I never thought it would happen.
You see, my brother Barry and I were both only children — that is, he was born almost ten years after me, and our worlds seldom touched. As he grew up, Barry adopted a belief system far removed from mine, and the clash of lifestyles made for uncomfortable gatherings, to say the least. From my perspective, we were so different the best thing to do was cease contact completely. I’ll spare you the dreadful details, but, rest assured, being together was an adventure in adversity.
Things changed in my mid-forties. By then I had been a believer twenty years, and I thought I was rather mature in the faith. However, I eventually grasped that I didn’t actually have twenty years of Christian experience — I had five years of excellent training in Biblical truth before encountering the sixth year fifteen times. I guess I should have been suspicious there was a lot more character development to be accomplished, given that I was far superior at doctrine than love.
Thankfully, at that point in my spiritual sojourn I did desire to overcome the disturbing disconnect between appreciating being deeply loved by God and expressing that kind of affection to others. I prayed God would enable me to become less critical and more accepting, and, seemingly overnight, that transpired. Many people (believers and non-believers alike) commented on the significant transformation they observed.
Clearly, the relationship benefitting most from the change in Chuck was with my long-estranged brother. However, before continuing that story, here’s an aside to those Christians enduring strained situations with unsaved family members and who think the only hope of salvaging those associations is for God to “fix” the other people. In my case, it was me on whom the “surgery” was performed.
Now back to Barry. After twelve years of overt hostility, we finally began to speak cordially, but those long-distance phone calls were almost entirely the result of our mutual concern for our mother’s failing health (our father had died many years earlier). While those discussions were certainly an improvement for which to be grateful, it was several more months before we had a two-hour conversation in which we actually started to communicate on subjects of substance.
Once that process began, it was amazing how quickly layers of distrust peeled away, and I began to understand the relationship between love and acceptance. Simply put, without the latter, most attempted expressions of the former are pretty much meaningless. In other words, let me suggest that if people do not feel accepted, they will not think they are loved. Furthermore, if we do not take an interest in their ideas and how they arrived at them, it’s not likely they will sense we love them.
Had you asked me if I loved my brothers during those years of alienation, I would have replied, “Of course.” Meaning what? Meaning I was concerned about his eternal destiny, for I didn’t want him to perish in hell. Do you think Barry would have regarded that sentiment as expressing love? Would you?
Our mother died soon afterward, and there was a graveyard gathering of family and friends. Despite the presence of others, the Cleveland brothers spent almost six hours in earnest conversation — most of it dealing with serious, very personal issues. Certainly, the walls of division had come down.
A few weeks later I made a tape for Barry of some songs (a mutual interest), two segments from a Steve Brown sermon, and a recounting of how my life had changed. Almost immediately I got his response, and (in part) it said,
“I also enjoyed the excerpts from that talk on love and friendship . . . . The difference between preaching and sharing is sincerity, and sincerity is the honest attempt to truly communicate . . . Anyway, I can certainly appreciate the effects those thoughts have had on you and how they inspired you to make positive changes in your life.
“Aside from enjoying the music and the shared thought, Chuck, do you know what I really liked about your tape? The spirit in which it was made . . . .
“You know, I feel like I have a ‘real’ brother for the first time in my life, and it feels really good. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all your efforts to make the changes that were necessary to make it possible.”
Love,
Barry