there is something to be said for having fatherly companionship; for having that one person that you can always turn to.  someone who has walked the road you’re walking.  who has fought the demons you’re fighting, someone who can tell you that all this… is worth the cost.

the confidence of the 20something male is fragile.  we know, just know we’re born for something more than just the 8-5.  we’re born for more.  we know it.  we’re born with a gaping hole where a mission is supposed to fit.  where a destiny is supposed to be birthed, nurtured and brought to fruition.  we’re born with the capacity, the very need for a calling bigger than we could ever be.  we’re born with the need for….

a battle.  a war to fight, and a woman to fight for.

i know, it sounds stupid.  and if you’re really ‘forward thinking’, it probably sounds constricting, cookie cutter, and very old fashioned.  i dont care.  go read somewhere else.

our hearts are designed to need these things.  we need a calling to drive us.  battles, not only to fight, but to fight beside our fellow man, and develop friendships in the trenches.

we’re born with the need for someone to fight for.

and when this need, this missing piece of our existence is not completed… when we’re not shown how to fight, how to war, how to be a man… when the crucial stages are missed… we end up…. we end up 27, feeling like we’re much much younger.

im reading the new book from John Eldridge, The Way of the Wild Heart.  and in it… he mentions how the world is full of “self made men”.  he talks about how this phrase is supposed to make us men, feel better about ourselves… about who we’ve become.

in reality, if you ask any ‘self made man’ how he feels about that statement… if he answers you honestly, he’ll tell you it simply means that he was never shown how to be a man.  and somehow, he was lucky enough to stumble across a part of the answer.

i dont know if there is pride attached to that title.  because im learning its not something to be proud of.

when you’re not shown how to to this, when you aren’t handed the history of manhood… when you’re chance at growing up the same way that, for millenia, boys have become men, something in you breaks.

and even though your age declares you a man.  even though you can talk ‘car talk’, and you go to work every day… even though you act and dress the part… something inside of you never moves beyond that moment.  that moment that you realize you dont have what other kids received.  you were never encouraged, never told to dream, never told that you could be president or an astonaut.  you were always told you weren’t good enough.  didnt look good enough, didnt weigh the right amount.  you were the source of problems, and never a source of blessing…

when you grow up knowing that, something inside dies.  and without knowing anything more to do, you let it die.  and you deal.

you become excellent at dealing.  at adapting.  at finding your own little world, that you can control, and living in it.

and somehow you wake up one morning, and your 27, and you realize that a part of you…. isnt.  this part of you is still yearning, longing for the edification and support, for the love, guidance and leadership that your father was supposed to have given you.

where do you go with that?  who do you take that too and say, “this isnt right, fix it”.  what do you do with the realization that in all the things you want, in all the issues one may have in life, in all the heartache that exists inside of your soul, all you want is memories?  memories of playing catch.  of learning how to talk to girls.  memories of hiking, changing the oil, of being a son.

wow… thats it. and i didnt even realize it.

all i wanted, was memories of being a son.