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http://enigmamyjourneyofselfdiscovery.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-am-i-not-enough.htmlI wrote this small response to this very important post.
God bless you. I am very sensitive to your pain which makes me want to act and do something positive. I know there are hundreds of thousands of people out there who share your feelings and experience. Thanks so much for your courage. Your courage has advanced all of our collective learning.
I would like to ask anyone who would like to share with me any ideas to work to develop more tools to provide individuals like Sarah information to help them share information with parents who spanked them to help their parents better see their viewpoints and hopefully to get them to change their minds. Might be worthwhile to think about having a YouTube page where all of us share video testimonies which can be sent around cyberspace: A page dedicated to what was the piece of information that changed my mind about corporal punishment. Could be powerful. I would also like to ask if anyone has any moving photos or can point to a film or some type of visual media to share. I often think about the imagine of Rev. Dwight Moody kneeling at his child's bedside weeping and asking for forgiveness for speaking crossly to one of his children (This is mentioned in Philip Greven's book "Spare the Child...").
This for me personally was a game changer.
We have so many images in our media which contribute to the normalcy and acceptability of spanking children (I mean if you look at the web images [Google images and add test "spanking children"] of parents spanking children, it is almost a part of Americana culture with these horrifying Saturday Evening post images, but very few images of where mom and dad tell their kids, "Sorry, I was wrong. Will you forgive me?" Unfortunately, the Roman maxim which says: "if you are not beaten, your not educated" still prevails in our Western culture, but the tide is turning slowly.
In this regard, I will post something on my blog about what I saw was really the tipping point in changing my mind about corporal punishment of children. I actually have dug out the very first paper I wrote on this subject in 1995 and have been looking at it. Maybe if I knew more stories or anecdotes from others about their experience, it might make for a more convincing presentation. I think so.
I only have a limited experience with reaching out to people who are opposed to my views, but I have had some success and remain connected to people who have been convinced that their previously held views were unbiblical and I believe that I can do a better job in this area and also believe that if we work together, we can have a much better collective result to share why we believe spanking children is hurtful, misguided and wrong. It was wrong yesterday, it is wrong today and it will be wrong tomorrow, but I think the more we think how to convince people with facts and to help provide them with the same spiritual anchors we were all holding onto in our own tumultuous and and often frightening journeys to where we are today and help them to change their minds and be spiritually renewed like we all have been, the greater chance we have for a better collective tomorrow.
Just as we today are doing our best to hold our little children's hands and walk with them on the collective path towards Christ, it is up to us to use the tools our Lord has given us to embrace the need to do the same thing with those who hurt us. Just as we today feel bad when we let our own children down, our parents have and had these same feelings.
What happened to all of us was evil. Thankfully we can overcome that evil with good.
Sam Martin
5 comments:
I am so glad that some are at last speaking out against hitting children. You are so right .. it IS evil. Plain and simple. I believe that the devil is laughing all the time every time a parent hits a child, especially when a parent actually hits a child 'in God's name' ... how can anyone equate God - Love - and Hitting anyone in the same sentence ??
Thank you for this Samuel!
Samuel,
I just wanted you to know that I am one whose mind was changed after reading your book on corporal punishment. I know that it was a process for me to get to the point where I would even read it...but the Lord used "secular" books on child training to begin to open my eyes. When I had my first I was given every Ezzo, Pearl, Bradley, Fugate book available by well meaning relatives..including my mom (who didn't read the books herself). My first child had severe reflux and was a terribly fussy baby. 10 years later he has been diagnosed with a severe learning disablity that has to do with auditory processing. So much of his inability to "listen and learn" had nothing to do with defiance and everything to do with his disability. I hate the fact that for the first couple of years of his life, I felt like if we were just consistent with spanking that he would learn. Thankfully, God gave me enough common sense to not do any of the extreme spanking but I still feel horrible about the spankings he did receive. I feel like a burden was lifted after reading your book. I had stopped spanking before that but always somehow felt like I was "disobeying His Word" by doing so. Your book gave me a new found freedom and I want to shout it from the mountain tops. Unfortunately, I have many relatives and cousins who were deeply into the Gothard movement and are now part of Vision forum. So the conversations are not easy. Even the conversation with my own parents has been difficult. I think they are afraid that my 4 very well behaved children are going to go bad because of it. My dad has agreed to read your book. It will be interesting to discuss it with him after. We were spanked as children but I only remember a few my entire childhood. My youngest sister was spanked once. I'm not sure why my mom gave me all the Pearl books. Anyway, just wanted to say thank you.
Susan,
So nice to hear from you. I see your from the UK? I was actually born in Hertfordshire!
Hope to hear from you again.
Best wishes from Jerusalem.
Samuel Martin
Julie,
Thanks so much for your very moving post.
I was deeply touched by it.
I am so happy that my book blessed you. I intend to do a post soon based on part of what you said because it is an important part of my connection to the issue of corporal punishment.
Thank you so much for writing and sharing. I do hope we can be in touch.
Sincerely
sam
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