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By Larry Short
I’m not a huge Michael Jackson fan. I did enjoy “Thriller,” but “Captain EO” was just dumb and I wonder if Disney now regrets it.
(Photo caption: Pop Star Michael Jackson and his father Joseph leaving the Santa Barbara County Courthouse with his father, Joe, on March 15, 2005, following a day of testimony in the younger Jackson’s trial on charges of child molestation.)
Nevertheless, the news this week did catch my attention. After Michael’s father and the head of the musically talented and prolific Jackson clan, Joe Jackson, passed into eternity on June 27 at the age of 89 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, there was a sudden wave of media attention about his controversial life. I saw an old interview with Michael in which he claimed his father physically and emotionally abused him and many of the other ten Jackson children (one the result of an extramarital affair), subjecting them to incessant rehearsals, whippings, and name-calling.
Michael admitted that his father’s strict “discipline” played a large part in his success. However, Michael told Oprah Winfrey in a 1993 interview that as a result of the abuse, he frequently cried from loneliness as a child.
Joe was also accused of sexual abuse against at least one of his daughters. La Toya Jackson said in her 1991 memoir that he beat the children and molested her. She wrote, “When your father gets out of bed with your mother and gets into bed with his daughter and you hear the mother saying, ‘No, Joe, not tonight. Let her rest. Leave her alone, she’s tired,’ that makes you crazy.”
While some credit Joe’s “old-school” ways with “spurring his sons and daughters to musical greatness” (writer Sophia Nelson), there’s little doubt in my mind that it also left a trail of human brokenness in its wake. Whether or not Michael was guilty of the child molestation he was accused of is still debated, and it’s a matter of record that several of his brothers were at the center of their own abuse cases, with Randy Jackson being charged with beating his wife and daughter.
While admitting to punishing their children with belts and switches, both Katherine (who tried twice to divorce her husband then changed her mind) and Joe denied the whippings were abusive. Other children also denied their father had been abusive, and Michael later said he forgave his father when he realized the abuse was the result of his “deep-South” upbringing during the Great Depression and Jim Crow years.
But What About Us?
Because of the journey that we’ve been on as a church, we’ve come to recognize that many people in our midst have suffered various forms of abuse from family members. Too often they’ve suffered in silence, struggling with the shame that results. Thankfully, we’ve also seen recently that in some of these cases, bringing these issues to the light of day has been the first step on a road to freedom from the shame and brokenness caused by abuse.
So how do we deal with the painful memories and emotional scars that come from abusive family brokenness? I’m not an expert. I was blessed by parents who were Christ followers, and while I received a few belt whoopings (mostly deserved, probably), I don’t consider myself as ever having suffered any kind of physical or emotional abuse as a child.
Nonetheless, I did experience some emotional pain growing up, as a result of family brokenness. My mom and dad were often in conflict with each other, and their screaming fights were a frequent cause of anxiety. (I often wonder if their marriage would have survived if it had occurred in the setting of today’s more lax attitudes toward divorce.)
Moreover, while my dad was mostly physically “present” for the family, in some ways he was emotionally distant. I don’t remember having very many sincere conversations with him that I can look back on. My mom and I were quite close, and I know he once told her he didn’t think I liked him. I told her I didn’t think he liked me, either. Even though I now know that he loved me, the main emotion that I recall him ever expressing toward me was anger, and I don’t think he ever told me he loved me.
I think my siblings agree with me that our dad had difficulty relating to children for some reason. But when I turned 18 and left home for college, suddenly he and I became much closer, and the nature of our relationship eventually changed to what I would call “friendship.” As fathers (rather than father and son), we were peers and got along much better.
Despite these problems, I never doubted my dad’s desire to follow Christ. But I have been able to identify some characteristics in my own development that I believe were at least partly a result of our strained relationship. I struggled with nervousness, anxiety, and depression as a child and young adult, and as a father I really struggled to overcome the temptation to succumb to anger against my own children.
I also sometimes wonder if my own drivenness, my type-A personality, as they say, partly stems from these insecurities.
How God Broke Me
I think the first step is being honest and dealing with the baggage that comes from family brokenness. We are all broken humans and are all affected, to some extent or another, by the experiences we had as members of a sinful human family when we were being raised.
The question is, How did those experiences affect us? And how can we (by the grace of God and with His help) break the crazy cycle that otherwise will perpetuate itself through us against our own families?
As a young dad, I didn’t consider myself an angry person, but now I realize I was. Things didn’t come to a head until my son was 17 and he and I were frequently in conflict. One day I became so angry at him that I went out of control. I picked up a telephone (not one of the small mobile ones like we have now, but one of the big old clunky ones) and heaved it at him, with all my might. I thank God for His grace and my son’s agility as he ducked the missile, which plunged into the wall behind him, narrowly missing his head and leaving a gaping hole in our drywall—that’s how hard I threw it.
He fled home to stay with friends for three days. It’s what happened during those three days that changed the direction of my life.
I was broken, terrified by what I had done. I spent three days with the Lord, pleading for His forgiveness and for His help in undoing me as an angry person. And by the end of that time, I believe He answered my prayer. I vowed before Him never again to allow myself to become overcome with anger at those I love and to express it as I had expressed it against my son.
That was nearly two decades ago now, and by God’s grace I have been able to keep that vow. There have been times when I have been tempted to anger, but by remembering what I vowed, by withdrawing and praying for the strength to be Christlike, I have managed to avoid once again succumbing to the temptation. And I can honestly today say that I am no longer the angry person that I once was. (Except perhaps occasionally in traffic, as Darlene will testify!)
The truth is, we are all far from perfect parents. We all need God’s help, strength, grace, and mercy. And knowing today how badly I need that, I am also able to extend that grace and forgiveness to my own parents for whatever failings they made in raising me. (And for the most part, in my humble opinion, I think they did a fantastic job!)
How About You?
Have you come to grips with the ways the brokenness of your own childhood family has affected you as an adult? Have you confronted the truth, admitted it, and gotten alone with God, asking for His help in breaking the crazy cycle? And have you also been willing to give grace—to forgive your own parents for their failings and to receive the healing that is poured out on the cross from the wounds of our perfect Parent, our Father God who loves us so sacrificially?
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
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