were hiding things, even with good intentions, you were what?” I pointed at the fake dollar bill.
“A phony.”
“Over the past year, what have you worked your legs off to be with your wife?”
“The real deal.”
“That’s right. So, go and be the real deal from now on out.”
Actually, the husband liked it so much, he had a duplicate made. At his office and in the hallway of his home are identical frames, each with a phony dollar bill and a real dollar bill, picturing who he has worked hard to become and to remain each day.
At one time or another, all of us face situations in which it’s important to let others know we’re experiencing fear, anger, pain, brokenness, sadness, or repentance. We want to say not just that we’ve gone through something tough, but that the Lord has moved us through it for our good and His glory. And a powerful way to reframe those tough times and growing times is with a word picture —one we create for ourselves or that we give to someone else.
Those seven situations are just examples to help you see word pictures in action in common ways people need and use them. But that list could easily have been 70.
We’re ready now to get even more specific. In the next chapter, we’ll look at how young adults or millennials can use word pictures to build strong relationships. So get ready to turn the page and jump into real life situations where a word picture helped someone very close to me strengthen her most important relationships.