"As Sam ascended, I was offering words of advice and exhortation. He came to another challenging spot, but this time sailed right over it. A few more moves and he would be at the top. 'Way to go Sam. You're a wild man.' He finished his climb, and as he walked down from the back side, I began to get Blaine clipped in... while I was coaching his brother up the rock, Sam sort of sidled up to me and in a quiet voice asked, 'Dad... did you really think I was a wild man up there?'

"Miss that moment and you'll miss a boy's heart forever. It's not a question - it's the question, the one every boy and man is longing to ask. Do I have what it takes? Am I powerful? Until a man knows he's a man he will forever be trying to prove he is one, while at the same time shrink from anything that might reveal he is not. Most men live their lives haunted by the question, or crippled by the answer they've been given."

*

"In order to understand how a man receives a wound, you must understand the central truth of a boy's journey to manhood; Masculinity is bestowed. A boy learns who is he and what he's got from a man, or the company of men. He cannot learn it from any other place. he cannot learn it from other boys, and he cannot learn it from the world of women.

"The plan from the beginning of time was that his father would lay the foundation for a young boy's heart, and pass on to him that essential knowledge and confidence in his strength. Dad would be the first man in his life and forever the most important man. Above all, he would answer the question for his son and give him his name. Throughout the history of man given to us in Scripture, it is the father who gives the blessing and thereby "names" the son..."

**

"Some fathers give a wound merely by their silence; they are present, yet absent to their sons. The silence is deafening... My father was gone, but because he was physically still around, he was not gone. So I lived with a wound no one could see or understand. In the case of silent, passive, or absent fathers, the question goes unanswered. 'Do i have what it takes? Am I a man, Daddy?' Their silence is the answer: 'I don't know... I doubt it... you'll have to find out for yourself... probably not.'

"Every man carries a wound. I have never met a man without one. No matter how good your life may have seemed to you, you live in a broken world full of broken people. Your mother and father, no matter how wonderful, couldn't have been perfect... so there is no crossing through this country without taking a wound. And every wound, whether it's assaultive or passive, delivers with it a message. The message feels final and true, absolutely true, because it is delivered with such force. Our reaction to it shapes our personality in very significant ways..."

-Excerpts from Chapter 4, 'The Wound' from Wild At Heart by John Eldredge
posted by G at 6:31 AM   |

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33